In this chapter, I explore the performative characters of the architecture of the commons in publications. My aim is two-fold. First, I reveal how the architecture of the commons appoints certain themes as a performative act. Secondly, I examine how these themes are spatialised in the architectures of the commons. In other words, I try to understand if a new possible future is being built with this performativity in addition to the physical materiality of the architecture of the commons.
As the aims are two-fold, I follow two parallel tracks. In the first one, I make a thematic analysis of the existing publications on three selected cases. For a structured analysis, I use the five pillars of the architecture of the commons(common good, critical practice, postcapitalism, hacking, and feminism), defined in the previous chapter. These pillars are contextualized in three projects: La Borda in Barcelona, Prinzessinengarten in Berlin, and R-urban in various locations in France. With a thematic analysis based on the publications in which the three projects were featured, I define the repeated patterns and generate a matrix of the most commonly used themes.
In the second track, I look at the cases to understand how these key themes, which were found via the thematic analysis(solidarity, in-becoming, self-governance, appropriation and care), are spatialized. This serves as a way to understand the characteristics of the architecture of the commons while at the same time exploring its performative characteristics via publications.
I conclude by bringing together these two parallel tracks, and discuss the relevancy of these themes in today’s architecture and unfold the relationships between performativity and critique in the architecture of the commons.
Methodology
For this chapter, I applied three main methodologies: case study, thematic analysis and critical reflection.
To understand the architecture of the commons’ performative features I selected three cases. I explain below our selection criteria for these cases, basically based on their geographical, programmatic and democratic characteristics. Yet I did not observe or question their capacities and/or potentials for the commons. I wanted to focus on their performativity in publications. I worked on generating a lengthy reading list focusing on these three cases. From academic journals to mainstream architectural magazines and online websites I read the existing material to understand how both the architects themselves and various authors are explaining these projects.
Through these readings, I made a thematic analysis, which is”a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns(themes) within data.”(Braun and Clarke, 2006). In the process of categorizing the themes, I preferred a deductive approach in which I took our literature review research on the five pillars of the architecture of the commons as the starting point. Considering the constructed knowledge of the three cases as the data sets I singled out certain themes. With a latent reading, I framed the themes under the five pillars of the architecture of the commons. From this exercise, I developed a matrix in which the relationship between the pillars and themes is revealed. Even though thematic analysis is generally applied to qualitative research, in the scope of this chapter I applied it to quantitative research to understand how the textual and visual representation of architecture is developing performativity specific to commons.
Rather than following a predefined hypothesis, with critical reflection I aimed to understand the relationship between the performativity of the architecture of the commons and its spatialization.“Critical reflection involves us recognising and researching the assumptions that undergird our thoughts and actions within relationships…”(Brookfield, 2009). Via critical reflection, I rethink how these projects are covered and represented in publications and how they perform in a prefigurative way.
The architecture of the commons
The relationship between the commons and architecture became a hot topic on the agenda of the architecture field after the economical crisis of 2008, and the following protest movements. With the lack of job opportunities and the bankruptcy of real estate firms as well as architecture offices, architects, especially the young generation of architects, had to innovate the profession itself(Steuteville, 2020). This innovation led to unsolicited projects realised mostly in public spaces. Temporary use, guerilla urbanism, activist architecture, and tactical urbanism were some of the names given to these practices. Massimo de Angelis(2017) considers commons as systems under which all the dispersed struggles against extractive processes of capitalism(i.e. poverty, climate change, gender inequality) would come together for a unified front. Similar to this approach I propose to bring together the architectural efforts against the destruction of livelihoods, exploitation of natural resources, enclosure of public spaces, displacement of the marginalised or low-income groups and architecture becoming a service for the 1% under the umbrella of the architecture of the commons.
The architecture of the commons is not architecture as a commons in which the knowledge generated in architecture becomes a common resource. However, it is not rare that architects incorporate processes of open sourcing in their practices. Different from common space or urban commons, the architecture of the commons implies the intentional(co-)design of the space concurrently. The commons is supported by the architecture while it supports back architecture for the space to adapt to changing needs and desires of the commoners. When translated into the tripodal ingredients of the commons(the commoners, the shared resource, and protocols) architecture is at the same time the resource and the co-determinant of the protocols, which is open to appropriations by the commoners. Therefore, this intentional(co-)design has an inherent quality of being open to constant transformation or of enduring the permanent phase of being in becoming(Petrescu, 2007). In this respect, the architectural work becomes entangled with community, care work and agency as well as with conflicts.
The architecture of the commons is the co-production of spatial interventions with the commoners using commoning protocols, opening up the design process as a commons. The spatial outcome of the architecture of the commons is also a commons governed by the commoners. Here the prefigurative aspect of the commons is recognizable since the in-the-making(the co-design and co-implementation processes) and the in-use(the spatial product[ion] that allows commoning practices) phases function towards the same horizon.“Divergent social strata and currents clash here, but all the same they have their gaze fixed on the same horizon, one where society is organized in such a way that equality and solidarity are balanced with liberty.”(Gielen, 2018, p.83). These two phases of in-the-making and in-use are inseparable not only because of the divergent prefigurative approach but also because of the constant in-becoming characteristics of the architecture of the commons.
Previously I defined the pillars of the architecture of the commons, the conceptual foundations that imply its means and ends: common good, postcapitalism, critical spatial practice, hacking, and feminism(Ertas & Pak, 2018) This set of concepts are derived from contemporary readings on the commons, focusing on building a new system of social relations, especially when they take spatial forms. Briefly, I will try to explain the relevance of these pillars to the commons.
The common good is useful in reminding us of the main direction for commoning practices. With its embedded inclusive characteristics the commons aim to generate situations that are in the better interests of all. Especially when the notion of sharing interests is expanded towards more than humans, the commons gains a posthumanist perspective that offers new strings of ideas in dealing with climate change. Postcapitalism draws the motivation beyond the architecture of the commons in radically imagining life after capitalism. It is about rethinking the property relationships, labour arrangements in the design and construction processes, and social and economic effects of urban and architectural decisions. Critical(spatial) practice recalls the melting boundaries between theory and practice in which thinking and making keep feeding each other. As mentioned above, the in-becoming quality of the commons allows it to reproduce the social relations it generates and this is crucial for the sustainability of the commons. Hacking as a tool to generate the architecture of the commons offers new perspectives in open design, shared authorship, and tactical fields of action. With innovative reuse of existing materials, modularisation and sharing of knowledge across different commoners hacking allow the architecture to grow and spread. As the last pillar, feminism is considered crucial, especially in the governance of the commons and intersectional perspectives on inclusion. It can support defining protocols of sharing in an equal and inclusive manner while ethics of care ensures the commoners don’t feel excluded or unheard in decision-making.
After this introduction to the architecture of the commons and the five pillars that define them now, I am going to look into performativity and its relevance with the architecture of the commons. This will be followed by the cases of the architecture of the commons to understand the widely used terms and themes that define their spatial qualities. The three projects will help us to understand the architecture of the commons via written texts by the design architects, critiques and academicians, and visual material, such as photos, and architectural drawings. The cases will be useful in making an in-depth analysis of the most commonly used themes and how they are spatialised in the architectures of the commons.
Performativity
In Bodies That Matter(1993) Judith Butler discusses how performativity affects reality.“Within speech act theory, a performative is that discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names.”(p.xxi). This indicates that merely by saying something, that becomes real. A common situation is to be found in a marriage ceremony; when the partners are pronounced man and wife they become married.“The words do what they say.”(Felluga). While this speech act can be from the outside, that can also come from the person in action. This is how gender is performed by the persons themselves. Expanding her thinking from the gendered subjectivity towards social movements in her 2015 book Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Butler argues that“performativity is a way of naming a power language has to bring about a new situation or to set into motion a set of effects.”(p.28). The power that is revealed by performativity can either be the dominant social system or an emerging one, a counter-power for transformation by challenging the existing norms via speech and act.
While the architecture of the commons performs in space through its materialisation, and its continuous in-becoming mode in which the commoners reshape the space according to changing needs and desires, it also generates performativity. This performativity can be found in how the involved architects and commoners build a discourse on their experience of the shared space. Part of this discourse is reflected in publications on examples of architecture of the commons. Through these publications, which provide the basis for the thematic analysis, a new discourse in architectural thinking is being constructed.
I argue that this performativity is part of the prefigurative characteristics of the commons. While“creating change in the here and now and living the‘other worlds’ to make them possible”(Harding, 2015), the commoners at the same time generate performativity which makes these‘other worlds’ possible via the construction of a new discourse. As a process of make-believe, people who are writing on the architecture of the commons seem to aim to underline these other traits of architecture. As opposed to conventional and/or mainstream approaches(formal, experiential or activist)(Lange, 2012), the texts on architectures of the commons concentrate on the social dimensions of the spaces as a living experiment, in which such terms as solidarity, conviviality, appropriation and care come into play. This emphasis on the life of the commons and its reflection on architecture is defining the performativity of the architecture of the commons.
In doing so, the architecture of the commons, both with its existence and performative characteristics, reveals how other worlds could be possible. Since this other world is to be constructed altogether with the commoners, the performative aspect of the architecture of the commons relies heavily on the positive experiences and intentions of the commoners. As part of the prefigurative aspect of the commons, performativity conceals critique. The publications on three examples of architecture of the commons, mostly written by the architects themselves, tell a feel-good story about these spaces while it is almost impossible to read failures, misuses or conflicts, except the ones coming from the external forces such as a municipality taking the land back from the commoners as is in the case of R-Urban Colombes. The commons created together with the laborious work of the architects, seem to have no problems that is coming from the inside as if everyone knew how to live in common.
Since performativity is necessary for constructing the‘other worlds' as a counter-power to the existing status quo, the commoners feel the need to show the good work, the possibility and potentiality of the‘other worlds’. This becomes problematic for knowledge production in the field of architecture of the commons since it lacks criticality.
Cases
I will make a thematic analysis of the publications on La Borda in Barcelona designed by Lacol, Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin, which also houses Die Laube designed by Quest((Christian Burkhard and Florian Köhl) and R-Urban in Colombes designed by Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée(aaa). The selection of the cases relies on four main parameters to make a comprehensive but at the same time focused analysis. I chose the cases which claim themselves as commons that share similar democratic backgrounds, have diverse programs and have high visibility. Lastly, I prioritised the projects I know better since I had previously conducted interviews with the designers and visited two of three projects.
For a coherent discourse analysis and not to extend this chapter into another field of research into whether the cases are examples of architecture of the commons or not, I chose the projects that express themselves as commons. This expression can be either textually and verbally by the architectural design team or by their communities or by them accepting to be recognised as commons by accepting to be covered in special publications on commons.
Introduction
Methodology
The architecture of the commons
Performativity
Cases