In the first episode of Year Two (or Season 2?) of A is for Architecture, I speak with Dr Torange Khonsari, course leader for the Design for Cultural Commons courses at London Metropolitan University, and founder and director of Public Works, a London-based architecture, art and urbanism design practice, which focuses on participatory and performative art, architecture, anthropology and politics. We discuss the idea of commons, at once very ancient spatial, political, social and knowledge spaces, but with current pressures to communal resources, are perhaps of even greater value, even as they disappear. Torange talks about how architecture and designerlypractices can make commons, or make them more likely to occur, and how designers can operate through cultural commoning practices to build communities, enrich space[s] and resist social erasure through the articulation of common values.

Torange’s work has been exhibited widely, and includes  The Ministry of Common Land within the The Garden of Privatised Delights, the British Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Biennale, curated by Manijeh Verghese and Madeleine Kessler, and which you can see her speak about here. You can watch Torange give an excellent TEDx talk, Harnessing The Power Of The Civic Commons, in 2019. 

Enjoy!

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

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