Craft Work

Infrastructural elements related to energy production have in our contemporary world an increasing tendency to alienate themselves from their contexts. Architecture built for the sake of sustainability suffers from the global combat of singular orientated efficiency and runs in a detached abstraction and surrealism.

To compare windmills constructed before the Industrial Revolution with modern-day windmills for electricity, the production of energy is just one part of the reason of their existence. They are beside creating usable force a territorial landmark, a collective housing for the miller’s family and their servants, an autonomous working place for women and men, guarantee of their daily nourishment, a meeting point between peasants and a trading place. This multifaceted integration in real complex life creates out of this architecture a sustainable network of needs.

We explored over 4 years with our second-year studio the field of relationships between energy and context by fusing real life complexity again with infrastructure, reinforcing the qualities of common and private spaces.

We investigated, on the one hand, the combination of two domains: ‘craft’ & ‘work’ in order to counter the present-day inclination to the evanescence of physical substance.

The English ‘craft’ led us to the romantic Arts & Crafts movement. A craft is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. The relationship maintained between Art, Craft and Industry is thematised by John Ruskin and William Morris: they disgusted the meticulous division of industrial labour and its standardised products. In reaction to that allegation, they searched for bringing pride to traditional craftmanship by writing and teaching. In the ‘The Seven Lambs of Architecture’, Ruskin stated, ‘The only right question that we can ask in relation to all architecture and ornaments is simply; are they made with joy?’ Their thoughts are still meandering through the world of Design and Architecture.

The element of ‘work’ is linked with ‘making’, the pleasure of creating. Good ‘makers’ are healthy and obsessive discoverers with an open attitude, ready to voyage on capricious tracks to make the most interesting discoveries. From a didactic perspective, ‘making’ provokes a tactile contact with a material that gives highly developed knowledge about its inner substance. When builders are manufacturing, they are in close touch with a facet of reality which most upcoming architects decayed by pressure of real existing surrealism or dispersed by cinematographic culture, electronic media-communication and ubiquitous use of digital means. Intuitive-designing depends on mental processes and internal feelings whereas intuitive-making is guided by mysterious forces between the maker and materials. Fabricating without preliminary ideas and starting directly to manipulate substance glorifies the emancipation of instinct.

An experienced and decent maker is involved during production times in an infinite transformation of things: doing, thinking, perception and evolution strongly melt together. Hesitation and failing are two qualities that we cultivate while practicing internalising the learned skills versus a tacit dimension: ‘We can know more than we can tell’*.

* Wim Nijenhuis, ‘Het Complot van het Maken’, (The Conspiracy of the Making), 2017

The German ‘Kraft’-‘Kraftwerk’ is, on the other hand, clearly focused on rigorous power producing energy, Power Plant! We were inspired by the name and music of ‘Kraftwerk’, one of the first ‘Techno’ bands which was able to transcend pre-digital beats into hypnotic moods. ‘We are the Robots’ and we are sensual.

To explain nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances, ancient cultures defined the four classical elements: Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Once associated with the five senses, they act as medium for the experience of sensations. Earth, created using all the other elements, can be perceived by all five senses: hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell. Water has no odour but can be heard, felt, seen and tasted. Fire can be heard, felt and seen and Air can be heard and felt.

We translated these elements into forces of energy, each one according to one of the four years ‘Craftwork cycle’. Students conceived during the autumn semester territorial masterplans based on one of the four elements combined with specific materials, giving life to an interaction between programming and form-finding considering all scales until 1:1. They concentrated during the spring semester on an architectural object and the existence of its materialisation. Beside the architectural project, students developed an artefact, an individual work strongly related to the spirit of their proposals.

Spatial Manufacturing means working with the human body. Digital means are reduced to bare minimum to avoid seductive blinding. The representation of the students projects is produced on long vertical canvas sheets with techniques such as collage, embroidery, ink, paint or charcoal. Models and mock-ups are underlining the handmade nature of the studio. They are a cultural experience dissolving the spatial distance between the hand and brain to explore primary forces which have an enormous innovative potential in crafting!