I, T.T. Stands

Two Days in the Life of an Object in the Making

Abstract

What does it take to describe the design of an object from the point of view of the object itself? What are the implications of writing on its behalf, in the first person and in the active voice? Through the partial and biased description of a single scene of observation, this paper explores the way ethnographies of architecture and their accompanying theories, such as the actor-network theory, are able to widen our conceptions of the design participants’ agency. Undertaken as a writing experiment, the chosen mode of description aims at expanding our ability?–?as observer and as designer?–?to account for, and work with, multiple gradients of existence. By amplifying and specifying the various ways in which the object-in-the-making is participating in the design decisions, the text does not only push the limits of our usual accounts of design, it also insists on the active attention that all participants of the design process, human and non human, require