Architecture, Classified

Maryia Rusak

Abstract

“When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it, but when you cannot measure it, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind,” maintained the 1970 report of the CIB, the International Council for Research and Innovation in Construction. Founded in the mid-1950s, the Council brought together efforts of European and global research institutions studying different aspects of building construction. Specifically, the W52 Working Group investigated problems of information flow and explored possibilities for designing a unified international building classification system administered by a computer. However, such international ambition posed many issues: how can one translate the many culturally specific cost variables of the construction process and classify them into universal data sets? The Working Group proposed adopting a Swedish SfB system, which classified construction processes into “activities” or “resources,” then assigned them to a specific cost unit and coded them into a unified catalogue. And while the new computer-based system was supposed to streamline construction and provide a better overview of building costs, it faced unexpected challenges. Construction labour costs, for example, were culturally specific variables, perceived, quantified, and processed differently in countries across Europe, let alone the rest of the world, introducing immediate algorithmic issues for a system with a global reach. As part of a broader investigation of the role of language and translation in describing architectural processes via text, this essay is particularly interested in practical and intellectual frictions between the abstract universalism of the envisioned building classification system and the many incidental cost variables of a specific architectural project. Equipped with original archival sources produced by the CIB and intellectual mediations of the architects engaged with the system, this contribution challenges the element-to-cost quantification paradigm embedded in the W52 report and many BIM processes in architecture today.

Bio

Maryia Rusak is an architect and architectural historian who works with transnational histories. She is currently a Junior Research Fellow at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Recently, she has been an ETH Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-24) at the Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design, ETH Zurich. Her postdoctoral project investigates the Nordic architecture of foreign aid in postcolonial Africa, focusing on the pragmatic and economic rationale behind its production. In her doctoral dissertation completed at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (2022), Maryia examined the prolific building output of a Norwegian timber prefabrication company that, between 1955 and 1973, built schools, large housing developments and public buildings across the country.

As a researcher, Maryia is particularly interested in the histories of everyday objects, networks of bureaucratic institutions, obscure intricacies of architectural production and, in general, how buildings are made. Her current work explores post-colonial narratives across cultural and geographic divides. Maryia holds an M.Arch. in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design from KTH, Stockholm, and a BA in Architecture from Princeton University, USA. Recently, her writings appeared in the Architectural Theory Review (2022), Journal of Architecture (2024), OASE (2024), Footprint (2025) and Journal of Architectural Design and History (2025).

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