I, T.T. Stands. Two Days in the Life of an Object in the Making

Abstract

What does it take to describe the design of an object from the point of view of the object itself? What are the implications of writing on its behalf, in the first person and in the active voice? Through the partial and biased description of a single scene of observation, this paper explores the way ethnographies of architecture and their accompanying theories, such as the actor-network theory, are able to widen our conceptions of the design participants' agency. Undertaken as a writing experiment, the chosen mode of description aims at expanding our ability -as observer and as designer -to account for, and work with, multiple gradients of existence. By amplifying and specifying the various ways in which the objectin-the-making is participating in the design decisions, the text does not only push the limits of our usual accounts of design, it also insists on the active attention that all participants of the design process, human and non human, require.

Science in the Making

“…3 A referência citada é: Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society. Nas últimas duas décadas, inspirados pela abordagem de Latour e Woolgar sobre as práticas científicas, houve um aumento no número de relatos etnográficos sobre práticas arquitetônicas (CALLON, 1996;BORCH, 2008;FARÍAS, 2015;GOTTSCHLING, 2015;HOUDART e MINATO, 2009;JACOBS e MERRIMAN, 2011;JENKINS, 2002;LLACH, 2015;LEFEBVRE, 2018;ROSE, DEGEN e MELHUISH, 2014;Sharif, 2016;YANEVA, 2005YANEVA, , 2009aYANEVA, , 2009bYANEVA, , 2018YARROW, 2019), de engenharia (BUCCIARELLI, 1994;MOMSTEEG, 1998;LOUKISSAS, 2020;VINCK, 2003) por outros; cultura ou sociedade só ganham um significado preciso no processo de uma controvérsia e enquanto ela durar e de acordo com a força exercida pelos envolvidos.…”

Transfer ethnography: the recording of a heritage building

“…This way, they start to represent an existent world and a world that is yet to exist. Sketches act and their actions vary Recording of a heritage building depending on the various elements that they compose (words, lines, drawings and numbers), the materials used to produce them (paper and ink), the types of data that they provide (orientation, scale and the existence of different elements) and the circumstances under which they were made (while standing up or being in a rush) (see Lefebvre, 2017). In this relational setting, a line in a sketch acts as a representation of an existing or removed element such as a window.…”

“…Thus, the measurement process, as a part of the creation of design, involves a contested network of actors (human and non-human) that are both “concerned and active and cannot be a priori dismissed or relegated because of their supposedly less social (mere material) nature and less articulate (mere mute) abilities” (Lefebvre, 2017, p. 99). This way, humans and non-humans participate in joint endeavours that mutually shape and reshape them as they make and remake the world (Callon, 1993; Latour, 1999).…”

“…Coupled with sketches, which might have been hastily drawn, images opened up a wide range of possibilities that led to various designs. Although both images and sketches appeared to be simple overlapping representations of the site, they tended to “bring up issues” (Lefebvre, 2017, p. 104) that led to various debates and negotiations that in turn mutually shaped the elements and created the design in different ways.…”

“…By embracing ANT and closely investigating design offices, they presented architectural designs not as the result of a single or static set of actors but rather as continuously changing networks of relations between human and non-human actors. More recent ethnographic studies of Lefebvre (2017), who examined a New York architectural practice, and Kidd and Smitheram (2016), who investigated the recent work of New Zealand architect Simon Twose, drew on the previous monographs to study design offices. Here, we are faced with the challenge of studying building design processes by examining designs initiated in an architectural office and assumed to be implemented on-site.…”