"Making strange" is a popular pedagogical technique in architecture (a highly formalistic activity). For example, students on a field trip to a site will constr

"Making strange" is a popular pedagogical technique in architecture (a highly formalistic activity). For example, students on a field trip to a site will construct a "device" which they will use to examine/measure/represent some conditions on the site. It's a way of both getting started with the making of an object, and of more closely engaging with the environment, hopefully prompting an inventive architectural response. Shklovsky is a common point of reference.