Spaces of knowledge creation: tracing 'knowing in action' in jury-based decision-making processes in Switzerland

In this article we analyse how knowledge is generated in the design field of knowledge-based urban development (KBUD). Planners and urban designers, governments on various levels, or construction industry are dealing with complex urban realities in which places, discourses, but also specific spatio-temporal dynamics of economic, juridical and political systems come together. We approach the issue of planning by studying decision-making within juries of design competitions. Here knowledge is produced between actors from different professional and economic backgrounds, between global discourses and local specificities. In order to trace how knowledge creation takes place in decision-making – between various and heterogeneous types of knowledge, between global tendencies for innovation and local prerequisites and settings – we apply Amin and Roberts' concept of 'knowing in action'. We will elaborate on this model using ethnographic data on the work of a jury board in a design competition. As a result we propose a spatial conception that uses the modes of 'knowing in action' as its axes. This allows for the simultaneous positioning of activities and an understanding of the intertwining of different knowledge backgrounds.