Critical craft: Disruptive practices of careful making

Abstract

This thesis expands discussions with craft to situate practices of attentive (co/re)making as fruitful ways of knowing and becoming within the field of architectural theory, study and practice. The research is sited as current and urgent in the context of ongoing political, climatic and societal crises around the world that are entangled with colonial and capitalist modes of operation that rely on the bifurcation of mind and body, theory and practice, and individual and community. The thesis discusses craft practices in a way that subverts the dominant narrative, offering opportunities for new encounters and ways of knowing through entangled relationships. As such, craft is not positioned in false opposition to other ways of making and knowing, but in fact both of and with them, including processes of mass production and abstraction. The research provides a critical perspective with craft practices through three case studies, conducted within the scope of architectural education, although the degree of formality varies greatly. As a methodology, these case studies allow for theoretical principles to be explored, reflected on, and critically discussed in a reciprocal manner, where the practices themselves also contribute to a (co/re)production of knowledge. Each new case study becomes entangled with aspects from previous chapters as new discussions are brought into view through the relation to literature and learnings with practices. The thesis itself is also self-reflective, it provides an opportunity for the author to critique broader concepts of knowledge production and naturalisation through their own practice and experience. It is sited in the context of modern-day Türkiye, but in order to critique the naturalisation of knowledge production from privileged positions, the author's own white British cis male experience is also present throughout. The thesis delicately balances theory and practice throughout, writing with as a research method that challenges hierarchies of knowledge. Following an introduction that contextualises the research within a landscape of comparable pedagogical, practical, and theoretical approaches in Türkiye and beyond, the second chapter foregrounds the partiality of craft/architectural knowledges. I explore partiality through a critical reflection with a pair of two-day steam-bending workshops, held within the context of formal architectural education, and theories of knowledge (co/re)production, material agency and critical pedagogy. Steam-bending involves exposing timber to steam for an extended period, loosening its cell structure and rendering it temporarily plasticised. One of these workshops is held at Istanbul Technical University with undergraduate students from the faculty of architecture, the other is held at the Istanbul Chamber of Architects as part of their 'Kent Düsleri' (City Dreams) summer school. The difference between the number of participants in and situation of the workshops offers a comparative opportunity for exploration of these theoretical concepts. I also discuss the process of preparing and organising the workshops as an integral part of the pedagogical approach where I unsettle the dichotomy of teacher and learner despite the process's very specific technical and learned bodily obligations. By positioning the workshops as simply an opportunity to explore the process of steam-bending, and relationships that come to the fore during this process, the participants are distracted from concepts of failure in relation to design and outcome, and instead more openly encounter materiality and the process of making together. The following chapters take place in less conventional grounds for architectural education, although still sited within this framework. I write them with the (co/re)production of a community space in post-disaster Kahramanmaraş, 'Sümer Space'. The research critically engages with craft in the difficult and uncertain terrain of post-disaster southern Türkiye in a way which not only challenges the limits of craft, but also the meaning of community in such scarred territories. The construction phase of this project however is discussed in non-chronological order, after a workshop designed to activate the space titled 'InterWoven Practices'. The third chapter aims to discuss the transformative potential of ways of knowing and becoming that arise during craft practice through a critical reflection on the 'InterWoven Practices' workshop and conceptualisations of waste, repair, and reuse. Taking place over two weeks, and between the territories of Istanbul and Kahramanmaraş, the workshop entangles material flows with the process of recovery following the 2023 earthquakes. While its primary aim to permanently activate the space for community use is not successful, it discusses the temporal spaces, communities and relationships that emerge with craft practices that promote alternative ways of thinking about repair and reuse, rather than quick-fix extractive practices. In chapter four, I return to the process of building Sümer Space. This section opens up discussions around care that have been an undercurrent to the thesis throughout. I critically reflect on concepts of community, activism and sloppiness intertwined with the practice of building the community space itself within the framework of care. Working with discussions of political activism developed from feminised forms of fibre craft, I discuss the participatory process of building together as radical in the context of state-led (re)construction plans both before and after the earthquake. Using a more-than-human perspective, the research also expands the concept of community to open up possibilities of what it means to care and craft together. The concept of sloppiness is written with to critique the idea of well-crafted and further unsettle the concept and perceived goals of craft production. Broadly, the thesis writes with specific craft practices to argue that these ways of knowing, making and becoming contribute to a richer conceptualisation of architecture as a whole. They provide routes to ground highly abstracted architectural practice in entangled networks of relationships that position architecture with and of craft, as much as the inverse. The thesis works with processes of craft that lead conventionally to 'craft-objects', woodwork, building and weaving, but disrupts the discussion around them by reframing the outcomes as temporal and unstable in relation to the ongoing flow of materials, rendering them almost inconsequential. The research expands on the complex network of relationships that take place when attentive makers correspond not only with material, but with the world around them more generally including human and non-human agents. Through the research, I also reckon with deeply rooted ideas of human exceptionalism, asking questions of how craft might be reframed in a more-than-human framework. In the process of expanding conceptualisations of craft practices, the thesis unsettles anthropocentric conceptualisations of object-based production and provides understandings through the lens of care. It is explicitly limited and partial, concluding not with concrete proposals, but reflections on how craft-led architectural research may (co/re)produce alternative ways of knowing and becoming together.