Based in Berlin, Daryan Knoblauch's practice revolves around what he calls “functional misuse.” He draws from a catalogue of technical components — aluminum trusses used in theatre sets, mobile construction cranes, wind turbines, pollution sensors, LED screens, rainwater cisterns — and brings them into architecture in ways that feel slightly displaced from their original purpose.
Like many architects today, Knoblauch seems drawn to the parts of buildings we usually overlook: their structural frames, their mechanical systems, their hydrological networks. In our conversation he cites the work of Barbara Penner, a friend of the podcast, whose research into bathrooms and plumbing reminds us how deeply infrastructure shapes everyday life, even — especially — when it remains out of sight.
Ways of practicing like this could be thought of as an attempt to assert architecture’s waning agency — a rebellion against the growing burocracy and technical contstaints of contmeporary practice. In other words, its a reminder that even in an age saturated with metrics and systems, and fundamentally shaped by digital culture, form still matters. Space still matters. The discipline doesn’t dissolve into data; instead it continues to reorganize it, frame it, and give it new presence.
Scaffold is a podcast series featuring interviews with architects, artists and designers. Hosted by Matthew Blunderfield and produced by the Architecture Foundation, it is available on Apple Pocasts, Spotify, and most major podcast streaming platforms.
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