The Tacit Dimension

Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research

Edited by Lara Schrijver

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Understanding the multitude of knowledges that constitute architectural thinking, designing and making

In architecture, tacit knowledge plays a substantial role in both the design process and its reception. The essays in this book explore the tacit dimension of architecture in its aesthetic, material, cultural, design-based, and reflexive understanding of what we build. Tacit knowledge, described in 1966 by Michael Polanyi as what we ‘can know but cannot tell’, often denotes knowledge that escapes quantifiable dimensions of research. Much of architecture’s knowledge resides beneath the surface, in nonverbal instruments such as drawings and models that articulate the spatial imagination of the design process.

Awareness of the tacit dimension helps to understand the many facets of the spaces we inhabit, from the ideas of the architect to the more hidden assumptions of our cultures. Beginning in the studio, where students are guided into becoming architects, the book follows a path through the tacit knowledge present in materials, conceptual structures, and the design process, revealing how the tacit dimension leads to craftsmanship and the situated knowledge of architecture-in-the-world.

Contributors: Tom Avermaete (ETH Zürich), Margitta Buchert (Leibniz-Universität Hannover), Christoph Grafe (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), Mari Lending (The Oslo School of Architecture and Design), Angelika Schnell (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), Eireen Schreurs (Delft University of Technology), Lara Schrijver (University of Antwerp)


Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).


Introduction: Tacit Knowledge, Architecture and its Underpinnings
Lara Schrijver

Performative Design Research: En-acting Knowledge in Teaching
Angelika Schnell

Teaching Architecture Full Scale
Mari Lending

Transformative Dialogues: On Material Knowing in Architecture
Eireen Schreurs

A Black Box? Architecture and its Epistemes
Tom Avermaete

Design Knowledges on the Move
Margitta Buchert

A Silent Master: Artistry and Craft in the Work of Peter Celsing
Christoph Grafe

Material Knowledge and Cultural Values
Lara Schrijver

Format: Edited volume - paperback

Size: 216 × 140 × 7 mm

130 pages

ISBN: 9789462702714

Publication: May 10, 2021

Languages: English

Stock item number: 141876

Lara Schrijver is professor of architecture theory at the University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences.

“In my twenty years of peer-reviewing book manuscripts for potential publication, this one has been the most fascinating for me. In fact, I did not put it down. Thank you for inviting me to peer-review it.”
Igea Troiani, University of Plymouth