Matthew Dalziel is a PhD by practice fellow at the Oslo School of Architecture’s Institute of Architecture. His research project titled: Architectural Imagination after Human Exceptionalism, uses methods of praxis (theory in practice) to explore the intersectional quandaries of architectural craft, tectonic culture, and environmental crisis.

__________

If novelists write with words then architects write with walls. We create partitions for the purposes of shelter and for the creation of meaning through the delineation of space. While for most of history these walls have been porous earthen assemblages, modernist values of efficiency have produced captivating new stories which value the inert, the impermeable, and the imperishable. In these stories, economic narratives of perpetual growth are paired with scientific pursuits of perpetual life, and cultural practices of maintenance and care are replaced with tales of emancipation from labour.

For architects, storytelling is a common practice. As we develop into our practices, we build libraries of personal references. These references are thought-tools, stories we use to make new stories. As we imagine our way into relationship with the challenges of our time, the cultivation of new thought-tools is a core practice. This PhD by practice uses the method of praxis (theory in practice) to graft together insights from Posthumanism and Environmental Humanities discourses with live architecture and landscape projects. In doing so it seeks to cultivate imaginative capacity to help to reframe the age-old questions of why we build and who we build for. While architectural imaginaries have begun to turn toward the planetary and perhaps even the earthbound through notions of technology, this PhD asks questions about the narratives, the cosmologies, the semiotics, and the ontologies of our practices.

The PhD project is supervised by Even Smith Wergeland and Hélène Frichot.

__________

Oslo School of Architecture and Design / Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen

Maridalsveien 29, 0175 Oslo