Project R-15749

Building Documents: Photography, documents and liability within the fabric of construction sites (Research)

As nodes of intensive labour and architectural transformation, construction sites generate employment, renovation and awe, dust, gridlock and frustration. Less apparent, is their deep entanglement with documents – plans, permits, contracts, safety placards, photographs, measurements, regulations, etc. Through a polycentric and transdisciplinary documentary approach – defying linear and authoritative narratives often associated with the genre – the research examines three distinct appearances of building documents: (1) prescriptive construction details, (2) descriptive on-site photographs and (3) lacking documents that maintain an alleged ignorance about labour conditions through a cascade of subcontractors. At the intersection of landscape, architecture and photography theory and practice, Building Documents investigates construction sites as temporary, yet intense concentrations of material, societal, legal, economic and communicative tensions. They are complex and layered sites through which liability, propelled by a proliferation of documents, moves faster than bricks and mortar. While liability typically denotes legal responsibility for something or someone, Building Documents employs an expanded interpretation of the term to also scrutinize power dynamics at play in documentary practices. It does so in the context of our shared liability with regard to the asymmetric power relations, unequal labour conditions and manifold biases we grapple with.

01 April 2025 - 31 March 2029