This practice-led research exposition by architect-researcher Elina Koivisto explores how conducting architectural practice through the framework of feminist spatial practice can provide possibilities for un-learning harmful habits and reaching towards uncertain speculative futures. The case study project Kudos – Library for Material Relations realized in Espoo, Finland as a co-creative process between human and non-human participants, provided a lens through which the current material and social relations in architecture-making were challenged, applying the conceptual thinking of posthuman feminist thoughts on care and interconnectivity. Reflecting on the project, architecture is seen as a tool for feminist becomings rather than as a producer of mere artefacts, and meaning and significance are found in the process of its making.
This exposition is an entangled whole that can be read through in sequence or in parts. It is divided into four sections. On the Introduction page, the reader can familiarize themself with the theoretical background and context of the research. Next, the research project Kudos - Library for Material Relations is introduced. In Relations, the five main parts of the project are described. Finally in Conclusions some conclusions and further thoughts are laid out. The author recommends beginning with the Introduction.
”The strangest thing is not what you don’t understand, what you didn’t understand to begin with. The strangest thing is what you thought you understood but the understanding of which you suddenly lost. Then obvious becomes incomprehensible. The simplest of things can loose it’s foothold, turn into a question.”
(Liehu 1998). Translation by Koivisto.