Accommodating the Commons: Social-Spatial Practices in Bogotá

The article describes research and design carried out in the Graduation Studio “Positions in Practice” (2015-2017) of the Chair of Methods and Analysis at Delft University of Technology , which focused on the urban context of Bogotá, as a laboratory for the definition of architectural positions. The study was part of the larger investigation “Constructing the Commons,” which takes as point of departure the idea that the city should be understood as the ultimate common socio-spatial resource: a collective cultural construct that is composed by and for its inhabitants. Around the notion of ‘the commons’, a challenging field of thinking has emerged in the fields of economy, political and social sciences, suggesting radically different ways to organize our societies. In these theories, however, there is little notion of the value of urban spaces as the main tangible forms in which the commons exist in society and organize social-spatial practices.

We aimed to develop experiments of analysis and intervention in urban areas, anchored within the strong theoretical discourse on 'the commons'. In this studio, the commons are not only understood as concrete architectural and urban figures, which represent an idea of commonality, such as squares, passages etc., but also as the rituals, and politics of co-operation that articulate an architectural project. In this view, an architectural project is not a single-authored venture, but rather a complex and layered process that depends upon multiple agencies that establish a commonality.