The Art of Experiment: Post-pandemic Knowledge Practices for 21st Century Architecture and Design

Rolf Hughes' new book explores the central roles of experiment and artistic research to experimental architecture. Using artefacts, performances, storytelling, and rituals to devise new immersive experiences, experimental architecture connects forms of research expertise which have traditionally been kept apart by convention.

Enlightenment metaphors are displaced by alternative, even radical, knowledge structures, value systems, and cultural impacts. Knowledge making becomes sensory, embodied, and experiential, using 'messy' laboratories for disruptive, innovative inquiry through spaces such as storytelling, prose poems, contemporary circus arts and magic. These methods suggest radical juxtapositions but are rooted in bodies, materials and choreography, leading to design synthesis and new theoretical insights.

The Art of Experimentcelebrates curiosity, fascination and enchantment, demonstrating ways in which these help us to discover new ways in which to think, feel, and design. Featuring a wide range of experimental case studies, this innovative and unusual book is destined to inspire students and researchers in architecture, design, and art and visual culture.