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The different ‘places’ where one discusses or presents work, and the particular quality of the environment where these take place. These spatial metaphors range in character from being in-progress, pedagogical or informal to communicative, informational or archival.
The variety of media and formats in which research outputs can take shape, engaging different forms of communication, reaching particular audiences and accomplishing specific purposes.
The different ways in which one person ‘knows more than she can tell’ depending on the character and origin of the knowledge. These different forms of tacit knowing describe its specificity: pointing out whether something is implicit because it is unconscious, unrecognized, unsaid, uncodified etc.
The keywords, fields and concepts that situate the particular contributions of the network within broader literature and schools of thought.
The different phases and forms of dissemination that research and academic outputs can take, indicating the kind of publication, the progress of the work or the forum where they are presented.
The idioms that reflect the multinational character and vocalize the conversations of the TACK network and its outputs.
The members, contributors, facilitators, communities and organizations that build up, around and underneath the TACK Network and participate, in one way or another, in the endeavour of addressing the question of Tacit Knowledge in architecture.
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50 Objects

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Dissemination of Architectural Culture: A View on Turkish Architects’ Journeys in the Pre-Digital Age

Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.
ABSTRACT
An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.
Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy
Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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Dissemination of Architectural Culture: A View on Turkish Architects’ Journeys in the Pre-Digital Age

Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy
Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.
Figure 2 Pages from Hulusi Güngör’s How to Build Cities, Istanbul, 1969.
Figure 5 Doğan Kuban on a trip from Istanbul to Diyarbakır with his students
ABSTRACT
An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.
Review

Report from the TACK Talks #1

© TACK
What sort of tacit knowledge can we glean on Zoom, when so much architectural literature on the tacit insists on prolonged physical interaction? The answer is a great deal, going by the first series of TACK Talks. Across 9 online lectures, 9 practices, 14 designers, 10 ESR respondents, 3 moderators and a weekly audience of between 85 and an astonishing 535 viewers, the TACK network joined together to tackle a deceptively simple question: ‘how do we know?’. Their responses reveal the breadth of experience and depth of reflective thinking in the network, already establishing key themes in how we conceive tacit knowledge.
Hamish Lonergan
Review

August 18, 2020

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Report from the TACK Talks #1

Hamish Lonergan
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
What sort of tacit knowledge can we glean on Zoom, when so much architectural literature on the tacit insists on prolonged physical interaction? The answer is a great deal, going by the first series of TACK Talks. Across 9 online lectures, 9 practices, 14 designers, 10 ESR respondents, 3 moderators and a weekly audience of between 85 and an astonishing 535 viewers, the TACK network joined together to tackle a deceptively simple question: ‘how do we know?’. Their responses reveal the breadth of experience and depth of reflective thinking in the network, already establishing key themes in how we conceive tacit knowledge.
Lecture / Talk Object Session SHAPERS Video

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This presentation by Angelo Lunati from Onsitestudio was given as part of the object session SHAPERS during the TACK conference on 21 June 2023.
Angelo Lunati Onsitestudio
Lecture / Talk Object Session SHAPERS Video

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Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

Angelo Lunati Onsitestudio
© TACK
This presentation by Angelo Lunati from Onsitestudio was given as part of the object session SHAPERS during the TACK conference on 21 June 2023.
Book chapter TACK Book

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

ABSTRACT
In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ.   If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976).   In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.
Claudia Mainardi
Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

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Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

Claudia Mainardi
ABSTRACT
In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ.   If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976).   In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Anthropomorphe Form

Anthropomorphe Form, an installation produced by an interdisciplinary team led by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Fabian Bircher explores the potentials of an architectural space that moves and interacts with people.
Elli Mosayebi
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Anthropomorphe Form

Elli Mosayebi
© TACK
Anthropomorphe Form, an installation produced by an interdisciplinary team led by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Fabian Bircher explores the potentials of an architectural space that moves and interacts with people.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Arteplagemodell Swiss National Expo 02

Arteplagemodell Biel, Mst. 1:1500. Forum und Expopark. 26 x 115 x 80 cm. Ist Teil von: Architekturmodell. Arteplagemodelle der Direction artistique (Leitung: Pipilotti Rist). Herstellung: Koeppel & Martinez (bis 2003) (Modellbauer: LM-108202.1: Gn�nger LM-108202.2: Krpan Knopfel LM-108202.3: Kamm). April 1998. 26 x 113 x 80 cm.
A good example is the Swiss national Expo 02 that aimed to explore Switzerland’s identity under the banner ‘Nature and Artificiality’. During the preparatory phase, which lasted ten years, countless concepts were tested. In this phase, models often had the role of negotiating between organisers and the public.
Maxime Zaugg
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Arteplagemodell Swiss National Expo 02

Maxime Zaugg
Arteplagemodell Biel, Mst. 1:1500. Forum und Expopark. 26 x 115 x 80 cm. Ist Teil von: Architekturmodell. Arteplagemodelle der Direction artistique (Leitung: Pipilotti Rist). Herstellung: Koeppel & Martinez (bis 2003) (Modellbauer: LM-108202.1: Gn�nger LM-108202.2: Krpan Knopfel LM-108202.3: Kamm). April 1998. 26 x 113 x 80 cm.
© TACK
A good example is the Swiss national Expo 02 that aimed to explore Switzerland’s identity under the banner ‘Nature and Artificiality’. During the preparatory phase, which lasted ten years, countless concepts were tested. In this phase, models often had the role of negotiating between organisers and the public.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Tactiles

Tactiles are relational objects that foster interactive approaches of un-learning restrictive spatial codes, re-learning through encounters of intimacy, embodiment and connectedness, and co-learning through shared performative experiences.
Katharina Kasinger
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Tactiles

Katharina Kasinger
© TACK
Tactiles are relational objects that foster interactive approaches of un-learning restrictive spatial codes, re-learning through encounters of intimacy, embodiment and connectedness, and co-learning through shared performative experiences.
Book chapter Conference Paper Open Access Publication

15 August 2021

The Tangible Presence of Human Labor in Architecture

Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria, © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
This essay aims to show that in many of the theories that fundament material culture and architectural experience, labor is implied in the constitution of material and, although seldom directly addressed, it is a determining dimension of materiality. From the Vitruvian and Renaissance treatises and Gottfried Semper to John Ruskin and the Art and Crafts Movement, the underlying presence of labor can be seen intertwined with materials whenever they are called into architectural discussion as sensorial arguments. Just like the physical qualities of materials, labor, skills and techniques are imprinted in the built environment and contribute to the creation of particular atmospheres.
Eric Crevels
Book chapter Conference Paper Open Access Publication

15 August 2021

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The Tangible Presence of Human Labor in Architecture

Eric Crevels
Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria, © Public Domain
Ruskin’s The Nature of the Gothic, © Public Domain
Vitruviu’s De Architectura Libri Decem, © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
This essay aims to show that in many of the theories that fundament material culture and architectural experience, labor is implied in the constitution of material and, although seldom directly addressed, it is a determining dimension of materiality. From the Vitruvian and Renaissance treatises and Gottfried Semper to John Ruskin and the Art and Crafts Movement, the underlying presence of labor can be seen intertwined with materials whenever they are called into architectural discussion as sensorial arguments. Just like the physical qualities of materials, labor, skills and techniques are imprinted in the built environment and contribute to the creation of particular atmospheres.
Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels
Lecture / Talk Video

March 11, 2021

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TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Paperwork and Wordcraft: Institutionality at IAUS

ABSTRACT
This paper examines the bureaucratic management of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) through the lens of tacit knowledge as manifest in an analysis of paperwork and wordcraft. Specifically an examination of the “little tools of knowledge”–  the self-evident and mundane administrative tools–reveals the epistemological foundations and specific character of the institute as distinct from and similar to others in the same milieu, and positions it within a larger phenomenon of similar agencies, activities, and groups. Archival documents attest to a self-aware bureaucratic and representational medium in a state of flux as IAUS attempted to accommodate multiple and often conflicting modes of work, funding, and directions in order to stake out a productive territory in a landscape of similar institutes, all of which were competing for prestige, legitimation, attention, student participants, and dollars. An examination of these documents through multiple parallel trajectories that are not strictly chronological mirrors the manner in which the institute functioned, not as a cohesive entity, but as a contradictory one, as overlapping concerns struggled to find priority during the course of its brief history. This archival analysis forms the basis of a counterhistory in which the institution itself is considered as an abstract author in the larger context of New York City and beyond, determined by anddetermining of a variety of forces beyond the individual’s control.
Alex Maymind
Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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Paperwork and Wordcraft: Institutionality at IAUS

Alex Maymind
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the bureaucratic management of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) through the lens of tacit knowledge as manifest in an analysis of paperwork and wordcraft. Specifically an examination of the “little tools of knowledge”–  the self-evident and mundane administrative tools–reveals the epistemological foundations and specific character of the institute as distinct from and similar to others in the same milieu, and positions it within a larger phenomenon of similar agencies, activities, and groups. Archival documents attest to a self-aware bureaucratic and representational medium in a state of flux as IAUS attempted to accommodate multiple and often conflicting modes of work, funding, and directions in order to stake out a productive territory in a landscape of similar institutes, all of which were competing for prestige, legitimation, attention, student participants, and dollars. An examination of these documents through multiple parallel trajectories that are not strictly chronological mirrors the manner in which the institute functioned, not as a cohesive entity, but as a contradictory one, as overlapping concerns struggled to find priority during the course of its brief history. This archival analysis forms the basis of a counterhistory in which the institution itself is considered as an abstract author in the larger context of New York City and beyond, determined by anddetermining of a variety of forces beyond the individual’s control.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Tannour

This installation emphasises this reciprocal relationship between the crafted object and the architectural space it inhabits. It pushes the boundaries of the tannour from the realm of adjustment to its architectural setting into an architectural creation in its own right. The soap tower no longer merely inhabits, it becomes inhabitable.
Nadi Abusaada Wesam Al Asali
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Tannour

Nadi Abusaada Wesam Al Asali
© TACK
This installation emphasises this reciprocal relationship between the crafted object and the architectural space it inhabits. It pushes the boundaries of the tannour from the realm of adjustment to its architectural setting into an architectural creation in its own right. The soap tower no longer merely inhabits, it becomes inhabitable.
Note

What is Tacit Knowledge?

Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan
Broadly speaking, we can think about tacit knowledge in two ways.
Hamish Lonergan Eric Crevels Mara Trübenbach
Note

March 1, 2023

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What is Tacit Knowledge?

Hamish Lonergan Eric Crevels Mara Trübenbach
Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan
Broadly speaking, we can think about tacit knowledge in two ways.
Book

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

The Greek-Orthodox Church "Allerheiligen", built between 1993 and 1995, in the Ungererstrasse in Munich is of particular importance for its community, the city and an outstanding example of ecumenism.
Korinna Zinovia Weber
Book

October 20, 2023

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Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

Korinna Zinovia Weber
The Greek-Orthodox Church "Allerheiligen", built between 1993 and 1995, in the Ungererstrasse in Munich is of particular importance for its community, the city and an outstanding example of ecumenism.
Review

Konvolut – Annotated Bibliography on Tacit Knowledge

Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge by Filippo Cattapan, Photo: Filippo Cattapan, 2023, © Filippo Cattapan
Eric Crevels (EC), Mara Trübenbach (MT), Hamish Lonergan (HL), Anna Livia Vørsel (AV), Jhono Bennett (JB), Filippo Cattapan (FC), Caendia Wijnbelt (CW), Paula Strunden (PS), Ionas Sklavounos (IS), Claudia Mainardi (CM) compiled this bibliography with comments as part of the TACK Network training between 2019-2023.
Eric Crevels Anna Livia Vørsel Mara Trübenbach Filippo Cattapan Claudia Mainardi Paula Strunden Ionas Sklavounos Jhono Bennett Caendia Wijnbelt Hamish Lonergan
Review

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Konvolut – Annotated Bibliography on Tacit Knowledge

Eric Crevels Anna Livia Vørsel Mara Trübenbach Filippo Cattapan Claudia Mainardi Paula Strunden Ionas Sklavounos Jhono Bennett Caendia Wijnbelt Hamish Lonergan
Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge by Filippo Cattapan, Photo: Filippo Cattapan, 2023, © Filippo Cattapan
Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan
Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge of Jhono Bennett, Photo: Jhono Bennett, 2023
Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Mara Trübenbach , Photo: Mara Trübenbach, 2023, © Mara Trübenbach
Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge of Ionas Sklavounos, Photo: Ionas Sklavounos, 2023, © Ionas Sklavounos
Eric Crevels (EC), Mara Trübenbach (MT), Hamish Lonergan (HL), Anna Livia Vørsel (AV), Jhono Bennett (JB), Filippo Cattapan (FC), Caendia Wijnbelt (CW), Paula Strunden (PS), Ionas Sklavounos (IS), Claudia Mainardi (CM) compiled this bibliography with comments as part of the TACK Network training between 2019-2023.
Essay Paper

COMMON GROUND. Discursive Orders in Architecture

ABSTRACT
Is it possible to characterize the relation of architecture and science, if it is not derived from established scientific conventions? This essay highlights one field of the multifaceted spectrum, which pops up in the context of this question, a field, which can be observed when expanding the focus from science to knowledge and processes of its formation and transformation. Focal point will be the question where and in which ways knowledge appears and marks a `common ground´. The investigations are revolved around the most important field of thematisation and mediation of architectural reality at the beginning of the 21st century to be found globally, the International Architecture Biennale, which takes place in Venice in a two year cycle. Furthermore special attention will be riveted on the biennale of 2012, which was dedicated to the theme `Common Ground´. The following notions are enmeshed with the consideration, that with a presentation and uncovering of knowledge and communication on it, we have here a kind of discourse in architecture that might not only process attitudes and a stabilization of the discipline, but also provides triggers for generic processes of scientific contexts and basic understandings of research and design in architecture.
Margitta Buchert
Essay Paper

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COMMON GROUND. Discursive Orders in Architecture

Margitta Buchert
Fig. 6:
ABSTRACT
Is it possible to characterize the relation of architecture and science, if it is not derived from established scientific conventions? This essay highlights one field of the multifaceted spectrum, which pops up in the context of this question, a field, which can be observed when expanding the focus from science to knowledge and processes of its formation and transformation. Focal point will be the question where and in which ways knowledge appears and marks a `common ground´. The investigations are revolved around the most important field of thematisation and mediation of architectural reality at the beginning of the 21st century to be found globally, the International Architecture Biennale, which takes place in Venice in a two year cycle. Furthermore special attention will be riveted on the biennale of 2012, which was dedicated to the theme `Common Ground´. The following notions are enmeshed with the consideration, that with a presentation and uncovering of knowledge and communication on it, we have here a kind of discourse in architecture that might not only process attitudes and a stabilization of the discipline, but also provides triggers for generic processes of scientific contexts and basic understandings of research and design in architecture.
Image Newsletter Reflection

A Map of Movements

Gennaro Postiglione initiated the idea of a “TACK Map”, visualizing the research movements of the TACK PhD Students and shares with here his thoughts on the produced map.
Gennaro Postiglione
Image Newsletter Reflection

May 20, 2022

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A Map of Movements

Gennaro Postiglione
Gennaro Postiglione initiated the idea of a “TACK Map”, visualizing the research movements of the TACK PhD Students and shares with here his thoughts on the produced map.
Essay

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter
Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.
Angelika Schnell
Essay

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Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

Angelika Schnell
OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter
Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.
Online Teaching Module

Engaging with Tacit Knowing: Reflexive dimensions as triggers for innovative design and research

© Caendia Wijnbelt
Caendia Wijnbelt Margitta Buchert Leibniz Universität Hannover, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences
Online Teaching Module

February 1, 2023

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Engaging with Tacit Knowing: Reflexive dimensions as triggers for innovative design and research

Caendia Wijnbelt Margitta Buchert Leibniz Universität Hannover, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences
© Caendia Wijnbelt
© Caendia Wijnbelt
© Caendia Wijnbelt
© Caendia Wijnbelt
© Caendia Wijnbelt
© Caendia Wijnbelt
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE : KNOWING BODIES

Fig. 1. Sofia Pintzou, contribution to »Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Tanztagebuch«, 2020, interpreting choreographic material from Sasha Waltz’ »noBody«, first performed 2002 at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, film stills from the video, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj-dVgonIT0, accessed July 25, 2023.
ABSTRACT
This contribution addresses tacit knowledge as an embodied form of knowing and traces the potential of the body to inform and explore, contain and convey, obtain and express architectural knowledge — in the experiencing, designing, creating, and living of architectural space. If, as framed by Polanyi, »we know more than we can tell«, focusing on the body and its immanent knowledge allows to access immediate forms of architectural knowledge. Experience, memory, and the capacity for anticipation are equally rooted in the body; corporeally anchored, contained in, and inscribed to the body. Respectively, creative imagination in architectural design relies upon the body. Through knowing how we experience architecture, we are eager to anticipate future perception in architectural design. Following my doctoral thesis, entitled “Impulses and Dialogues of Architecture and the Body”, I present the knowledge of the body as a contribution to the body of knowledge of architecture: Using the example of the working method and oeuvre of Sasha Waltz & Guests – which I investigate against the background of my own artistic practice, especially in in-situ and site-specific performances, as well as my attempts at the including of somatic practices into my academic teaching in the field of architecture – I exploit the body as a medium of spatial research, and as an immediate form of conveyance and expression in the discipline of architecture.
Katharina Voigt
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

July 20, 2023

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BODY OF KNOWLEDGE : KNOWING BODIES

Katharina Voigt
Fig. 1. Sofia Pintzou, contribution to »Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Tanztagebuch«, 2020, interpreting choreographic material from Sasha Waltz’ »noBody«, first performed 2002 at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, film stills from the video, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj-dVgonIT0, accessed July 25, 2023.
Fig. 2. Antonia Krabusch: Embodied Gestures, Gesture of Intimacy (left) and Gesture of Public (right), initial task for the design studio “Tanzhaus München – ein Ort für zeitgenössischen Tanz”, general masters’ thesis, winter 2021/22, Chair of Architectural Design and Conception, supervised by Katharina Voigt and Prof. Uta Graff.
Fig. 3. Lukas Walcher: Embodied Gestures, Gesture of Intimacy (left) and Gesture of Public (right), initial task for the design studio “Tanzhaus München – ein Ort für zeitgenössischen Tanz”, general masters’ thesis, winter 2021/22, Chair of Architectural Design and Conception, supervised by Katharina Voigt and Prof. Uta Graff.
ABSTRACT
This contribution addresses tacit knowledge as an embodied form of knowing and traces the potential of the body to inform and explore, contain and convey, obtain and express architectural knowledge — in the experiencing, designing, creating, and living of architectural space. If, as framed by Polanyi, »we know more than we can tell«, focusing on the body and its immanent knowledge allows to access immediate forms of architectural knowledge. Experience, memory, and the capacity for anticipation are equally rooted in the body; corporeally anchored, contained in, and inscribed to the body. Respectively, creative imagination in architectural design relies upon the body. Through knowing how we experience architecture, we are eager to anticipate future perception in architectural design. Following my doctoral thesis, entitled “Impulses and Dialogues of Architecture and the Body”, I present the knowledge of the body as a contribution to the body of knowledge of architecture: Using the example of the working method and oeuvre of Sasha Waltz & Guests – which I investigate against the background of my own artistic practice, especially in in-situ and site-specific performances, as well as my attempts at the including of somatic practices into my academic teaching in the field of architecture – I exploit the body as a medium of spatial research, and as an immediate form of conveyance and expression in the discipline of architecture.
Conference Paper Paper

POSTHUMANIST SANDBOX: THE POTENTIAL OF MULTIPLAYER – ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to reveal a novel assessment of creative production in academic education, re-evaluating the conceptual and artistic potential of virtual real-time collaboration through digital media. Allowing for transcultural exchange as well as global participation, this could positively influence the development of novel artistic approaches and innovative measures for universities by contributing to a more contemporary, location-independent, and ultimately more equal form of art and knowledge production.
Valerie Messini Eva Sommeregger
Conference Paper Paper

November 4, 2021

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POSTHUMANIST SANDBOX: THE POTENTIAL OF MULTIPLAYER – ENVIRONMENTS

Valerie Messini Eva Sommeregger
© Eva Sommeregger
ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to reveal a novel assessment of creative production in academic education, re-evaluating the conceptual and artistic potential of virtual real-time collaboration through digital media. Allowing for transcultural exchange as well as global participation, this could positively influence the development of novel artistic approaches and innovative measures for universities by contributing to a more contemporary, location-independent, and ultimately more equal form of art and knowledge production.
Image Series TACK Exhibition Object

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

4 Façade detail, ZSC Arena, Zurich
We often include references in our competition submissions, images of places and buildings that hold something of the atmosphere that we intend for the completed project. For the ZSC Arena we wanted to underline our interest in giving this sports building civic qualities appropriate to its social programme and to its position as a gateway into the city from the north west.
Adam Caruso
Image Series TACK Exhibition Object

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Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

Adam Caruso
4 Façade detail, ZSC Arena, Zurich
© TACK
We often include references in our competition submissions, images of places and buildings that hold something of the atmosphere that we intend for the completed project. For the ZSC Arena we wanted to underline our interest in giving this sports building civic qualities appropriate to its social programme and to its position as a gateway into the city from the north west.
Open Access Publication Paper

Scale in passing: Re-calibrating narrowness through spatial interventions

Fig. 1: Elevation of the project proposal., © Mara Trübenbach
ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the art installation Motion of Scales, which was temporarily installed in the city centre of Kolding, Denmark, as a part of the NORDES 2021 conference, this article explores the interrelation between body, material and its performative potential. Analysing the design process through description and observation of how it was experienced and interacted with by urban public, the design-led research aims to interrogate subjectivity, emotion and embodied knowledge in academic research and its methods. How could movement within scale open up new perspectives? Does material hold a potential to reveal new modes of thinking in design research? How and to what extent could emotion contribute to design practices?
Mara Trübenbach Marianna Czwojdrak
Open Access Publication Paper

January 23, 2023

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Scale in passing: Re-calibrating narrowness through spatial interventions

Mara Trübenbach Marianna Czwojdrak
Fig. 1: Elevation of the project proposal., © Mara Trübenbach
Fig. 2: Installation., © Mara Trübenbach
Fig. 8: Top view of the installation., © Mara Trübenbach
ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the art installation Motion of Scales, which was temporarily installed in the city centre of Kolding, Denmark, as a part of the NORDES 2021 conference, this article explores the interrelation between body, material and its performative potential. Analysing the design process through description and observation of how it was experienced and interacted with by urban public, the design-led research aims to interrogate subjectivity, emotion and embodied knowledge in academic research and its methods. How could movement within scale open up new perspectives? Does material hold a potential to reveal new modes of thinking in design research? How and to what extent could emotion contribute to design practices?
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate – Making, sharing and communicating design processes in rural Bangladesh

ABSTRACT
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global climate change because of the shifting riparian characteristics of its landscape and location, with weather-driven calamities disproportionately affecting low-income rural communities. Research findings highlight the unequal distribution of responsibilities and the greater burden on women in the community to respond to the threats of extreme climate. The research methodology for this PhD by Architectural Practice therefore seeks to empower those in Bangladeshi villages by enabling marginalised voices to be heard through an emphasis on collective engagement, especially incorporating the contributions by female residents. Carried out through community-oriented projects in the remote village of Rajapur, this ‘live’ practice-based thesis explores, tests, shares and disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge which can provide valuable understandings both for those people in the locality and also for architects and designers on the international scale. Responding to social and ecological ‘entanglements’ in Rajapur, the specific problems addressed are erratic rainfall patterns which create both droughts and floods, rising sea levels caused by climate change, and naturally occurring extremely high levels of arsenic-contaminated groundwater supplies, poisoning the food chain and fish in nearby ponds and lakes. How to devise affordable, low-tech solutions that utilise the tacit knowledge and skills of those living in remote villages such as Rajapur? To reshape architectural practice as an active agent for decolonising design methods, so that issues of climate change and spatial justice can be better dealt with, the research draws upon applied anthropological methods – ‘ethnography in the field’ – which prioritise local community members as the indigenous producers of design research, analytical drawings, making and storytelling. The thesis thus addresses a gap in knowledge by contributing a unique approach to participatory architectural practice, showing how it can be expanded to include rural communities in the Global South.
Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

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Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate – Making, sharing and communicating design processes in rural Bangladesh

Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows
ABSTRACT
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global climate change because of the shifting riparian characteristics of its landscape and location, with weather-driven calamities disproportionately affecting low-income rural communities. Research findings highlight the unequal distribution of responsibilities and the greater burden on women in the community to respond to the threats of extreme climate. The research methodology for this PhD by Architectural Practice therefore seeks to empower those in Bangladeshi villages by enabling marginalised voices to be heard through an emphasis on collective engagement, especially incorporating the contributions by female residents. Carried out through community-oriented projects in the remote village of Rajapur, this ‘live’ practice-based thesis explores, tests, shares and disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge which can provide valuable understandings both for those people in the locality and also for architects and designers on the international scale. Responding to social and ecological ‘entanglements’ in Rajapur, the specific problems addressed are erratic rainfall patterns which create both droughts and floods, rising sea levels caused by climate change, and naturally occurring extremely high levels of arsenic-contaminated groundwater supplies, poisoning the food chain and fish in nearby ponds and lakes. How to devise affordable, low-tech solutions that utilise the tacit knowledge and skills of those living in remote villages such as Rajapur? To reshape architectural practice as an active agent for decolonising design methods, so that issues of climate change and spatial justice can be better dealt with, the research draws upon applied anthropological methods – ‘ethnography in the field’ – which prioritise local community members as the indigenous producers of design research, analytical drawings, making and storytelling. The thesis thus addresses a gap in knowledge by contributing a unique approach to participatory architectural practice, showing how it can be expanded to include rural communities in the Global South.
Drawing TACK Exhibition Object

Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019

Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019 Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
The drawing as a synthesis is made after the project is built or the competition is over. This kind of ‘drawing made afterwards’ is about bringing all the principal ideas and responses that now already exist into a drawing. It is a synthesis, and like a poem it reduces or condenses the new reality of the project and describes it all at once very precisely.
Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
Drawing TACK Exhibition Object

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Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019

Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019 Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
© TACK
The drawing as a synthesis is made after the project is built or the competition is over. This kind of ‘drawing made afterwards’ is about bringing all the principal ideas and responses that now already exist into a drawing. It is a synthesis, and like a poem it reduces or condenses the new reality of the project and describes it all at once very precisely.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

The stool called WALDE

In contrast to space, we come into direct contact with furniture. We not only see it, but we also touch it, move it, carry it around, etc. Users feel what a piece of furniture holds and what distinguishes it from another.
Irmgard Frank
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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The stool called WALDE

Irmgard Frank
© TACK
In contrast to space, we come into direct contact with furniture. We not only see it, but we also touch it, move it, carry it around, etc. Users feel what a piece of furniture holds and what distinguishes it from another.
TACK Book

Tacit Knowledge in Architecture, A Quest

This is the introduction to the TACK Book "Perspectives on Tacit knowledge in Architecture" written by Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Janina Gosseye and Klaske Havik.
Tom Avermaete Margitta Buchert Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik
TACK Book

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Tacit Knowledge in Architecture, A Quest

Tom Avermaete Margitta Buchert Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik
This is the introduction to the TACK Book "Perspectives on Tacit knowledge in Architecture" written by Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Janina Gosseye and Klaske Havik.
Essay Journal Article

The Epistemology of the Unspoken: On the Concept of Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary Design Research

Design Issues 28, no. 2 (2012)
The concept of tacit knowledge has advanced to become a prolific guiding principle in contemporary design research. In their attempts to describe knowledge within the scope of design, design researchers frequently draw on this concept and its related references. They attest that design is influenced by tacit knowledge in a distinctive way.
Claudia Mareis
Essay Journal Article

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The Epistemology of the Unspoken: On the Concept of Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary Design Research

Claudia Mareis
Design Issues 28, no. 2 (2012)
The concept of tacit knowledge has advanced to become a prolific guiding principle in contemporary design research. In their attempts to describe knowledge within the scope of design, design researchers frequently draw on this concept and its related references. They attest that design is influenced by tacit knowledge in a distinctive way.
Online Teaching Module

Unveiling Embodied Tacit Knowledge through the Act of Drawing

© Paula Strunden
Paula Strunden Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Online Teaching Module

February 20, 2023

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Unveiling Embodied Tacit Knowledge through the Act of Drawing

Paula Strunden Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
Lecture / Talk Object Session LINEAGES

Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge in Colonial Mapping Practices

This text is an extended retrospective summary of Eva Sommeregger's talk entitled "Navigating, Performing and Book Making", given at the Tacit Knowledge Symposium at ETH Zurich during the Object Session Lineages on 20 June 2023.
Eva Sommeregger
Lecture / Talk Object Session LINEAGES

June 20, 2023

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Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge in Colonial Mapping Practices

Eva Sommeregger
Tupaia’s map, drawn by the author on Forster’s copy; the connecting lines between the islands and numbering logic were added by the author; the islands marked with an x were added by the Europeans to start the mapping process but Tupaia did not include them in his scheme. 1 Rurutu, 2 Ra‘ivavae; 3 Rarotonga, 4 Niue, 5a Vava‘u, 5b Uiha; 6 Manuae, 7a Maupiha‘a, 7b Motu One, 7c Miti‘aro, 8a Mangaia, 8b ?, 8c Atiu, 9 Rimatara, 10 Rurutu, 11 Tupua‘I, 12 Ra‘ivavae, 13 Rapa Iti; 14 Uea, 15 Rotuma, 16a Savai‘I, 16b Uvea, 17a Upolu, 17b Niuafo‘ou, 18 Niatoputapu and Tafai, 19 Tutuila, 20 Manua, 21 Motu a Manu; 22 Ra‘ivavae, 23 Mangareva, 24 Temoe, 25 Oeno, 26 Pitcairn Island, 27 Henderson, 28 Ducie, 29 Rapa Nui; 30 Nuku Hiva, 31a Hiva‘Oa, 31b Ua Pou; 32 Marquesas Group, 33 Oahu. Photograph of the map displayed in the limited edition leporello version of TUPAIA, KYBERNETES & LARA CROFT. Bodily Perspectives on Postdigital Spaces
© TACK
This text is an extended retrospective summary of Eva Sommeregger's talk entitled "Navigating, Performing and Book Making", given at the Tacit Knowledge Symposium at ETH Zurich during the Object Session Lineages on 20 June 2023.
Lecture / Talk

Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan

In her talk Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan (held in the framework of TACK training axis 2, module 1 “Probing Tacit Knowledge” on 26 April 2021), Gaia Caramellino questioned the practices of tacit knowledge embedded in the particular cultural network engaged in the design and construction of post-WWII Milan ordinary residential environment.
Gaia Caramellino
Lecture / Talk

April 26, 2021

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Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan

Gaia Caramellino
In her talk Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan (held in the framework of TACK training axis 2, module 1 “Probing Tacit Knowledge” on 26 April 2021), Gaia Caramellino questioned the practices of tacit knowledge embedded in the particular cultural network engaged in the design and construction of post-WWII Milan ordinary residential environment.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This precast concrete column fragment from the Pirelli Learning Centre built in Milan (Italy) in 2022 is a case in point. The physicality of the column has created a strong reference to the between-war Italian architecture culture. Its material form speaks to the innovation in construction techniques that characterised the period, while its ornamentation echoes that of the neighbouring Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa; illuminates the company’s history as well as the common culture through a series of abstract tire thread advertising graphics imprinted on the columns and façade elements.
Onsitestudio
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

Onsitestudio
© TACK
This precast concrete column fragment from the Pirelli Learning Centre built in Milan (Italy) in 2022 is a case in point. The physicality of the column has created a strong reference to the between-war Italian architecture culture. Its material form speaks to the innovation in construction techniques that characterised the period, while its ornamentation echoes that of the neighbouring Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa; illuminates the company’s history as well as the common culture through a series of abstract tire thread advertising graphics imprinted on the columns and façade elements.
Book chapter Open Access Publication

2021

Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis

Example co-developed code of engagement (Author 2017), © Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
There has been an intense discourse on the relationship between inter-stakeholder university engagements, or service learning, and the broader society that South African universities claim to serve over the past decade in both local and international academia. The inherent problem within these power structures, the challenges to achieving mutually beneficial project outcomes and the growing concern of vulnerable, unheard institutional and individual voices are critical factors. The recognition of these dynamics within the emerging field of design research and design-led teaching is less nuanced in these debates. Training institutions of architecture have a rich history of undertaking service-learning initiatives to create value and learning for both the students and the stakeholders of such projects. Still, in South Africa, they are only now seen through a post-rainbow nation lens. The FeesMustFall movement is primarily driving this change. Larger institutions are recognising previously marginalised voices that now find traction in learning and practice across South Africa. This chapter reflects the author’s experience with emergent views and concerns as a researcher, lecturer and spatial design practitioner in Johannesburg. This section centres on learning regarding city-making in Southern Africa, and it presents two case studies followed by a discussion of growth opportunities.
Orli Setton, Eric Wright, Claudia Morgado, Blanca Calvo, residents and leaders of Denver Informal Settlement and the UJ Professional Practice students from 2013 to 2017.
Book chapter Open Access Publication

2021

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Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis

Orli Setton, Eric Wright, Claudia Morgado, Blanca Calvo, residents and leaders of Denver Informal Settlement and the UJ Professional Practice students from 2013 to 2017.
Example co-developed code of engagement (Author 2017), © Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
Challenging practice students engaging in the workshop debate (The author’s photos), © Jhono Bennett
Students and staff of AT working with Denver residents on the Action Research Studio (Author’s photos), © Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
There has been an intense discourse on the relationship between inter-stakeholder university engagements, or service learning, and the broader society that South African universities claim to serve over the past decade in both local and international academia. The inherent problem within these power structures, the challenges to achieving mutually beneficial project outcomes and the growing concern of vulnerable, unheard institutional and individual voices are critical factors. The recognition of these dynamics within the emerging field of design research and design-led teaching is less nuanced in these debates. Training institutions of architecture have a rich history of undertaking service-learning initiatives to create value and learning for both the students and the stakeholders of such projects. Still, in South Africa, they are only now seen through a post-rainbow nation lens. The FeesMustFall movement is primarily driving this change. Larger institutions are recognising previously marginalised voices that now find traction in learning and practice across South Africa. This chapter reflects the author’s experience with emergent views and concerns as a researcher, lecturer and spatial design practitioner in Johannesburg. This section centres on learning regarding city-making in Southern Africa, and it presents two case studies followed by a discussion of growth opportunities.
Video

A video report from the “Symposium Under the Landscape”

In June 2022, the “Symposium Under the Landscape” was held on the islands of Santorini and Therasia (Cyclades, Greece), proposing a critical rethinking of the increasingly topical notion of landscape.
Ionas Sklavounos
Video

August 1, 2023

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A video report from the “Symposium Under the Landscape”

Ionas Sklavounos
In June 2022, the “Symposium Under the Landscape” was held on the islands of Santorini and Therasia (Cyclades, Greece), proposing a critical rethinking of the increasingly topical notion of landscape.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 860413. This website reflects only the author’s view and the European Commission Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
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