From Handbook to Help Desk: Software Knowledge and Architectural Practice aims to problematize design software as an active agent in the evolution of architectural practice and provide a counterpoint to its perceived neutrality as solely a tool or instrument. The project traces a series of historical moments that illustrate how design software and its attendant manuals, handbooks, guides, developers, researchers, and users restructured architectural practice and labor in the late 20th Century through today. The project takes the position that architectural design is fundamentally a form of labor, a human activity intertwined as much in economic production as in cultural production. As such, this study of practice (the architectural profession and workplace) and labor (the organization and enactment of architectural work) focuses on the actors, social phenomena, power relations, and values involved in architecture’s evolution with software. It establishes a techno-social history of design software knowledge and unpacks its various roles in changing how architectural work is conducted in contemporary practice. 

date

September 2022 -

Team

Galo Canizares

Sergio M. Figueiredo

Bernard Colenbrander