Relational Architecture

“Relational Architecture” is a project developed in collaboration with UTS Professors Andrew Benjamin and Gerard Reinmuth.  The project has been ongoing since 2015 and encompasses writing, lectures and teaching and impacts deeply on the work of TERROIR.

The idea of relational architecture takes as its departure point the assertion that buildings are constituted by and form part of a network of relations.    The consequence of such a description is that it then allows any one object – the building as object – to be an after-effect of the relations that pertain within a given conjunction.    When one understands this, the role of the architect can be re-set as a professional who works on these relations, rather than simply one who designs and produces buildings.  This expanded understanding of what an architect does underpins how we think about the projects that come to us.  Is the answer always a building?  This website, and its’ nominated areas of expertise (Buildings, Urban, Strategy, Data and Research) talk to this expanded understanding of what an architect does.

But if we understand the idea of an architect who works with relations, what does this mean for the projects?  We suggest that in understanding the relations in play on any project and what underpins them gives us the power to “redirect” or “rewire” these relations.  Projects then can optimise or increase the value of relations in play or, if depending on one’s view of a situation, can act. s a”counter measure” to those relations.  Our Third Space and Instruments projects are examples of those counter-measures in built form.