Constructive Disobedience: An Experimental Methodology in Architecture

Text by Helga Blocksdorf

Held in Braunschweig, Germany in 2022 the Constructive Disobedience conference invited architects, engineers, manufacturers and craftspeople to present a specific insight into their constructive experiments and to engage in an exchange of ideas and experiences. The aim was to find instructions for action — dispositivi — on how to enable constructive experimentation from the core of the architectural profession, understand it methodically, establish it as design research and thus bring it into recognition academically and on the building site.

In 2025 Birkhäuser brought together many of the projects and contributions from the conference in the form of a book “Constructive Disobedience: An Experimental Methodology in Architecture”. Conference co-founder Helga Blocksdorf wrote the introduction to the book and we present an abridged version of that text below.

Helga Blocksdorf Architektur’s Weimar Pavilion project has been added to our Site Specific project archive here.

HB Each experiment contains a chance of failure. Even if the natural sciences treat falsification as a valid result, we as practising architects, feel very much alone in the moment of tension and trepidation in anticipating a successful outcome. This is particularly palpable when it involves a constructive experiment within a planning and building process. The risk, in the last resort, rests on the architect’s shoulders — the built outcome is primarily attributed to the planning, and with it responsibility for a building devoid of defects. In this sense, most people steer shy of untrodden paths. If we nonetheless do dare to experiment, then it is for a simple reason, namely out of a feeling of responsibility vis-à-vis our planet and a hope of peaceful coexistence.

Concerning the research theme of constructive experimentation, we are convinced that this is part of any architect’s DNA. In the age of resource and climate crisis, this is acquiring new and critical relevance.

In 2014 Anette Spiro expressed her wish to replace security with experimentation, and I quote her words [1]:

‘Architecture is rooted in knowledge, but equally in empiricism. When Filippo Brunelleschi won the competition for the construction of the dome of Florence Cathedral (1418), the ground storey had already been built. But no one knew how to bridge the 43-metre-wide span, because since the building of the Pantheon (circa 118 and 125 CE) there hadn’t been anywhere near as large a space arched over with a dome again. The knowledge of the Roman master builders had been long forgotten, and there still weren’t engineers who knew how to calculate the statics. Nonetheless, the dome was built — and still stands today.’

Brunelleschi’s dome embodies three main characteristics that provide analogies to current approaches: firstly using the form (the steepness of the dome) to organise an optimised load transfer; secondly the revolutionary invention of the double concentric shells, which obviated the need for timber framework scafolding; and lastly the flat and interlocking herring bone of the bricks, which saved on mass and material. To what extent Brunelleschi was already aware of these solutions when he won the competition, or to what extent they were due to empirical study and experimentation on-site, is not fully scientifically proven, but his quote ‘because in masonry, practice teaches how to proceed’ [2] opens up scope for studying the influence of constructive experimentation.

In summer 2019 calls were issued for a competition for a temporary exhibition building in Weimar, with a wish for building construction experimentation already written into the proposed scheme. When we won the project in autumn 2019 with the idea of a light and shining birch-bark facade, we couldn’t imagine if it was even possible to clad the cross-laminated timber with such an unconventional material. Even though we were able to present long-lasting historical examples, it is still not actually allowed to use this ecological material under current building regulations.

Therefore an important element in the research methods in our constructive experiment was deep material research, involving interviewing international craftspeople and possible suppliers, early self-built test forms as well as exploratively designing variants, iterative fire tests and a 2x2m mock-up to gain our client’s confidence. Perhaps surprisingly, all the pain experienced in achieving it vanishes once the object has been completed.

To this extent, a further method level is to draw out — herauszeichnen — the knowledge hidden in the built artefact in the form of drawings and plans, to make it accessible and verifiable. And any precise documentation of an experimental design should include another absolutely vital aspect, namely its compatibility.

This leads us to the research aim — the contributions that can be passed on to the community of practitioners at large. Matthias Ballestrem has published a dialogical reflection on design research in architecture, together with Lidia Gasperoni. In it he outlines what he thinks are the minimum expectations of constructive experiments in terms of compatibility: ‘if [one] shows a successful violation of building regulations, then engineers can follow it up and deal with the technical questions that arise from it’ [3].

This suggests the integrative power of constructive experimentation, building a specific research format to unite architects, engineers and craftspeople under the auspices of one idea. The ongoing measurements in Weimar of the performance of the birch bark should bring more insights regarding building climate control and wood-moisture management. These are preliminary studies, involving incorporating birch bark into a variety of viable constructions [4].

And the first and last and indeed most difficult criterion to discuss methodologically within the framework of constructive experiments is quality. Whether a work of architecture is accepted into the common canon of architecture lies not in our hands. Without wanting to caution us, it is important not to forget that architecture is a free species of fine art.

Footnotes

[1] - Spiro, Annette. 2014. ‘Mehr Zeit! Weniger Absicherung!’ Werk Bauen + Wohnen 4: 60–65.

[2] - Manetti, Antonio.1992. Vita di Filippo Brunelleschi. Edited by Carlachiara Perrone. Rome: Salerno Editrice.

[3] - Ballestrem, Matthias, and Lidia Gasperoni (eds.). 2023. Epistemic Artefacts: A Dialogical Reflection on Design Research in Architecture. Baunach: Spurbuchverlag.

[4] - Biagi, Marco. 2022. ‘Temporärer Pavillon, Weimar, Deutschland’. Casabella 932 (April): 4–9.

NOTES

This text is an edited version of the introduction to the book Constructive Disobedience: An Experimental Methodology in Architecture published in 2025 by Birkhäuser.

Many thanks to Helga Blocksdorf for help putting this post together and for sharing the text and project with us.

Posted 22nd May 2025.