BestandTeile – Das Jahrbuch der KIT-Fakultät für Architektur 2022

tion line. The machines that mass-produce also embody
skilled craft and can help keep the standards as a measuring
tool for the quality and value of the resulting objects.
Developing craftsmanship into larger (production)
volumes requires thinking about how to conceptualize this
transfer to ensure that in the process, the power of the craft
does not run through one's fingers while only the label sticks.
This transfer from one domain to another, from one material
complex to another, involves creative and bold adaptation.
Crafts – transferability, and affordances
In the pre-industrial societies, crafts were not a separate
concept from any other kind of production. Humankind
developed many handicraft techniques that are not yet systematically
explored for larger contexts, such as architecture.
According to Glenn Adamson, “craft makers possess
extraordinary reserves of technical knowledge, while experimental
scientists often talk about the importance of having
good hands. The same goes for medicine. Caring for the
human body demands much more than a knowledge of anatomy
and chemistry; it's a tactile business”. ↘ 3 Can we look
at the various domains of crafts, recognize the deep connection
between material properties, form specificities, tool
usage, and technical procedures that evolved over centuries,
and see how to transfer its logic to architectural scales? If we
see the roof as a protective and containing layer, we could
relate this to inflatable or tent-like panes and ultimately to
skin. Equalling some seminal characteristics of materials
allows us to think about the transferability of the techniques
involved in each case: Skin can be constructed into form,
and roofs can be sutured. For sure, the challenges differ with
skins or roofs-as-skins. And here, the opportunity for productively
interpreting and thinking into the future starts.
How can we do a larger-than-human suture while keeping
the valuable crafty knowledge built into these century-old
methods and without getting into the trap of merely referring
on a metaphorical level to it?
One strategy to avoid craftwashing could be to
have a close analytic look at the whole range of practices
Garriga Tarrés, Hartmann,
Hinterwaldner
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