The Tacit Dimension: Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research
Year: 2021
Type: book
Abstract: This separation has allowed the artist's conception to gain primacy over the craftsman's knowledge and development of building practices, which in the modern era have often been seen as 'mere building'.While this was extended and cemented by the desire to become a university-based discipline, it is here that in the 1970s and 1980s some of the difficulties began to arise.In 1974, Nathan Glazer dismissed many new disciplines as 'minor professions' founded on skills rather than science, a statement that might have been more readily countered if the earlier philosophical explorations of the gap between skill and knowledge had been better incorporated in the studies.22At the same time, Donald Schön introduced the notion of the reflective practitioner, suggesting that studio approaches added a new dimension to established insights on problem-solving.Schön described the studious manner in which design problems and possible solutions were continually reworked in relation to multiple constraints and intentions, and concluded that in the drawing process, a skill-based knowledge emerged, which he identified as a reflective practice.23These two thinkers show the tensions that arose as numerous fields largely based in practice became part of the university and even today continue to inform debates on research methods.During this latest period of recalibrating scientific methods, the field of industrial design, in particular, provided influential ideas.Bryan Lawson and Nigel Cross both argued that 'designerly ways of knowing' were a separate category of knowledge that was accompanied by a different approach to problem-solving (or even 'problem-finding', according to Lawson).24In short, Cross argued that the knowledge construction of the natural sciences is aimed at understanding the world around us and founded on analysis of existing phenomena; the humanities are oriented on insight into human motivation and founded on reflection; and the design fields are focused on transforming the world, based on the creation of new structures, objects and things.In experiments, Lawson showed that designers approached problem-solving in a synthetic manner, seeking out series of possible solutions, while natural scientists analysed the problem.In these works, they provided a way of speaking about the inductive and intuitive processes of design, and many scholars were to follow, expanding the resources and vocabulary for discussing other approaches to knowledge.25
Source: Leuven University Press eBooks
DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1mgm7ng
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4239581110