David,

I thank you for taking the time away from packing to respond.

"... better linkages between the people who know and the people who want 
to learn."

My reading always reinforces and shades my thinking and though I meant 
to get back to the bio of Stalin instead I am running along full speed 
with Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Though it may seem 
off track from thinking about the international historic conservation 
movement -- to look at historic socio-political movements helps to 
reflect on our current lives.

A request came to me and I tend to parse down requests in hopes that I 
can understand and respond to them. "A series of hands-on books to be 
read by design professionals in order to bridge the gap between design 
professionals and the traditional trades."

What occurs to me is that the concept of a 'gap' is 1) outdated and not 
particularly relevant to a whole slew of us who do work together on 
projects and share and respect each others knowledge, perspectives and 
dinstinct roles and 2) that there is an element in the mix who need to 
perpetuate the idea for their own reasons that there is a gap. I see the 
idea of there being any gap as being false and convenient to those who 
need to maintain a gap and that to even acknowledge a gap is to enable 
there to be a gap where there is in fact no gap at all.

One of the early questions I was asked re: PTN demonstrators was how one 
can determine the veracity of the information being demonstrated, or 
that would be presumably included in a hands-on book. It had to do in 
specific to the demonstration of a fellow who spends his life repairing 
gravestones. It occurs to me that the question comes from a belief that 
there is an objective 'scientific' knowledge of technique and materials 
that is more correct than any other, if only one can figure out how to 
find that most optimal correctness. My perspective, which I suspect is 
pragmatic, is that despite any objective knowledge, here we have the guy 
that is actually going about repairing gravestones. You can talk with 
him. They have been made available in person for an exchange of ideas, 
for a linkage. The overall intent is one of open and free exchange of 
ideas. If the one with the so-defined objective knowledge chooses to 
engage with the stonemason, so be it, but if they choose not to engage 
then I wonder to what extent they have any business being critical of 
the methodology of the individual stonemason. Technique in the field is 
conditioned by so many more factors than can usually be accomodated in a 
lab environment - to be written in a book - and to not engage with the 
stonemason to understand the 'thinking process' that goes on in their 
sorting their way in a very tactile manner through the variables with 
which they are faced seems to be to negate the need to question the 
veracity of the information. Good or bad technique, here is the 
knowledgeable locus of a unique individual human who engages in the 
process of the work.

What I see is a book that would provide a depth of perspective on 
individual practitioners of traditional trades, their way of thinking, 
their values, how they approach their selection of techniques, that 
would make it aparent that there are people on the tactile side who 
know, who think and are open to be engaged with to learn with. If the 
objective is to bridge the gap then I believe the best way to do that is 
to totally forget that anyone said anything about there being any gap.

 From another perspective, a book, even a video, that would show how an 
architect draws lines I don't see how that would have very much of an 
affect on opening up the stonemason to suddenly understand and have an 
appreciation of the craft of architecture. Whereas hearing that Frank 
Ghery wears a t-shirt that says, Fuck Frank Ghery (the t-shirt provides 
a textual context, a very short book worn by those who at first disliked 
Frank Ghery's work to those who support Frank Ghery's work, including 
himself somwhere in all those t-shirts being sported about, with which 
to compare a set of built environments and an individual associated with 
those environments) provides a context from which to begin, even for a 
stonemason, to wonder what one might be missing in the field of 
contemporary architecture.

Keep moving in good health,
][<en

David West wrote:

>][<en 
> 
>Sunday morning, should be packing for yet another house move, but instead catching up on email.
>

>Loved your ruminations around this topic.
> 
>Coincidentally, yesterday afternoon I was finally (after 20+ years) throwing out my university lecture notes - forced to it by unseen water ingress in the garage turning 40% of them into mouldy slush - and came across the unit on architectural education.  Am out of touch now, but even 20 years ago, there was still a small sector of the architectural profession that had lingering doubts about the direction of architectural education.  Our studies (in the mid-1980s) tended to draw upon writings from the mid-1960s, but even so, the hangover of involving practising architects in the design studio process demonstrates the commitment (philosophical, if not real) to the old concept of architects as apprentices rather than being taught.
> 
>When I reflect on what I have learned about buildings and how they work and what to do to make them work, it is clear to me that whilst the theoretical principles of structural mechanics and heat transfer and water movement have been essential, it has been the hands-on investigation of buildings and working with a wide array of very knowledgeable people, both trades and professions, that has really taught me what I know about the way buildings work and how we can put them together more effectively.
> 
>So when it comes to how-to books - I'm in agreement that we don't need more books.  What we need is better ways of indexing and accessing the published knowledge that already exists.  What we need is better linkages between the people who know and the people who want to learn.  What we need is innovative ways of sharing that information - I love the concept of John Leeke's videoconferences.  Timezone isn't working for me just yet, but I can see how the idea could really transform learning possibilities.
>
> 
>Got to go as there is much still to pack.
> 
>Cheers
>David
>

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