Making Architecture, Thinking Architecture: New Perspectives in Design Theory

Abstract

This paper proposes a research programme aiming an inquiry of how architectural knowledge is organized in a contemporary design practice. This delimitation of such disciplinary field accepts a notion of contemporaneity unattached to objects, but to the actuality and simultaneity of the architect’s actions upon the objects that constitute the universe of architecture. Beneath this context, the epistemological quest does not preclude methodological approaches to designing, but relativizes them by questioning any normative claims. The epistemic status of the architectural project is presented, in this sense, as open to possibilities of achievements assuming a local character, i.e., implies recognizing a limited field of applicability criteria. In order to outline a disciplinary matrix extended between “configurations” and “projects”, constitutive categories implied in its discursive field are proposed and distributed in three domains: those of objects, of knowledge, and of practice. Although hypothetical, this categorization is open to a critical discussion about the epistemic specificity of architectural thought.