Everyday Practice as Paradigm to Study Architectural Contemporary Codes

Abstract

This paper intends to illustrate a specific part of the Ph.D. project. More precisely, as part of the international network "TACK: Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its ways of knowing" led by ETH, each researcher has been asked to develop an ethnographic investigation for a few months in an architectural office –decided a priori by the doctoral board.– The purpose of such secondment finds reason in the idea to reinforce the relationship between theory and practice and, more explicitly, disentangling the so-called "tacit knowledge," central theme of the Ph.D. program itself: a concept first formulated by Michel Polanyi to refer to that knowledge that we own but that we have difficulties making explicit.

To sum up, the paper aims to illustrate the secondment's investigation mode and its crucial role in the research: acting as a pilot case, this served to identify a methodological blueprint to apply with other case studies identified within the project.

Keywords: everyday practice, ethnography, tacit knowledge