Special knowledge


I enjoyed De Carlo’s explanation of the ambiguity of the architect’s role and their transition from “head bricklayer to god. The architect became a representative of the class in power.” With this criticism he began asking many of the same questions that we as an architectural profession are asking today. What is the architect’s role? Why are architects elitist and why do they think they know the best for society? Why is there a disconnect between architect and client? Much of the architect’s role exists within interpreting and expressing qualitative data as opposed to quantitative data. Words such as society and community are often thrown around during schematic design phases. They often do not have physical manifestations yet architects seem to know how to translate this information into physical, buildable martial. How can we take this knowledge and turn it into data that is useful for everyone not just architects? I believe value of the work that architects do can be derived from research and iterations of study. It is here that the “intangibles” of the architect’s special knowledge can be translated and then presented to the public i.e. non-architects.

Comments

  1. Cole, I agree. Your post made me think about how we need to be able to communicate with not only our clients and team, but also those who do not have our 'special knowledge'our understand how we talk about our designs. Our time in school and the profession has exposed us to a special 'design' language that sometimes only other architects understand. We should make sure to use 'inclusive' design language that allows us to be better understood by the public therefore making our architecture more tangible.

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  2. This post made me think of our own studio project. Sometimes, I get so used to presenting to just professors and/or local architects and when people who aren't designers, like Andy and Beth, come to our reviews, it throws me off because I have to present my work in a different way. But that's what we as future architects are going to have to do once we graduate.

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