Abstract
Concrete builds the assets and aesthetics of contemporary cities. This research suggests that concrete also shapes emotions and cognition, generating a tacit body of valuable experience. Construction workers, who engage with this material daily, embody expertise through their bodily practices. Yet their insights remain unheard and underrepresented in the design discourse. This study adopts a material engagement approach, using concrete samples as probes and conducting semi-structured on-site interviews with 14 workers in Shenzhen, China. Analysing 280 minutes of video and audio data thematically, the research reveals that workers and materials mutually shape each other. Workers develop their understanding of concrete through multisensory, temporal, and spatial perceptions. By taking this social group as a case study, the paper reveals the agentic - and unrecognized - role of materials and their craftsmen in shaping urban material culture. The goal is to incorporate workers’ tacit knowledge into future design practices.
Keywords
Material Engagement, Embodied Cognition, Concrete Workers, Social Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1874
Citation
Migliore, E., Zordan, M., and Lin, P. (2026) More than Concrete: The Tacit Knowledge of Construction Workers Through Material Cognition and Embodied Experiences, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1874
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
More than Concrete: The Tacit Knowledge of Construction Workers Through Material Cognition and Embodied Experiences
Concrete builds the assets and aesthetics of contemporary cities. This research suggests that concrete also shapes emotions and cognition, generating a tacit body of valuable experience. Construction workers, who engage with this material daily, embody expertise through their bodily practices. Yet their insights remain unheard and underrepresented in the design discourse. This study adopts a material engagement approach, using concrete samples as probes and conducting semi-structured on-site interviews with 14 workers in Shenzhen, China. Analysing 280 minutes of video and audio data thematically, the research reveals that workers and materials mutually shape each other. Workers develop their understanding of concrete through multisensory, temporal, and spatial perceptions. By taking this social group as a case study, the paper reveals the agentic - and unrecognized - role of materials and their craftsmen in shaping urban material culture. The goal is to incorporate workers’ tacit knowledge into future design practices.