March 16–May 25, 2022, 6:30pm
Common Field is an architecture lecture series, curated by Diana Menino and Felipe De Ferrari, that materialises the intention of CCB - Garagem Sul and Lisbon Architecture Triennale to organise a cycle focusing on themes that are highly relevant to society, which allows for the sharing of contemporary practices and seeks to anticipate answers to major current issues. After featuring five lectures in 2020 and 2021, Common Field moves on to its third year and encompasses the following themes:
On Collective Space
TVK + Raumlabor
Wednesday, March 16, 6:30pm (WET)
This lecture looks at the production of collective space, understood as a fundamental asset in our built environments. We see collective space as the fruitful relationship between public infrastructure and engaged citizens and communities. On the one hand, an open plane — architecture of the ground — built to last, on the other, specific actions and diverse rituals that shape our everyday life. Our guests are Pierre Alain Trévelo, co-founder of the Paris-based practice TVK, and Markus Bader, co-founder of Berlin-based practice Raumlaborberlin. Both will introduce their specific approach concerning public space, urban voids, the collective and, of course, time: from resistant urban squares to floating learning spaces.
On Cooperatives
Lacol + Andreas Hofer
Wednesday, April 20, 6:30pm (WEST)
This session focuses on housing cooperatives both as a system and a direct model to counter a global housing shortage. Our main focus will be on local communities, financial strategies and administrative frameworks needed for the reproduction of cooperatives created in both Catalonia and Zurich. Our guests are the Barcelona-based collective Lacol and the Zurich-based architect Andreas Hofer, who will introduce the tools, social communities and contexts where they operate.
On Co-existence
Kuehn Malvezzi + Grand Huit
Wednesday, May 25, 6:30pm (WEST)
The last conference is about co-existence, architecture as a frame for rich encounters between different users and communities. If the last decades have been defined by a strong sense of fragmentation among us — a direct consequence of both capitalism and neo-liberalism all around — it seems that now there is the will to face together the challenges of our time. Our guests are Wilfried Kuehn, co-founder of Berlin-based practice Kuehn Malvezzi, and Clara Simay, co-founder of the Paris-based cooperative Grand Huit. Both will introduce specific projects where they have been able to act as designers, facilitators and mediators: from the world’s first house of prayer for three religions to an urban polyculture farm for economic integration and accommodation of vulnerable people.
More about Common Field
Architecture should be understood as a strategic attitude to space and resources. Common Field aims to discuss architecture in its most literal sense: as a collective and strategic body of knowledge that is and can be applied by everyone, in any community, environment or culture, through a series of mechanisms, devices, structures and forms. The development of a Common Field requires an assessment of the common sense notion, a critical concept in the present framework of global neo-liberalisation and political decay. In adopting a critical and optimistic attitude towards physical and cultural contexts, policies, briefs and clients, architecture can appropriate reality in radical and unexpected ways from research to construction — making their potential and contradictions visible, developing projects that enable emancipatory ideas, and thus building a Common Field. We state that a radical architectural approach is not only desirable but necessary. Such an approach can be conceived as an accumulative process of constant appropriation, imitation, repetition, translation, and re-contextualisation with open-minded and generous thinking — with both pragmatism and humour — and based on the careful review of material reality and social conditions. Common Field will explore the threads that lead us towards this collective form of construction.
