Exploring Socio-material Orderings in Ethnography of Architectural Design

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Abstract

How can the socio-material assemblages involved in contemporary ‘doings of architecture’ be identified and studied? The paper discusses recent transformations within architectural design practice and the extended network of local actors and technologies mobilized in contemporary building construction.
Interested in examining how the current requirements in the field are – and can be - handled in architectural production, we aim to contribute to the ongoing development of ethnography of Architectural Design (Yaneva 2008, 2009, 2012). In our research, we focus on recent requirements that are recognized to cause
displacements – some of them deliberately installed to do so - in established architectural practice: The attempts to regulate and homogenize project-information in digital 3D/4D-models from very early stages of the planning; the manifest tendency of involving an increased number of actors in all stages of the
building-process, and finally the increasing demands for documentation – 'evidence' – of the choices made over the course of the planning, in terms of issues like economical consequences and parameters for ‘sustainability.’ The paper will present empirical examples of planning in contemporary architectural
design. We attempt to follow the actors in detail through their socio-material involvements and ‘architectural inventions’ such as visualized motives of space, materials, atmospheres, buildingparts and -components, and to explore how relations continuously tie and untie as a means to serve the new requirements. The aspiration is to produce concepts that unfold socio-material orderings and actor/processes involved in architectural becoming.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2012
Publication statusPublished - 2012
EventThe 4S/EASST Joint Conference 2012: Design and displacement: Social Studies of Science and Technology - Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Duration: 17 Oct 201220 Oct 2012
Conference number: 2012
https://sf.cbs.dk/4s_easst/final_conference_program_ready

Conference

ConferenceThe 4S/EASST Joint Conference 2012
Number2012
LocationCopenhagen Business School
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityFrederiksberg
Period17/10/201220/10/2012
Internet address

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