Designing in Common (Learning Communities and Collaborative Spatial Practices)

“Violence is never pedagogical.” In spring 2023, architecture students in France called for new ways of teaching and practicing architecture—attuned to today’s social and ecological challenges. Responding to this call, Designing in Common explores how collaborative spatial practices can foster a more convivial, nonviolent architectural culture, both within and beyond schools.

Bridging observation and action, thinking and making, the book understands design as a collective and continuous process of learning. Across seven notions—invitation, trust, hospitality, inhabitation, conviviality, transformation, and performance—it traces a theoretical drift between practices, perspectives, and places, asking how architecture can become a space for listening, negotiating, learning, and acting together.

• Challenges conventional models of architectural education and practice through a collective, situated, and nonviolent approach
• Connects architectural design with contemporary social and ecological challenges
• Bridges theory and practice, positioning design as a continuous process of collective learning rather than a fixed or individual act