Tectonic vocabulary and materialization: Discourse on the future of tectonic architectural research in the Nordic countries

By referring to the fundamental question of how we unite aesthetics and technology – tectonic theory is necessarily a focal point in the development of the architectural discipline. However, a critical reconsideration of the role of tectonic theory seems necessary when facing the present everyday conditions of the built environment. We see an increasing number of square meters in ordinary housing, in commercial buildings and in public buildings such as hospitals and schools that are dealt with as performative structural frameworks rather than qualitative spaces for habitation and contemplation. On the occasion of the Second International Conference on Structures & Architecture held in July 2013 in Portugal the authors organized a special session entitled From open structures to the cladding of control bringing together researchers from the Nordic countries to discuss this issue. Likewise the initiative to establish a Nordic Network for Research and Teaching in Tectonics is currently forming. This paper seeks to jointly reflect upon these initiatives in order to bring them further, with the intention to clad a discourse on the future of tectonic architectural research that addresses the conditions of everyday architectural practice. In this matter the paper focuses on the need to juxtapose theoretical studies, to bring the present vocabulary of the tectonic further, as well as to spur further practical experiments enabling theory to materialize in the everyday of the current practice.