< Back to previous page

Project

Building knowledge commons for commons architecture

The commons are social systems in which a community shares resources through self-organised governance. The relationship between the commons and architecture is an intricate one. The architecture at the same time becomes the scene and the tool of the commoning process. The commons is supported by the architecture while it supports back architecture for the space to adapt to the changing needs and desires of the community. The architecture of the commons is a political project and rises upon five conceptual pillars: common good, critical practice, postcapitalism, hacking, and feminism. These pillars act as both the means and ends of the commons as a reflection of its prefigurative character. While the architecture of the commons supports prefiguration, experimenting spatially with the imagined future in the here and now, it also plays a performative role via sharing knowledge. The discourse developed by the design architects of the commons claims these projects to reflect some themes such as solidarity, in-becoming, self-governance, appropriation, and care. This performative act of declaring these projects to have such qualities reinforces the prefiguration. However, this prevents the development of a grounded critique of these projects at the same time.

Current knowledge production, dissemination and transfer mechanisms about architecture and the commons require a critical inquiry. Post-truth, conflict-ridden online communities and limitations of architectural education play a role in shaping the knowledge field of architecture of the commons. The introduction of the knowledge commons to the knowledge production mechanisms strengthens the prefigurative character of the commons in the sense that the knowledge of the commons itself also becomes a commons. Moreover, knowledge commons offers a new approach to building critique for the architecture of the commons.

Critique is essential in altering the relationship between knowledge and power. Since architecture reflects the existing power relations in our society, any alterations in the knowledge-power have the potential of change in the wider society. The critique for the architecture of the commons should open up the knowledge field of architecture by introducing a complete understanding of the (re)production of architecture and by including various voices in the reflection process. A conventional architectural project is composed of two phases: one in which a possible future is imagined and a second in which that future is constructed in reality. This separation gives room for the prefiguration to nourish as soon as that possible future becomes a radical imagination of different ways of living in and around architecture. In the architecture of the commons, these phases are interlinked due to the ever in-becoming character of the commons. Three strands—dissensus-solidarity, inclusion-community, and horizontality-structured network—operate as a versatile tool for critique and governance, an adaptive and temporal approach that aligns with the evolving needs and aspirations of the commons, fostering sustainable, improved, and extended commoning activities. Critique should reflect the prefigurative character of the commons, where architecture becomes the materialization of an envisioned future, and the commons serve as its immaterial realm.

This doctoral research, akin to the ethos of the commons it delves into, has been conducted as an open-source endeavour on a collective editing platform. Authored directly on the comma.network website, the entire process, including draft materials, remains accessible even beyond the culmination of the PhD. Leveraging the principles of knowledge commons, this study extensively draws from open-source repositories, which resist the enclosures of knowledge commons.

Utilizing an Interactive Triangulation of Multiple Methods, the research employs critical reflection, theoretical research, and action learning. Through this rigorous incremental approach, the objective is to enable a profound, robust exploration of the research question, leading to findings grounded in reality. Intermezzos, including reflections on the Gezi Park Protests, engagements with CivicWise, interactions with WikiTribune, and insights from the Comma Network, are woven into the narrative, alongside the articles.

The PhD critically evaluates existing practices and proposes a tool for developing a new critique. The research advocates for the practical implementation of this tool on existing projects within both the architecture of the commons and knowledge commons. The conclusion, therefore, offers seven statements that are both useful in understanding today and also function as insights that may guide the transformation of the intricate relationships between architecture and the commons in the future.

Date:12 Dec 2016 →  10 Oct 2023
Keywords:social architecture, tactical urbanism, criticism
Disciplines:Architectural engineering, Architecture, Interior architecture, Architectural design, Art studies and sciences
Project type:PhD project