CLARA#11: Call for Papers

^{Photo : Heinzpeter and Trudy Birrer-Banz, family archive. The Good Life, Studio Tom Emerson, ETHZ, 2023}

The Ethics of Detailing

Guest Editors: Tiphaine Abenia (ULB), Louis Destombes (ENSA Paris La Villette, Bellastock) and Daniel Estevez (ENSA Toulouse)

[download the call as a .pdf]

The notion of detailing, in its contemporary sense of design at the scale of an assembly or fragment, emerged in the second half of the 18th century, gradually becoming widespread in architectural practice during the following century (Picon, 1988). This appropriation of detailing marks the transition from a so-called conventional model, where the transition from architectural design to its execution complied with traditional know-how shared by architects and builders, to a prescriptive model. In the latter, the architect imposes on the builder a specific way of making and on the constructive assemblies a determined and controlled appearance. The standardization of building techniques in the 20th century, far from overshadowing the use of details, further strengthens its role in individualization (Dupire et al., 1995; Estevez, 2001).

The emergence of detailing, closely tied to the development of prescriptive practices, came together with a willingness to reform construction by aligning it with the principles of objectification inherent to “modern sciences” (Pérez-Gómez, 1988; Rondelet, 1802). These transformations, aimed at the efficiency and profitability of production chains, continue to operate today in the decomposition of tasks, the hierarchy of knowledge, and the social stratification of labour (Ferro, 2005; Aureli, 2023). The authority thus acquired by the architect in the socio-technical order of construction makes detail a specific subject for architectural design.

Indeed, in architecture, detailing has the capacity to unveil the construction and its articulations, as much as it can assist in concealing them in service of an abstract architectural expression (Ford, 2011). This expressive role gives the architectural detail a significant place in construction theories, ranging from those that invoke the moral register of authenticity (Frampton, 1995; Steinmann, 2004) to those interested in constructive fiction (Frascari, 1984; Simonnet, 2001; Levine, 2008).

The current multidimensional crisis, encompassing environmental, societal, and political dimensions, highlights the limitations of modern theories of detail in their ability to shed light on contemporary design practices (Destombes, 2017). How can detailing define a critical entry point to question the socio-technical dynamics of architecture? Can detailing constitute a driving force of an architectural agency aiming to retrieve the construction process from the productivist and extractivist frameworks in which it is enclosed? What meaning should be attributed to the very notion of architectural detail in the face of the profound reorganization of design practices driven by digitalization and the tendency to strip the architect of the prerogative to prescribe construction?

This 11th issue of Clara architecture journal focuses on contemporary detailing practices and their ethical implications. While the notion of ethics can refer to some kind of moralism, placing God—or conversely the devil—in the details, its definition also links it to action. In fact, ethics is defined as “the science that deals with the regulating principles of action”. Yet, in the production of architectural detail, the one who regulates action is rarely the one who executes it. Thus by examining detail through the lens of ethics, this issue invites contributions that might help deconstruct the separation between design and construction.

On what type of scientific approaches can such deconstruction rely? In his book Paris ville invisible, Bruno Latour introduces a paradoxical methodological approach by suggesting the study of complex objects (city, building, institution, social group, etc.) based on the observation of any of its elementary entities, taken indiscriminately and without distinction, which he calls oligoptic. This approach subverts the principle of hierarchical decomposition (Reiser+Umemoto, 2006) insofar as it underpins a more horizontal process where “we do not move from the particular to the general, but from the particular to other particulars” (Latour et al., 2012: 211). Oligoptics thus allow for problematizing the notions of order and scale by considering that “the whole is always smaller than the part” (Latour et al., 2012). Following Latour, we propose to consider detail as the precise observation point for the vast dynamics affecting architecture on relational, environmental, and temporal levels.

Track 1. Ethics of Relations, Empowerment and Collective Practices

The growing separation between thinking and making is accompanied by a relational impoverishment in the social process of construction (Lefebvre et al., 2021). The prescriptive model implies “a relationship of subordination from the person who defines the work toward the person who carries it out. [Prescriptive technology] is not a relationship, but a writing, a mediation” (Dupire et al., 1995: 18). This compartmentalization seems to lead to a loss of skills throughout the architectural production chain, and to the proletarianization of trades (Stiegler, s.a.), while it obscures the provenance and real environmental and human cost of detail (Malterre-Barthes, 2021).

At the same time, we are seeing a proliferation of community, collective, deliberative and situated actions. These modes of intervention seem to rely more on incremental processes (Dionne, 2015) than on global planning through detail. This first track of research thus considers thinking about detail as equivalent to political thought. How and by whom are details produced today? In what way can thinking about detail encourage a repossession of craft knowledge and be a lever for fostering the empowerment of and collaboration between the various actors in construction?

Potential topics of interest include:

self-building/do-it-yourself (DIY)/socialization;
tolerance/productive errors/“forgiving details” (Allen and Rand, 2007);
changing production relationships in architecture;
updating professional knowledge/detailing and craftsmanship;
(in)visibilization of work and gestures;
narratives of the construction process.

Track 2. Ethics of Frugality and Long-Term Environmental and Architectural Perspectives

The imperatives of performance (thermal, acoustic, waterproofing, etc.) lead to a complexification of construction, particularly at the level of detail (Wigley, 2021). In contrast to this trend, the principle of frugality places emphasis on material resources and existing conditions over the pursuit of technical performance. It aims to limit the environmental cost of architectural production, reconnect social and technical structures of construction at a territorial scale, and inscribe architecture within the long term (Madec, 2021).

To what extent does detailing allow for exploration of convergences between these seemingly opposed environmental doctrines? How do contemporary detailing practices confront challenges of the long term: maintenance, reparability, obsolescence (Leatherbarrow, 2009; Abenia, 2019; Caye, 2020)? If detailing initially focuses on the assembly of manufactured products, to what extent does it allow for a resemanticization of conventional distinctions between construction products, materials, matter, and waste (Lloyd Thomas, 2007)?

Potential topics of interest include:

attention to resources/territory;
performance/efficiency/effectiveness;
matter/materials/products;
opacity/transparency of detail;
use/maintenance/repair.

Track 3. Ethics of Reversibility, Digitalization, and the Disappearance of Detail

With the advent of digital technology in architecture, detailing has reached a level of constructive explicitness that appears to bring the design itself into a logic of predefinition. Contemporary digital models, particularly Building Information Models (BIM), act as complete digital explanations of the material constitution of a project (Gaudillière-Jami, 2022; Alexander, 1964). The construction of these models increasingly relies on catalogues of products and components, placing the architect in a complex informational universe. Within this, strategies of assembly, combinations, and variations are applied to objects of “high definition” (Estevez, 2020: 13). These logics also enable subtractive logics in architecture (Easterling, 2014), such as Reverse Engineering Protocols (Devlieger, 2017). This axis positions detail as a site for architectural reversibility thinking. What methodological consequences can this principle of constructive exhaustivity have on design? Does the anticipated definition of built architecture paradoxically trace a form of detail disappearance?

Potential topics of interest include:

retro-engineering and new professions in architecture;
thinking of reuse, recycling, and reinterpretation;
open source/open-ended detail/non-deterministic representation;
ready-made/assemblage-based design.

Contributors to this issue are invited to cross these three tracks to consider their possible interactions and thus contribute to defining the ethics of contemporary architectural detail. In this definitional perspective, this issue encourages reflective contributions in design theory, architectural education, political economy of construction, and experimental and artistic practices.

Modalities

Proposals for contributions should be submitted to clara.archi[at]ulb.be by the 15^th of April 2024 (single PDF file as attachment) and must include:

an abstract of 500 words,
a proposed title,
the contributor’s name,
the contributor’s academic affiliation (if applicable),
the contributor’s e-mail address and
a short bio of maximum 100 words
Proposals for contributions may be submitted in English or in French.

Provisional deadlines

Mid-February 2024 | Call for contributions

15th of April 2024 | Submission of abstracts

Pre-selection process according to thematic relevance

End of May 2024 | Notification of acceptance

Mid-September 2024 | Submission of full papers and peer-reviewing process

November 2024 | Feedback and comments from reviewers

End of December 2024 | Submission of final papers

Spring 2025 | Editing process

Summer 2025 | Publication of Clara #11

Bibliography

Abenia, T. (2019) Architecture potentielle de la grande structure urbaine abandonnée. Catégorisation et projection. PhD dissertation, Université Toulouse le Mirail and Université de Montréal.

Alexander, C. (1964) Notes on synthesis of form. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Allen, E. and Rand, P. (2007) Architectural detailing : Function, Constructibility, Aesthetics. New York: Wiley.

Aureli, P. V. (2023) Architecture and Abstraction. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Caye, P. (2020) Durer. Éléments pour la transformation du système productif. Paris: Belle Lettres.

Destombes, L. (2017) Traductions constructives du projet d’architecture. Théoriser le détail à l’ère de la modélisation intégrative. PhD dissertation, Université de Montréal.

Devlieger, L. (2017) “Architecture in reverse”, Volume 51, Supplément Studio Rotor: Deconstruction, pp. 8-14. Available at: https://rotordb.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/deconstruction-final-small.pdf (accessed: 25 january 2024).

Dionne, C. (2015) “L’architecture incrémentaliste au service du savoir-vivre”, Espazium. Available at: https://www.espazium.ch/fr/actualites/larchitecture-incrementaliste-au-service-du-savoir-vivre (accessed: 25 january 2024).

Dupire, A. et al. (1995) Deux essais sur la construction. Bruxelles: Mardaga.

Easterling, K. (2014) Critical Spatial Practice n°04 – Subtraction. Londres: Stenberg Press.

Estevez, D. (2001) Dessin d’architecture et infographie. L’évolution contemporaine des pratiques graphiques. Paris: CNRS Editions.

Estevez, D. (2020) “Nous nous sommes tant aimés. Retour sur les approches non-formelles de la conception architecturale à l’ère numérique”. Proceedings of SCAN’20 - 9e Séminaire de Conception Architecturale Numérique, November 2020, Bruxelles, DOI : https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20208200002

Ferro, S. (2005) Dessin /chantier. Paris: Editions de La Villette.

Ford, E. R. (2011) The Architectural Detail. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Frampton, K. (1995) Studies In Tectonic Culture, The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press.

Frascari, M. (1984) “The Tell-the-Tale Detail”, in Behrens, P. and Fisher, A., eds. VIA 7: The building of Architecture. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press, pp. 23-27.

Gaudillière-Jami, N. (2022) Automatiser l'architecture ? Savoir-faire et calculabilité dans la pratique des courants computationnels en architecture (1965-2020). PhD dissertation, Université Paris Est.

Latour, B. and Hermant, H. (1998) Paris ville invisible. Paris: Empêcheurs Penser en Rond / La découverte.

Latour, B. et al. (2013) “Le tout est toujours plus petit que les parties. Une expérimentation numérique des monades de Gabriel Tarde”, Réseaux, Vol. 31-177, La découverte, pp. 199-233. Available at: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/node/499.html (accessed: 25 january 2024).

Latour, B. et al. (2012) “The whole is always smaller than its parts’ - a digital test of Gabriel Tardes’ monads”, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 63, n° 4, pp. 591-615.

Leatherbarrow, D. (2009) “Unscripted Performance”, in Architecture Oriented Otherwise. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 43-68.

Lefebvre, P. et al. (2021) Penser-faire : quand les architectes se mêlent de construction. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles.

Levine, N. (2010) Modern Architecture, Representation and Reality. New Haven: Yale University Press

Lloyd, K. L. (2007) “Going into the mould. Materials and process in the architectural specification”, Radical Philosophy, n° 144, Jul/Aug. Available at: https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/going-into-the-mould (accessed: 25 january 2024).

Madec, P. (2021) Mieux avec moins, Architecture et frugalité pour la paix. Vincennes: Editions Terre Urbaine.

Malterre-Barthes, C. (2021) “The Devil is in the Details”, in Space Caviar eds. Non-Extractive Architecture. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, pp. 85-96.

Pérez Gomez, A. (1998) L’architecture et la crise de la science moderne. Bruxelles: Mardaga.

Picon, A. (1988) Architectes et ingénieurs au siècle des lumières. Marseille: Parenthèses.

Reiser. J. and Umemoto, N. (2006) Atlas of novel tectonics. New-York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Rondelet, J.-B. (1802-1810) Traité théorique et pratique de l'art de bâtir. Paris: Chez l’auteur.

Simonnet, C. (2001) L’Architecture ou La fiction constructive. Paris: Les éditions de la passion.

Steinmann, M. (2004) “Les dessous de Madonna ou le fait de présenter des matériaux qui ne sont pas destinés à cela”, in Forme forte. Bâle: Birkhauser, pp. 15-26.

Stiegler, B. (date inconnue) Prolétarisation. Ars Industrialis. Available at: https://arsindustrialis.org/prol%C3%A9tarisation (accessed: 25 january 2024).

Wigley, M. (2021) “Returning the gift”, in Space Caviar eds. Non-Extractive Architecture. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, pp. 41-58.