What Modes of Design Research are Transformative and Venturous?

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Abstract. 

Design although it generates a building is also a search for meaning, for a change in values and perceptions and even a change in power and politics, although in some instances it is a search to legitimise existing power dynamics and entrench them. 

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In the South African context where our built environment and cities are struggling more than twenty years into democracy to subvert their Apartheid segregationist beginnings, design research has the capacity to understand the historical connections between design, power and politics, and purposefully subvert them and even venture new modes of practice.

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What are the most effective modes or routes through which architectural design research can be pursued which support and forward the transformation imperative of both academia and practice? Can the intellectual space and conditions be created that support a strong critical culture of architectural design research, with its’ hopefully resultant transformation of our built environment?

Through analysing various international Design Research modes and their applicability to the South African context, an understanding will be gained of how Design Research can be transformative and venturous both within practice and academia, but also within the larger socio-political context. As Teddy Cruz so aptly put it “new’.

Keywords. 

Design Research; Modes; Transformative; Venturous; South Africa

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In the South Africa, where our built environment and cities are struggling more than twenty years into democracy to subvert their Apartheid segregationist beginnings, design research that has the capacity to understand the historical connections between design, power and politics, and purposefully subvert and transform them and venture new modes of practice.

Reflexive Practice

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Abstract.

How can different creative practices inform and challenge each other? And, how can medial transpositions contribute to operate complex conditions in architectural creation? This project addresses the process of architectural creation as a trans-medial practice, here instantiated as an encounter between text, drawing, photography and model. The project enquires how these distinct medial affordances affect the architectural articulation through transpositions and interactions between them within an iterative process.

Keywords.

Architectural Media, Drawing, Model, Photography

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RESEARCH STATEMENT

The presented material is part of an ongoing research project on trans-mediality in the process of architectural creation. The enquiries are conducted through iterative series in the media of text, drawing, photography and model. The different stages of the process will be documented, but the presentation will put emphasis on the process of interaction between a physical model and photography. The contention of the project is that any material articulation always is engaged in and inseparable from its specific medial mode of expression. A given problem materialises in different ways when it is processed in different media and media environments. Thus, the differentiation of medial affordances is essential: the differences enacted in the trans-medial practice work as a vehicle for creation, premised on the transgression of the specific medium’s limitations. To identify specific medial affordances, the project enquiries establish sets of specific media environments.
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Sampling Ideas around Books as Public Space

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Abstract.
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In 1975, Ulises Carrión wrote an article entitled The New Art of Making Books /…/. In it, he laid the foundation for a new way of understanding that object had served as a container of knowledge for so many years and centuries. Until that moment, the book had always been defined through its formal and constructive character. Ulises Carrión, gave us a definition based on emptiness and experience. The book is, I quote textually, a set of spaces. The book is also a set of moments3. Ulises Carrión tended to catch a concept that was already in the street fifteen years ago, but until then nobody had dared to define. The book, as a real art format, contradictive to the opinion of many critics, was born in the 60s. In fact that in the first half of the 20th century the book was already part of the art world. One should only point out, for example, the first Futurist manifesto of Filippo Marinetti in 1909, or the pamphlets and Dadaist and Surrealist publications, La Boite en Balise by Marcel Duchamp, or those first experiments of books which were carried out by Dieter Roth and Bruno Munari during the fifties. In that first initial stage, the book was a mere container of art. A simple warehouse.

The change produced in the sixties was due to the fact that a group of artists, headed by Ed Ruscha and Dieter Rot, began to consider that the value of the work of art would not only be the content, but also the building in which it was stored. And the form and laws that made up the content should have a direct relationship with these laws that make up the container, the building. The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan said, and contrary to Sullivan’s ideas, function follows form4. The book is conceived in spatiotemporal terms. The content work that is constructed with the logic of the book itself, can only exist within the book because it does not make sense outside of it. And most importantly, following the original ideas of Gutenberg, for its ability to multiply indefinitely, for its ability to reach many more people than conventional art, and for being a cheap object affordable to any pocket, the book is understood, above all, as a public space. The lecture, will be a sampling of examples tends to construct all these ideas around Books as Space and Time, and books as Public Space.

Keywords.

Artist’s books, Public Space, Space and Time, Architecture, Narrative Structures

Film-Space Transcription

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Abstract.

During my undergrad and Master’s studies, I was always exposed to the way my friends in other related fields, specificity film studies, approach to creating space. I constantly learned about possibilities that other canons can bring to my approach to space and design. I took a course which explored film as transcription for architectural design under supervision of Prof. Deborah Hauptmann at TU in Delft. I did my diploma at TU Vienna under supervision of Prof. Will Alsop under constant exchange with my cinematographic friends – using their cameras, their materials, their skills – to finish my studies.

10 Years later, a new big interior project is now the basis to develop this exchange further. Together with a director friend the idea emerged to pretend to do a movie while we are actually doing an interior design. We started to meet with an award winning costume designer and a lighting designer who is specifically interested in opera lightning after doing film. We considered different approaches, exchanging ideas, talking about plots and sequences. Things began to come exciting, suddenly a very problematic skylight became a very exciting artificial light source in the ceiling. The director instantly filled the apartment with buzzling situations of daily life, fabrics are chosen thinking about tangling toes at the end of a couch. Furthermore we are looking for a director of photography to picture the flat out of the mind of a film, as well for a sound designer who should be in charge of p.e the noise a moving chair produces on a wooden floor.

My study is a new approach to my architecture, much different from my working process of my former projects. In previous projects, very often, I worked solo, had limited budgets and time frame to create a concept or main idea. This research now is embedded in one of my current very different interior design projects for a private person in Vienna with very exclusive budget starting now being finished in approx. 6 months. Working on this project now together with a constant growing team of filmmakers is an spectacular opportunity to see which spatial possibilities emerge out of this exchange. The question is what kind of quality and depth can this bring to my architecture? What kind of new ideas, space settings, colour concepts, material suggestions and lightning conditions can be produced?

I came to this study proposal, following the review of relevant literature in the field and analysis of the major architectural projects in the past 5 years of working as an architect. I tried to look at things, which mattered most to me. I looked at my work done at Querkraft Architects in Vienna. I looked into the work of the stage designer Es Devlin. All of this research done including the story written above leaded me finally to the theme I suggest now to start with my PhD.

Keywords.

Film, photography, spatial possibilities, colour, light, sound

Slam Your Doors in a Golden Silence

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Abstract.

Often we judge architecture for its external appearance. In the spaces we perceive or construct we must become aware of its cultural and current spatial realities. As the architect Peter Zumthor has pointed out: “to experience architecture in a concrete way means to touch, see, hear, and smell it.” A keyword in my research practice is “experience”; we want to come to a different understanding of architecture, with the possibility of creating a relationship between the physical environment and the “immaterialities” of space, like sound and movement. When I am walking through a space for the first time, I often become aware of the inherent stillness of the architecture. The only things moving through the space are shadows and light. I look at the transitions between rooms, between floor and wall, ceiling and wall, window and door. Instead of making measurements or architectural drawings, I just listen to the sounds of my footsteps, all the while becoming carefully aware of the rhythm of walking and moving through a space. For me, this is the process of ‘reading the space’; it also involved making drawings and photographing the space in order to grasp its essence. These drawings are often not so much a means of illustrating but of understanding the space. While walking through the space (touching, smelling, seeing and listening), I am trying to find points of tension, lightness, silence or resistance in a space. The emptiness and silence of a space can give us time to observe the environment more carefully and make observations, as well as the possibility to reflect on ourselves. Our ‘dwelling’ might in future lead to a response to the corporeality of a space. In my research practice I focus on questions such as: How do architectural sensations, intuitions and fascinations lead to creation and invention? What specific property of a space leads to a physical experience? How can I make a room perceptible? What is visible, tangible and audible in an architectural experience? For a comprehensive research of experiential space we would need to examine different modes of this experience (tactile, auditory, visual, conceptual). And subsequently develop from these abstract ideas an independent research practice based on the so-called “thinking-through-making” concept of anthropologist Tim Ingold.

Keywords.

Spatial experiences; Interdisciplinary methodology; Sound; Acoustics; Art

Earth as a Contemporary Design Object

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Abstract.

Unfired earth materials present an opportunity for sustainable architecture on different levels. From an environmental point of view, earth has a triple benefit in the life cycle; the resource being abundantly available, the low need of energy to process the material and the potential for harmless disposal at the end of life. dditionally, in order to create a successful sustainable design, the material needs to be appreciated by its users, whether it is used for a building, building component or an object.

This research aims to put forward ways of using earth in a contemporary way through the method of Material Driven Design. The aim is to propose unfired earth material applied in a way that is attractive to the user and, meanwhile, taking into account environmental aspects. Exploratory interviews and a survey with a public of laymen and architect/designers were done to analyse the way they experience (unfired) earth. This input was used during the designing and building of an earth object; a combined phone vault and bedside lamp.

Rather than designing a building or building part, an object allows to go more profound into refining the shape, texture, production process and finishing method. Meanwhile, the deliberate choice of making a daily object, allows to introduce a more general public in order to provoke discussion on the material experience of earth. This way the object design can potentially function as a catalyst, between raw material and full-scale construction.

This paper gives an overview on the former steps (interviews, survey) and following reflections on potential tracks of using earth when applied in a contemporary western European context. The research for design phase guided the design process towards a specific shape and materiality. The process of materialisation is briefly presented, from material tinkering to a very defined production process. Lastly, a further example on how to apply a similar research and design process in future earth designs or applications on an architectural scale will be presented. Keywords. earth; contemporary; design; material experience

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Conclusions
Throughout this paper, the designing and building of an object out of earth object has been put forward. The use of the Material Driven Design method guided the design process, onsisting of several consequent steps: a technical and experiential characterization of unfired earth, followed by the creation of a material experience vision and concluding with a design and built prototype of the design.
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Approaching [Ma]

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Abstract.

In 1978 the exhibition ‘間 [Ma]. Space-Time in Japan’/…/ opened its doors in Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Japanse architect Arata Isozaki designed and curated this exhibition to introduce the concept 間 [Ma] to the Euro-American context. The exhibition consists of nine spatial installations in which 間 [Ma] shows up in different modalities of thought and action: logical, visual and performative. In its architectural context 間 [Ma] shows a moment at which time and space have not been disentangled as distinct and abstract notions: a single sensible spatiotemporal reality. In architecture 間 [Ma] is experienced in Japanese craftsmanship as a unique spatial arrangement, characterized as ‘movement space’/…/, and a unique approach to design (pedagogy), characterized as co-becoming/…/. Through re-enactment of (parts of) the exhibition I study the potentials of 間 [Ma] to develop discursive and non-discursive design tools to approach this single sensible spatiotemporal reality in contemporary architecture practice. In the past years I have analyzed the exhibition by means of archival research and an interview with Isozaki. I also have re-enacted and presented (parts of) the exhibition in my own (pedagogical) practice and in collaboration with students. In this presentation I will use the diverse documentation of my research material to introduce ‘biotopological craftsmanship’ as an architectural technique to approach 間 [Ma]. ‘Marking’, ‘Zig-zagging’ and ‘Rotating’ will be introduced as three specific examples. Biotopological craftsmanship can be understood as an architectural technique in which the architect carefully coordinates with social-environmental moving bodies through minor interventions. This interventions are directed towards the emergence of an autonomous socio-environmental and spatiotemporal interaction. ‘Marking’, ‘zig-zagging’ and ‘rotating’ are all means to activate this process of coordinating and interfering within contemporary architectural landscape that is characterized by a shift ‘from object to experience’/…/.

Keywords.

Architecture; exhibition; re-enactment; Ma; Space-Time

Drawing and the Cognitive Niche

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Abstract.

My drawing practice explores place. I return to the same place and draw, I take materials and alter their state to make drawings. I spend time repeatedly within a place to understand the knowledge gained. I draw to gain knowledge and to understand. In one location I have returned to draw from the same spot repeatedly over a year, initially as a reflection upon Merleau-Ponty’s stance on a phenomenology of movement. These repetitive acts of drawing enabled a layered situated perception of that environment, my research became fully focussed upon drawing as a tool for engagement with the environment.
The science of cognition has opened new philosophical approaches to perception and cognition. The stance of situated cognition theory is concerned with the notions of embodiment, embedding and extension (Robbins and Aydede). These three conceptions envisage cognition as a process involving a multi-sensory individual moving within a contributory dynamic environment, which allows perception to build and knowledge to be generated (Noe). This knowledge can be used to relate to and alter the environment.

Drawing can be considered part of a cognitive process and I wish to explore this within my research. Drawing takes its place as does, seeing, perception and art within a philosophy of biologically structured organisation (Noe). Research in the biological sciences, are producing paradigms around the idea of extended physiology. A suggestion that some processes central to biology lie external to the organism Wilson). This seems analogous to the notions within situated cognition theory particularly that of niche construction theory (Odling-Smee). This contends that organisms make changes to their environment which then feedback and have an effect upon the development of the organism.

The concept of the niche has been developed within other research disciplines for example the social niche and the cultural niche, however that of the cognitive niche (Tooby & DeVore) is of interest within my research. Cognitive niche theory places cognition within a fully situated compartmentalised space where thoughts, concepts and memories are held. This extended space elides physiological thought processes with our inhabited environments.
In my paper I contend that drawing is a tool which changes our environments, and is a process which allows humans to create niches. My paper places my durational drawing practice within the context of cognitive niche construction theory. This opens the possibility of re-framing drawing within a cognitive process.

Keywords.
Drawing; Cognitive niche; Situated cognition

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I discovered that to draw at that scale I needed to rely on my bodily movement. My drawing movements were expansive and on refection were tuned to the movements of the sea, the time spent immobile, drawing the sea, had seemingly created learnt rhythmic patterns which now created the drawing. Creating the in situ drawings had produced a sustantial scaffolding for a more developed drawing exercise, an enhanced drawing process culminating in the production of the larger finished drawing.

I discovered that my imobility was inconsequential to any understanding of a phenemonology of movement, however it enabled my considerations within a cognitive niche, creating thoughts as objects, building scaffolds to generate new thoughts and new objects and allowing the possibility of creating new knowledge. This project clearly linked location and continuity and was therefore concerned with the enviroment of that particular beach. Thoughts as objects of that beach, thoughs as objects that allows collection and distribution of knowledge of that particular beach organised within a cognitive niche with open-ended cognitive possibilties of further sequential cognitive niches. Thus a drawing practice plays an important part within cognitive processes, and a durational drawing practice concerning our location can, I believe, contribute significantly to understanding the environment within which we live.

Epicurus Garden

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Abstract.
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EPICURUS GARDEN The garden of the Epicurus (341-270 BCE). Different from other philosophers that practiced in public, Epicurus created an enclosed space in which a more inclusive school could be established. One could argue that the enclosed space of the garden was more public than the open space of the Painted Stoa where Zeno practiced. In the area around EPICURUS’ GARDEN, figures are meandering in a landscape of fragments. The spaces they explore, are constructed as an enfilade, it is a suite. A strange loop, a garden of forking paths, develops between Yard and World…

THE PERFORMANCE AS ARTEFACT The performance is a combination of a performed text and a piano score performed live. It becomes operatic. It is an experiment to explore the (musical) performance as research practice with the goal to test the ‘performance’ as a new vantage point on the author’s practice research, and from within this practice research. Epicurus Garden searches for ways to induce the practice research. The performance is designed as an enfilade that unfolds in the discursive space between: ‘Place, Moment, Relation’ and ‘Sound, Space, Wor(l)ds’, between Yard and World.

DRAWN INTO A STATE OF DISTINCTION The performance is an outlet of the design-driven research that examines the manifold of the authors’ practice. This manifold is an ecology of practices composed out of four ‘studios’: The Faculty Studio, the Office Studio, the Research Studio and the (Music) Composing Studio. The design driven research explores the mechanism of the ‘operationality’ of the form of re-entry. The real interest lies in the ‘spaces’ between the practices.
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Keywords.
Performance as artefact, Practice Research, Architecture

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DIALOGUES for piano solo – revisited and re-composed
The artefact is the performance of a piece of music (a suite, an enfilade, a cycle) as described in the research statement. For this a piano grand (probably ¼) will be placed in the artefact room of the CA2RE conference. At the time of writing, the involvement of a second instrument (human voices or other in under research).

Entropy and Performance

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Abstract.

This paper and the accompanying exhibit of drawings and film, will build on previous CA2RE presentations that looked at the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge in the discipline of architecture by presenting a current research project that has measured and mapped environmental data and social experience in a modern Irish school building from the late nineteen seventies, and will present design propositions about how this building could be conserved and protected into the future while addressing the technical flaws that are currently contributing to its decline;- Completed in time for the Iranian oil crisis of 1979, and predicated on an almost unlimited supply of electricity by burning turf from the surrounding boglands, Birr School struggles with the changed environmental context of reduced fossil fuel consumption in the current century. Recognised as an exemplar of modern architecture, the building has been awarded funding by the Getty Foundation under its Keeping it Modern conservation initiative to support the development of a conservation management plan.

The research goes beyond mere conservation to analyse the relationship between environmental performance of the school fabric and the social experience of students who learn there. The data gathered includes quantitative analysis of heat loss, phpp analysis, air-quality measurement, daylight measurement, etc. and overlays these on qualitative data provided by students into their social and somatic experiences of the spaces. In examining the correlation between these data sets, the research seeks to test a hypothesis about the lived experience of a mat-building being conducive to social wellbeing. This hypothesis argues that thermally textured environments are necessary to stimulate learning and that the standard comfort conditions anticipated by contemporary building regulations may not be appropriate for schools.

The last part of the research is propositional in nature as it makes design proposals for ways to address the environmental failings of the building while still preserving the qualitative experience of the spaces. The project draws on design precedents such as Hunstanton School by the Smithsons, and the Free University of Berlin by Candillis, Josic, and Woods, as well as theoretical ideas from sources as diverse as Gottfried Semper and Inaki Abalos. The architectural propositions also build on other design projects within my practice, where the roof has emerged as an important locus of design, and it will extrapolate these to suggest ways that the school can continue to perform for decades to come.

Keywords.

Entropy; Environment; Performance; Integrated Paradigm

The Descent of Architect

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Abstract.

The reconversion of Güldenhof is the field of my research. This is a project I have been working on the last 4 years, together with the architecture studio Heim&Balp. I now decided to go deeper, exploring it through the lenses of Actor- Network Theory. /…/

An ANT prospective demands Action. Where is action in architecture? Action happens when human and non-human actors form associations. So of course during planning, design and construction, but also and maybe even more in the way spaces are used, lived and transformed again by other actors, when the construction is finished. Güldenhof is the transformation of an entire farming complex into a centre for art, sustainable living and human interaction. The program is huge, therefore divided into different phases and always adapting to the creative impulse of the community living in it and to the results achieved. Here I have the possibility to explore action taking place at the different stages of construction and observe how the people use and transform the space after the architect (in their official role) left. The expertise, knowledge, values and interests of the actors, concerned and affected by the project formulates in a collective way the design result itself. They affect each other’s knowledge and values in sucha way that the common knowledge and objectives of the organisation is both questioned and developed. All actors in the process are regarded as experts and their participation is therefore based on their relevant knowledge rather than on their roles as representatives for different interests. All internal actors are also users. This puts them in an interesting dual situation.

Theoretical frameworks like ANT may help explicate the roles and contributions of all parts of these complex network. If I have always been convinced that architecture is not only the work of architects, thanks to ANT I am able to analyse this position and also see the influence of other non-humans actors. In this way I want to question the classical role of architects and try to find out what sort of architect would make the world a better place, for everyone?

Keywords.

ANT; Mapping; Rural area; Reconversion; Architect´s Role

The Lean.City

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Abstract.

objectives

How are cities changing? Introduction to the lean.city

The aim of this research is to demonstrates that the future of the city is already in action and it is producing spaces with new characteristics thanks to the combined use of traditional design tools and new digital opportunities (apps, platforms, social media), where the experience of designers is combined within information, opinions and needs of the people who will inhabit the spaces. A relationship that can act before, during and after the realization of the project according to a cyclic and lean process (research, project, prototype, test) supported by digital tools. These approaches can improve the general livability of the environment in indoor and outdoor interventions and allow the possibilities to have new experience of the space where online and offline spheres are part of the same augmented world.

method

A collection of best practices

The research uses a collection of examples and best practices from all over the world where designers and people are related in the transformation of the space using new forms of collaborative design. The lean.city is not an utopia, it is already around us, but in forms and uses that should be identified and related one to the other to understand how much are pervasive. The case studies identify four macro- topics. 1. DOMESTIC EXTENSIONS / Digital Nomadism and Sharing Attitude, 2. HYPER NATURE / Collective Projects for a Re-Vegetation of the City, 3. NATIVE SPACES / Activators and Experience of the Space, 4. SOCIAL HUBS / Onlife Spaces and Systems.

expected outcomes

A sharing and collaborative city

From the case studies and the data emerges a city capable of constantly changes according to the needs of its inhabitants, using the traditional tools of the architectural/ urban culture and those of the digital innovation. This scenario generates more shared and active places, co-designed within the users and they assume new characteristics that change or hybridize the traditional architectural and urban typologies, crossings the usual design scales and relationships. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, from the data set it is possible to recognize four macro-topics that can describe the new urban scenario: a city where the difference between interior and exterior is less tangible and more hybrid, a re-vegetation of the space developed together with people, new devices that re-activate underused spaces linking people’s needs together with brands and companies in a bottom-up/top-down process and vice versa, spaces that were born firstly online and then offline and create new opportunities, business models and “onlife” activities.

Keywords.

Lean; co-design; cross-scale; digitalculture; architecture; urbanspace

Verbiest: House and Workshop in a Warehouse

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Abstract.

This project addresses the transformation of a large warehouse of about 1000sqm built between 1900 and 1970 in Molenbeek into a single family house and a shared artistic workshop. The project addresses various issues and themes, amongst which the environmental impact of the construction and of the future consumptions. The artefact is not limited to the design outcome but comprises the design process. /…/

Keywords.

Architecture; Transformation; Reuse; Design Process; Sustainability

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The threefold presentation explores a possible medium to create artefacts which somehow can be considered equivalent to the project itself. Through the embodiment of a network of inputs and outputs in a creative act. By enlarging the scope to the entire process and to the stimuli surrounding it. While respecting the subjective nature of such networks. In order to provoke the interpretation of the project by the audience. Resulting in statistic objectivation through the endlessness actualization of graspable combinations.
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In Practice

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Abstract. 

(*) refer to suppressed names for the sake of anonymity. Initially, (*) are conferences at which architects were invited to unveil and tell the story of their working documents. These short conferences are followed by a conversation with a panel of critics, architects, editors and academics.

Recently, a first book was published about (the design process of) a house designed by (*). The text dissects the genesis of a project, it shares the doubts, it extracts the mechanisms that lead to choices and it discovers the intuitions that make poetry.

This paper explores the methodology inherent to the making of the book. The book makes the objective account of an architect’s erring towards a remarkable outcome. In essence, it is not a critical review of the project, as it dives in the objectivity of the produced documents. It is not a holistic interpretation, as the focus is on the local changes in perception and understandings. It is not a contextualization of a practice situating it in a field, as the appearing references relate to design decisions rather than to the designed object.

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The result combines text, illustrations, photographs and layout into an irreducible, objective and observable whole explicating the ins and outs of a particular design process, to which can be referred in a more comprehensive research in the concerned practice or in other researches (on design processes for example).

Keywords. 

research by design; design process; publication; methodology

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Perspectives

This book is a precedent that can be engaged in different perspectives. We are now planning to continue the series with four similar books. The future will tell to which extent the books will diverge or follow a similar track. Very different contexts and interests will probably result in a variation of approaches.

We would like to propose a similar exercise to researchers who engage their professional practice at the heart of their doctoral research. This exercise is probably slightly different because it would frame in ongoing researches which have their own agenda. 

This precedent will also be engaged as a pedagogic tool in a master dissertation studio at the KU Leuven, in which the students will be invited to compile work documents following similar (probably adapted) procedures. This growing body of work will open up to further speculation and observation, on an epistemological level, on the level of individual practices and on the level of pedagogics.

Researching in Architecture Practices

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Abstract.

This paper addresses the methodology of existing researches in active (professional) practices. The author obtained a PhD in his own practice, is currently supervising one doctorate nearing completion, in which the architectural practice is pivotal, and supervises two PhD proposals in young promising practices. In these researches, the subject is essentially threefold. First, there is the knowledge about the practices themselves. Other practices such as music, travelling, writing, fine rts, any practice can be part of the research, as long as they are connected to the architectural practice.

Second, there are the themes, the inspirationaal forces, the field of interests. This field of interest is not closed : other themes can appear during the research, similar to new projects that will appear in the practices during the PhD process. The paper will expand the notion of inspirational force in comparison to scientific subject. Third, the research explores the interaction between the two above. The researched themes provoke understandings about the practices. Inversely, the practice lead to new understandings on the themes. The complex nature of these interaction is inevitably a subject in itself. The methodology is structured around two fields: the practice and the inspirational forces. Inside these fields, the research is situated in specific actions and reflections.

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Keywords.

Research by Design; Architecture Practice; Research in architecture Practice; methodology; inspiration

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Process

Finally, I would like to refer briefly to three artefacts researching the design process. These are different from the former because they explicitly aim at understanding some aspects of the practice. However, they fit also in this paper because they are local research artefacts framing in a research, following different mechanisms which are not related to the global methodology. 

In “Metarbitrariness”, Harold Fallon decomposes the design process of the Carré des Arts /…/  by displaying a series of work documents in a way that reflects the ongoing choices and hesitations. This exhaustive display of sketches and presentation documents on a single display allowed to understand the mechanism of opening up hypothetic possibilities and closing again to workable options in iterative refinements.

The last one is still different. The book “Philippe Vande Maren & Richard Venlet – In Practice” addresses the entire design process from the point of view of the architects, making use of external points of view as sounding boards (a writer, a photographer, a graphic designer…). The account of the design process can easily frame in a research about the practice.

The list of these methodological fragments could be extended. The border between the items of the list is sometimes unclear. Maybe this is not really a difficulty. The value of identifying them is to consider them as underlying mechanisms rather than strict objects or procedures. They show that this kind of artefacts can fruitfully be realized following a diversity of paths. They show also that these experiments are carefully designed by the authors (of the practice and of the research), and thus can become part of both of them.

The Works of the Danish Architect Hans Christian Hansen (1901-1978)

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Abstract.

This project aims at documenting and analyzing the built works by Hans Christian Hansen (HCH 1901-1978) developed under the policies of the Danish Welfare State between the late 1930’s and early 1970’s as a project leader at the office of the City Architect in Copenhagen. The purpose of the project is to provide knowledge of a little known Danish architect and body of work, which is material and tectonic-wise extraordinarily rich, and quite unusual in its geographical, historical and cultural context. Although the mere documentation of HCH’s buildings should be considered a value in itself, it should be especially relevant today since these buildings are now getting to a state that require renovation or even demolition.

The Danish post-war environment characterized by a lack of materials first and the arrival of new industrialized materials later, besides the public and social character of an architecture developed under the policies of the Welfare State in the municipality of Copenhagen is the framework in which HCH designed his works. The hypothesis is that considering these initial conditions HCH´s works display a spatial and formal richness that show an intelligent and innovative use of humble and crude materials and standardized elements -both traditional and new- and original, understood as inventive and genuine joining solutions as well as a progressive, though comprehensive interpretation of the local context.

The project is based on an inductive methodology which takes as point of departure HCH´s built works together with the existing construction drawings and specifications and mostly uses architecture particular tools, as drawing and photography, to look at, analyze and communicate the works.

The analyzes is structured through 3 main chapters -from fragment to whole- corresponding to materials -type and format of the minimum part of the works-, materialization -strategies of putting together tangible content, in relation to materials and elements, and intangible issues, in relation to program, depicted through thematic issues as ornament, composition, bricolage and abstraction- and materiality -one´s experience and sense of materials affected by considerations on weather, time, decay, symbolism, …- All 3 stages will also be approached in relation to the notion of context concerning questions of the immediate context -the built site- and the ultimate context -the cultural milieu-.

The outcome of the project will 1) give to know the works of HCH, a somewhat neglected particular trend in Danish architecture 2), open a window to investigate the Danish Welfare State architecture from a new and more close-up perspective, the built works 3), disclose a way of working and aesthetics that is very contemporary 4) and moreover, strengthen the relation between practice and academy.

Keywords.

Materials, materialization, materiality, tectonics, context, works.