Architecture from Public to Commons

This book provides an urgent framework and collective reflection on understanding ways to reconsider and recast architecture within ideas and politics of the commons and practices of commoning.

Architecture from Public to Commons opens with Institutions the dialogue with the scales of the commons, the limits of language for fluid identities, the practices and challenges of architecture as an institution, the design of objects with apparent shared value in Chile, land protocols that explore alternatives to profit-seeking of property in New York, and spirited conversations about revolting against architectural labor from Latin America. Continuing chapters explore, under Territories, the boundaries of Blackness across the Atlantic between Ethiopia and Atlanta, the underground woven network with conflicting grounds of ipê wood between Brazil and the US, water cycles in depleted territories in Chile, indigenous women-led territorial and human rights struggles in Guatemala, climate change accidental commons in California, and the active search for racial justice between design and place in New Orleans. Contributions range from theoretical and historical essays to current case studies of on-the-ground practices in the US, the Middle East, Europe, and Central and South America.

Bringing together architects, scholars, artists, historians, sociologists, curators, and activists, this book instils an urgent framework and renewed set of tools to pivot from architecture’s traditional public to a politicized commons. It will greatly interest students, academics, and researchers in architecture, urban design, architectural theory, landscape architecture, political economy, and sociology.

Marcelo López-Dinardi is an immigrant, designer, and educator based in Texas. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Texas A&M University. He has written for The Avery Review, The Architect’s Newspaper, Domus, Plat, Art Forum (China), ARQ, Bitácora Arquitectura, Materia Arquitectura, Polimorfo, and has participated in national and international venues, including at Columbia GSAPP, RISD, The Cooper Union, Rice Architecture, ETSAM, New Museum, the Triennale di Milano, the Jumex Museum, and numerous academic conferences. His design work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2016. He is working on a research and exhibition project titled Cemented Dreams: Material, Political and Ecological Stories in Puerto Rico.