The Way We Do Things Around Here
Specification Versus Craft Culture in the History of Building
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3756042 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Scott Francisco (DEGW North America, New York, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 970-988 |
| Publication date | 2007-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0002764206298322 |
| OpenAlex | W1984201214 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 4 |
Buildings have always played a role in negotiating the boundary between individual expression and social context. Through the lens of architectural history, this article explores the relationships between "community," "culture," "craft," and "specification"-concepts fundamental to the way people express themselves and develop group behaviors and collective meaning. The article focuses on the tension between "craft," as an implicit community practice based on "skill" and "knowledge," and "specification," which presumes an explicit and abstract means of communicating "information." At the center is the elusive concept of "design." But what is design? How does it affect culture at an incremental and substantial level? How do new values, both individual and collective, weigh in to the question of cultural change through design? Coming full circle, the article reflects on how the design of built space is integrated into communicative praxis itself, framing and cultivating particular forms of dialogue while displacing or resisting others
Aesthetics · Craft · Epistemology · Framing (construction) · Meaning (existential) · Negotiation · Praxis · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Architecture, Design, and Social History · Engineering · Historical Architecture and Urbanism · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,21 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2023 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |