voi CesabR knowledge production, not as a fixed scheme but as a series of approaches that
can be combined. my perspective is architecture but, hopefully, the framework can also
be used in other contexts of art, design or practice-based knowledge production and
reach out to, for example, technical and social sciences, and the humanities.
six themes stand at the centre of interest: architectural thinking as a mode to con-
struct, perceive and conceptualize complex situations; performance and performativity as
a mode of action, making and communication; staging explorative experiments as a way
of setting up and examining specific situations; modelling and simulation as central in-
teractive methods of enquiry and tools for addressing heterogeneity; critical construction
and reflection as a strategy to maintain research integrity and navigate in heterogenic
knowledge production; and assemblages as a gradual creation of configurations and flex-
ible navigation charts for research situations. Together these six entries form a basis of
thinking- acting- composing, and i will use a spiralling narrative through them to sug-
gest a methodological framework for abR.
theme 1: architectural thinkingarchitecture is a field that revolves around a creative practice on space and matter/
materiality. it is rooted at the crossing point between art, technology and socio- cultural
aspects of space. in terms of research methods it is architectural thinking that stands at
the centre, i.e. to basically think in three dimensions regardless of scale, and to actively
deal with complex spatial situations that are constantly changing over time.
architectural thinking relates to design in the sense that both are activities that
explore the possible and the future through invention and intervention. design thinking,
or designerly thinking, is a broad term discussed a generation ago by, e.g. Bryan lawson
(1980), and developed further by researchers such as nigel Cross (2006), Thomas Fisher
(2000), halina dunin- Woyseth (2004), John Rajchman (1998) and graeme sullivan
(2005). generally these research paradigms stress the research problem as ‘fuzzy’ or
‘wicked’ in terms of being impossible to define beforehand, specifically embedded in
a situation and requiring combinations of creative and analytical strategies. But while
design is often oriented towards a specific user, with the requirements attached to
that, architecture generally works in broader contexts and more open complexities
involving artefacts, spaces, processes and systems and ranging from the detailed to an
interregional and global scale.
To a large extent architecture is also an intersubjective activity where communicative
aspects are important and where knowledge production opens up for collective action or
teamwork. a large part of my own practice- based research, especially within the urban
sound institute,^2 concerns crossovers between architecture and music/sound, art/sound
design. The transitional character of sound challenges traditional understandings
of architecture as something stable and, instead, emphasizes a concept of space as
something constantly changing, relational, diverse and heterogeneous but still bodily
and multisensorially experienced. similar expanded and transient understandings of
architecture are today embraced by many professionals and scholars, and it places
architectural thinking, rather than the architectural object, in the foreground.
although architecture as such may not be defined purely as art, i would argue that
architectural thinking- making- composing is largely a complex, artistic activity, a mode