Tacit knowledge in architecture
Tacit knowledge is a specific type of knowledge that architects employ when designing. The Communities of Tacit Knowledge (TACK) will for the first time combine the expertise on tacit knowledge that has been developed at ten different research centres in Europe. The research project is an ITN-Marie Curie networking project, with BK Bouwkunde as one of the ten research centres involved.
Tacit knowledge in architecture is embodied in the material vectors that architects design with; from treatises and drawings to models and buildings. This Innovative Training Network (ITN) will train young researchers in the development of advanced theoretical frameworks and specialised methods. These can be deployed for the analysis of specific knowledge used by architects while designing buildings and cities. It focuses on the characteristics, the dissemination and the heuristic potential of this knowledge that is particular to architectural design practice.
The research project is structured around three training axes:
- Approaching tacit knowledge: identifying methods and histories;
- Probing tacit knowledge: concrete cases and approaches;
- Situating tacit knowledge: concepts and theories.
The TACK ITN combined for the first time the expertise on tacit knowledge of academic, cultural and practice-based partners throughout Europe. Ten research centres, three cultural and three practice-based partners will train a group of scholars to explore and conceptualise the very character of tacit knowledge. This will lead to a better understanding of its possible roles in addressing new and pressing issues in the built environment from alternative vantage points. This powerful combination of expertise from industry and academia will introduce new heuristic methods and add to inter-sectoral employability.
Implementation of the TACK ITN will result in ten PhDs, three online training modules, an international colloquium, a major exhibition, a lecture- and debate series, a synthetic reader, a book, and a website providing public access to research results and events. The ten research centres included in the project are:
- ETH Zürich, Swizterland
- BK Bouwkunde TU Delft, the Netherlands (Klaske Havik, Methods & Analysis, Architecture)
- Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Sweden
- Arkitektur og Design Hogskolen, Norway
- Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany
- Politecnico di Milano, Italy
- Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Wien, Austria
- Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium
- University College London, UK
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany