See(d)(k)ing time: an approach to how to design as research

Cidália Ferreira da Silva

This is a thesis about time as a practice within architecture as an expanded field that embodies contemporary challenges regarding territory. Time as a practice is an opportunity to question the architectural praxis, its tools and ways of thinking, namely the embedded dichotomy between design and research in order to re-connect the field of architecture with the challenges of contemporary places, namely those brought by the extensive urbanization and exponential growth throughout the second half of the 20th century. If in the beginning of the 20th century Modern Movement architects faced the urgency of inhabitation for the millions of people without houses, in the beginning of the 21st century we are faced with a new challenge: how to re-make once more what is already made? This problematic grounds the argument of this thesis that asserts it is more than a question of ‘space’: this is a ‘time’ challenge, hence a remaking asks for seeing places as complex time processes in which each intervention is only a brief ‘snapshot’ of what the place will-be-and-has-been. It is from this problematic that the research’s key question arises and justifies its relevance: how to design-research with time from within contemporary earth-places? The research question unfolds through 12 papers, from which five are published, organized in four series, with three papers each. In order to understand ‘how to design-research with time,’ we first need to recognize, ‘to see’ contemporary earth-places; this is the aim of series one that simultaneously reveals the lack of time consideration in both contemporary interpretation and the intervention on earth-places, introducing the new label —fissiform territory. Series two and three focus on answering the keyquestion by exploring the relationships between future-pastpresent through folded time as coexistence and through lived time, namely by: (a) unfolding an innovative disciplinary project the ‘interproject’, a design-as-research practice, in which proposing and knowing are one and through which we generate new knowledge; (b) and by setting the four time operations to practice time—Grounding, Gleaning, Inciting, and Transmuting. How to seek knowledge is the seed already found in series two and three that is developed through the practice of see(d)(k)ing explored in series four. See(d)(k)ing overcomes both the design and research label to develop an hypothesis that is in-between and beyond. Having as its aim to contribute for opening potential ways of seeking new disciplinary knowledge, it explores the lived time practice of see(d)(k)ing (seeing, seeding, and seeking) that embodies uncertainty as a mechanism to create (not-)knowing. This thesis is printed on paper of two colors: (a) the papers are printed on white; (b) the relational basis ‘across’ is on blue, namely: (1) the discourse on time as a practice that justifies the argument of this thesis and its relevance (why), explains its structure and the relationships across the papers’ series (what), as well as the lived time methodology that provides a straight relationship with the papers (how); (2) the conclusion; (3) the glossary; (4) and lastly, the bibliography.