The range of activities permitted in urban spaces is becoming increasingly narrow. Many streets and squares are now managed by private owners and those held by the state are sanitised and policed to protect property values. Commoning, the collective ownership and management of resources, is currently being reimagined across social, political and economic debates as a response to this challenge facing all cities today. How can space be created for people to come together in public to produce and use the city’s resources outside of market demands? With Britain’s rich history of common rights, London is the perfect place to test commons out as a vital approach to urban design.

Designing the Urban Commons

• Entry: Free and open to all
• Deadline: 5pm, 1st May 2015
• Award: 10 winners receive £300 + exhibition

Introduction: The city itself should arguably be treated as a common: a collective physical and cultural creation by and for its inhabitants. However the range of activities permitted in urban spaces is becoming increasingly narrow. Many streets and squares are now managed by private owners and those held by the state are too often sanitised by public space designs that serve to enhance local property values and business rates. This leaves little possibility for the urban public to be used productively by its communities to sustain themselves materially or culturally. Where today is there space in public for people to work together to produce the city and its resources outside of market demands?

Commoning, the collective ownership and management of resources, is currently being reimagined across social, political and economic debates as a response to this challenge facing all cities today. With Britain’s rich history of common rights, London is the perfect place to test commons out as a vital approach to urban design.

This competition asks for existing land, architecture, or infrastructures in neighbourhoods across London to be re-imagined as common spaces, or for new urban commons to be carved out in the city or online. Commons are not static pieces of architecture. We are seeking designs through which the social act of commoning could take shape, by enabling citizens to co-produce urban resources from culture & knowledge to housing, energy or democratic processes. The design itself though is not the final product. It should be the medium through which community relationships and organisations are built.

Design Strategy: Identify a public space, a physical asset or a resource in London that could benefit its users better through being collective management or occupation. For example, buildings, utilities or open spaces that don’t produce value for their communities or are threatened with privatisation. Describe or show its current condition and context, such as its ownership, and the deficiencies of the way it is currently utilised.

Design plans for an architectural, urban, performative or organisational intervention that enables people to enact common rights to use this space, asset or resource productively and collaboratively. The intervention may be temporary or may not have a physical manifestation in the space itself at all. It may, for example, be an online platform that enables commoning to take place. However the design must show or describe both the intervention itself and the resource that it allows to be collectively produced and used, plus (if relevant) the way the resource or value it creates is distributed to its users.

Give a written rationale referring to three main issues.

1. What is the social process of commoning that would take place through the design? For example, the people that would use it, the way they would collaborate or work together and what kind of relationships might be created that could go on to enrich public life.
2. How would the design be sustained? Does it require financial input or significant amounts of unpaid labour? How might it be self-subsisting? How would it keep its community of commoners engaged and involved in its upkeep? Who, if anyone, would have legal ownership of it?
3. What kind of social, cultural or material value would it create for the commoners that use it and how would it be ensured that the value it creates stays in their hands and is not capitalised upon?

Submission: In order to be considered each submission must include:

• 1 A0 board in landscape format (we will not be able to display or exhibit submissions in portrait) presenting the design in full (we advise that this would benefit from being visually led, though the format within the board is entirely open)
• 300 words rationale
• 1 headline image (900px wide)
• 50 words maximum bio and statement of involvement for each team member, up to a maximum of 6 members
• 1 maximum video up to 3 minutes in length expanding on the design and rationale (optional)

Teams and Eligibility: Entry to the competition is free, online and open to anyone, enabling intellectually and socially diverse teams to work together. Architects, community organisers, performers, artists and activists for example, and active citizens of all kinds, are all encouraged to take part.

We strongly encourage multi-disciplinary teams, and ones that draw on local knowledge about the needs and workings of specific places addressed in the design.

Submissions must include a short paragraph detailing the role of each team member in the creation of the intervention and how his or her point of view contributed to the collaboration.

Considerations: Commons are an exciting possibility for the city but come with challenges of definition and execution. We offer the following questions as provocations that should be taken into consideration when developing your design:

• What is the role of design?
• Who is it for?
• Where is it based?
• Who does it benefit?
• What are resources?

Awards and Exhibition: Ten selected proposals will be awarded £300 toward the implementation of their proposal.  These ten proposals will be featured at the ‘Designing the Urban Commons’ exhibition at LSE’s Atrium Gallery as part of the London Festival of Architecture.

Of these ten featured proposals, eight will be selected by the jury, and two will be selected via an ongoing online web vote by the public.

All submitted proposals that meet the criteria will be able to be viewed on a screen at the exhibition.

JURY:

• Richard Sennett, Founder, Theatrum Mundi
• Ricky Burdett, Director, LSE Cities
• Adam Kaasa, Research Fellow, RCA School of Architecture
• Sarah Wigglesworth, Architect, SWARCH
• Thomas Struth, Photographer
• Francesca Ferguson, Curator, Make City Festival
• Justin McGuirk, Critic & Director, Strelka Press
• Indy Johar, Co-founder, Project 00
• Amica Dall, Architect, Assemble Studio

EVENTS:

1. Designing the Urban Commons: lessons from the field 6.30pm-8pm, Wednesday 25 March 2015, Hong Kong Lecture Theatre, LSE Clement House, 99 Aldwych
2. Ash Amin: Lively Infrastructures 6.30pm-8pm, Tuesday 21 April 2015, Sheikh Zayed Lecture Theatre, LSE New Academic Building, 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
3. Designing the Urban Commons: the exhibition Mon-Fri 10am-8pm; Sat 12-5pm, 15 June – 12 July 2015, LSE Atrium Gallery
4. Urban Commons @ V&A Friday Late, 18.30 – 22.00, Friday 26 June 2015, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road