Specifications, Prescriptions and Translations

‌This theme examines ways in which architectural production is shaped, mediated and disseminated by graphic and discursive representational forms. Through a range of research that focuses on different historical and institutional contexts, it considers the ways in which the information that directs the physical construction of architecture is codified and assembled, and the modes of transmission via which it is conveyed.

This is a broad and complex field of inquiry that incorporates, for example, the prescription and material culture of educational and pedagogic spaces in the work of Matthew Margetts and Zeynep Kezer, the transformations and developments of technological tools and capacities as in John Kamara’s research into BIM and knowledge production and in Katie Lloyd Thomas’ historical and theoretical work on the architectural specification, and as in Simon Hacker’s explorations, questions of architectural pedagogy in its relation to professionally prescribed knowledges. As an area of research it connects research by faculty working in areas of history and theory, professional and pedagogical practice and construction technologies. A common project in this area is the development and hosting of the 11th AHRA International Conference Industries of Architecture: Relations, Process, Production now in development for November 2014 and co-organised by Katie Lloyd Thomas and Adam Sharr with Tilo Amhoff (University of Brighton) and Nick Beech (Oxford Brookes University).

People: Simon HackerJohn KamaraZeynep KezerKatie Lloyd ThomasMatthew Margetts.

Projects: