Tracing architects' fragile knowing about users in the socio-material environment of design practice

Abstract

The increasing complexity of architectural practice presents a challenge to transferring knowledge from use to design contexts, leaving attending to user experience an implicit design dimension. An ethnographic study in three firms sheds light on how knowledge about user experience – unpacked into facets of perception, activity and meaning – is embedded in architectural practice. It offers insight into the fragile nature of knowledge about user experience, as it is largely contingent, implicit and essentially person-bound. Mapping how this knowledge is mediated by the socio-material environment of design practice allows identifying challenges and leads to knowledge transfer. It highlights the coupling of narratives and materials as a design-oriented way to unlock embodied knowledge, so as to support architects in addressing user experience.