The pleasures of not knowing: questioning the static nature of architecture

Abstract

The architectural design process is not about controlling built structures and environments, but rather about anticipating events. Today, we are empowered to believe that we can resolve all design challenges. But sometimes, instead of solving issues (that probably we ourselves created in the first place), we might want to focus on eliminating the problem altogether during the process of design itself. Even though buildings are static in the way they are conceived and built, they still possess a dynamic feature, the most prominent being that of aging. Therefore, we can assume that architectural space is more about the processes of designing and building, then aging and eventually disappearing, and less about the finite, projected image of a designed object. In this regard, it is crucial that these design challenges are investigated and tested in actual environments. Experiments in designing structures can take us closer to grasping the elusive state of a physical object. This paper discusses the theoretical concept of temporality, arguing that the object is part of the design process itself. This opens a debate on the incompleteness of the design process focused on spatial potentials and structural possibilities. These issues were investigated through a series of workshops that questioned the static nature of architecture, in order to explore and widen the scope of the practice.