‘Concrete Drawing’: An Ethnographical Study of Design, Matter and Affect

This paper looks critically at how design evolves through an interaction between human and non-human relations. We introduce different ways of understanding this by considering the mediating role that affect has on the design process. To do this we explore a recent work of New Zealand architect Simon Twose through an ethnographical framework. By focusing on affect we highlight the affective capacities and connections between humans and nonhumans. We argue that the affective capacities of non-human objects, matter and spaces are fundamental to the design process, and how knowledge is produced through design. Thus, this paper questions the privileging of human subjectivity – of seeing humans as radically other to matter, where human life remains special and spirited, over the brute force of matter.