Cartography of Architectural Controversies: stabilising architectural motives as putative agents

The processes of building production are seemingly very difficult to manage with the tools derived from organizational and managerial thinking derived from other often more industrial kinds of production. Buildings are still to a large degree one-of productions, dependent on local contexts in terms of climate and geography. The network of each building – clients, users, contractors and advisers - is only on very rare occasions the same as in the next.
These circumstances calls for analytical tools and concepts of the building process with the ability to grasp complexities in building processes that goes beyond the narrow understanding of a linear progression and development of an abstract idea into its concretisation in well-defined phases. On a more specific level, it also calls for understandings of architectural agency that transcends perceptions of a practice confined to the studio or the office.
The paper consists of investigations into such a stance. It is based on empiric studies, readings in architectural theory and applied actor-network theory. Furthermore the paper draws on recent examples of teaching practices pursuing this theme at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.