The Tacit Dimension: Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research

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).