First, Constructing Knowledge will discuss the types of knowledge specific to architecture. What is architectural knowledge? How is it generated or how is it found, evaluated and passed on? What is the relationship between implicit (and not easily articulated) and explicit (and readily quantifiable) knowledge?

Objectives
The conference Constructing Knowledge / Das Wissen der Architektur has two main goals:

First, Constructing Knowledge will discuss the types of knowledge specific to architecture. What is architectural knowledge? How is it generated or how is it found, evaluated and passed on? What is the relationship between implicit (and not easily articulated) and explicit (and readily quantifiable) knowledge? An underlying goal of the conference is to address a pressing issue in architecture academia today: if research is the process by which new knowledge is generated, what methods are acceptable? Need they be “scientific” or might fictional practices be just as meaningful to architecture?

Second, the conference will test the hypothesis that different formats are necessary to access and communicate the spectrum of knowledge being generated in architecture.

Constructing Knowledge aims to bridge the divide between the observation-based knowledge of architecture generated in the social sciences, and the practice-based knowledge specific to the disciplines of architecture and planning.

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Organizers: Axel Sowa, Susanne Schindler, Ariane Wilson (Department Theory of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen University)

Session Chairs: Sophie Houdart (CNRS, Paris); Ingeborg Rocker (Harvard GSD, Cambridge); Pier Vittorio Aureli (Berlage Insitute, Rotterdam); Jane Rendell (UCL/The Bartlett, London).

Keynote Lecture: Mario Carpo, Georgia Tech, Alanta. "Architectural Knowledge, Authorship, and the Digital Public." Thursday, November 5, 20:00

Date: November 5 and 6, 2009

Venue: RWTH Aachen University, Sparkassenforum, SuperC, Templergraben 57, 52056 Aachen