Clara No. 11: The Ethics of Detailing

Clara’s 11th issue The Ethics of the Detailing is guest-edited by Tiphaine Abenia (Université libre de Bruxelles), Louis Destombes (ENSA La Villette) and Daniel Estevez (ENSA Toulouse). This issue explores contemporary practices and theories surrounding architectural detailing and their ethical implications. It approaches the detail as an active site of negotiation, where those who make decisions are not always those who construct, and rarely those who inhabit. Starting from this tension, the seven contributions— authored by architects, engineers, landscape architects, and researchers—seek to question and expand the conceptual frameworks that define the architectural detail.

The Position(s) section includes an original translation, by Marine Beuerle and Mathias Rollot, of a 1984 text by Jos Boys (Matrix collective), an introduction examining the possibilities of a feminist critique of architecture.