Disruptive Design Tactics for counteracting Experiential Erosion in Architecture

Interested in the relation between architectural design and the experience of space, the project investigates the potential of disruptive design tactics for increasing the experiential capacity of architectural design. Design tactics are specific design actions that intervene running design practices and create surprises in it. Design tactics seem promising for architectural design considering the fact that they are oriented to design action and complement the conventional design methods that focus on design deliverables. The research hypothesis is that in order to counteract the experiential erosion of the architectural vocabulary, the design tactics need to be essentially disruptive in nature. Disruptive encounters can break with what we know and what we expect and create an accumulation of intense experiences. The study takes on the form of a project-based exploration in which creating and investigating are intrinsically interconnected. Design projects constitute the empirical body of the research. From these (context-)specific projects design tactics are extracted that reveal the mechanisms that are at play in the projects. Three types of disruptive design tactics are distinguished in the design practice: tactics that disrupt the construction of matter (intervening in the conception of architecture), tactics that disrupt the construction of meaning (intervening in the conceptualisation [begripvorming] of architecture) and tactics that disrupt experience (intervening in the experience of architecture). Each type deals with a fundamental component of the architectural vocabulary: architectural activities, architectural concepts and architectural elements. The three groups will form the basic setup for the elaboration of the design tactics. The exhibited work will discuss some design tactics more in detail as for example Reconstruction from Memory (relating physical architectural elements with strong emphatic experiences), Enriching by means of Exhausting (to enrich standard techniques with experiential properties by exhausting the functions and possibilities of the technique), Exchanging Value Systems (the designer exchanges the values system that guides his design thinking with the value system of someone/something else) and Reversing Experiences (reversing the chronological construction of experience).status: accepte