Vol 2, no 2. Call for Papers. The new Spaces of the Common: Spatial and Political Models of “Making”

CPCL Vol 2, no 2. The new spaces of the common. Spatial and political models of “making”

Edited by Manola Antonioli, Abir Belaïd and Simon Bertrand

Today we are witnessing (in the fields of architecture and design, but also in the context of emergence and spread of a social and solidarity economy) a renewed interest in “making” and a revival of the tradition of Do It Yourself (DIY), which concerns as much the professionals of culture than the representatives of civil society. Thus we rediscover craftsmanship, but in the current context characterized by the power of new digital tools (many observers can thus speak of a new “digital” or “industrial” craftsmanship).

“Third places” therefore appear (especially in urban areas) that try to create intermediate spaces between the private domain and the public domain, relational spaces where the meetings that occur have a greater importance than the things produced, places whose identity is built around links, so that “making” again becomes a way of acting in common.

This issue of CPLC aims to construct a typology of these places and their functions in contemporary spaces.

Contributions are asked to explore the following topics:

A mapping of the “third places”. It is very difficult to propose a mapping and a typology of these new places because they appear, are transformed and disappear at high speed and because they associate physical places and virtual spaces. What are the common points, but also the differences and the specificities, of places as diverse as cafés, business incubators, manufacturing spaces, spaces for meetings or work, which nevertheless still fall under the very vague label of “third places”?

New places and policies of “making”. In 1958, in her book The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt explored the opposition between “making” and “acting” as two different forms of the vita activa, opposition established on the division between public and private spaces. Labor encloses the worker in the private space of its activity and excludes him or her from the common, while action (especially in its political form) produces a shared space and establishes the network of human relations. How can “third places” contribute to redefining these traditional boundaries between “making” and “acting”, between labor, work and action (recalling Arendt’s three fundamental categories)?

“Third places,” cities and territories. “Third places” often occupy out-of-use buildings, abandoned sites, spaces in transition, “hollow teeth” or urban interstices. Very present in cities, they are also beginning to appear in rural territories. They implicitly or explicitly oppose urban planning, programming and regulations of cities and territories to claim another shape of intelligence of places, a collective intelligence that includes the unfinished and the unplanned. One thus wonders if and how their emergence transforms the manufacturing methods of contemporary cities or can help to support the revitalization of rural spaces.

The institution of the common in “third places” and makerspaces. Discussions on the ways to “make in common” are an essential component of the “third places” and the makerspaces (fablabs or hackerspaces), in which the creators and the users think collectively about how “making” can produce new declensions of the common. What is the nature of these debates about “making”?

Architecture of alternative venues and hybrid places. The phenomenon of “third places” inspires a reflection on the structure of spaces suited to accommodate these hybrid practices. These places often fit by generative and incremental processes into existing buildings and inherit the typological specificity of a former train station, former hospital or neglected industrial building. How does the memory of the place influence the experiments and the relationships that develop there in the present? And what role can architects play in both the development of pre-existing buildings and the invention of these new places of debate, meeting and work?

CPCL Vol 2, no 2 timeline

• January — Publication of the Call for Papers
• 16 June — Deadline for article submission
• July-August — Peer review
• September-October — Copy editing
• November — Proofreading
• December — Publication

CPCL accepts full papers, written in English, 6,000 words maximum, including footnotes and bibliography. Manuscripts should be submitted online at cpcl.unibo.it. CPCL does not accept e-mail submissions.

For more information, consult our focus and scope and author guidelines.

Download the call for papers.