Co-operative Commons

The project sets up a laboratory exploring the idea of ‘Commons’ in Bogotá’s historic centre. By using a method encompassing social practises and architecture, the project becomes the ultimate commons; dealing with different actors, time and the tension between social and physical.

‘Co-operative Commons’ investigates different possibilities of recharging complex urban realities such as the historic centre of Bogotá for example. We have seen various tactics employed by the governing institutions - some favouring social reformation, others focusing on physical interventions to revitalise the city. Both had short lived success which made us question their methodology altogether.We set out to explore a new approach that celebrates the richness, resilience and self-healing properties of the street employing both its social and physical features to start the process of creating the commons. This project defines the Commons not as a place; that is not to say that it does not have a physical presence, but that it is guided by a series of actors performing through time. Simply put, the Commons are created when different actors and their interests converge. We have set up the centre of Bogota as a laboratory challenging our architectural ambitions and ways of working with a clearly outlined series of steps. First we introduced four different positions each taking a stand on the spectrum between the social and the physical. Secondly we assembled a set of principles which responded in an architectural way to the set of problems identified in the centre. Thirdly we identified four urban situations which turned into the sites; each received a theme such as the 'Forum', 'Living Room', 'Promenade' and 'Void'. Finally, we established a collection of interventions which interact with a highly complex context and push the line of the physical environment to achieve a new potential.In this way the project became the ultimate commons,dealing with the interests of many different actors, the idea of time and the tension between the tangible and intangible memory.