Bibliotheken und Commons in Südosteuropa
Emmanouil Levedianos: Urban Commons in practice. Ways of empowering local communities for co-producing the city
11:00-12:00
Workshop
Emmanouil Levedianos is an industrial designer and cultural manager with studies in mechanical engineering and cinematography. In 2017 he co-founded the LUDD collective, an architectural practice and fabrication studio that explores the links of modern design practices & technological applications with approaches to the commons, sustainability, community participation and the visual arts. Since 2009 he has been involved in activities of various groups and organisations in Athens and Berlin tackling urban and social challenges. He is a member of the C4C network in Greece and a Robert Bosch Stiftung alumnus with his participation in the program START (2020) during which he initiated the socio-cultural project CLOUDS FOR COMMONS.
The LUDD collective investigates the commons through practical and tangible perspectives by working at the intersection of architecture, social sciences, technology and environment.
In this session we will share experiences and results from LUDD’s projects “CLOUDS FOR COMMONS” and “BOX FOR EXPRESSION” in an effort to open the dialogue around the new ways of perceiving, shaping and inhabiting the space based on diversity, pluralism and variability. These projects were developed through participatory processes as common infrastructures for the mobilisation of new ideas and actions in the urban landscape. They are accessible to local communities and support independent initiatives, social enterprises and civil society organisations by expanding their infrastructural toolbox and consequently their sphere of influence. Although the field of architecture can unlock the ability of the communities to create new types of urban infrastructure and their management models, it is first the commoning practices we have to look in, in order to understand how they change the way we design and develop our projects. After all the COMMONS at their starting point are nothing but an imaginary dynamic, an intention, a will to create a life together. Their connection with architecture invites us to imagine new ways of social fermentation, appropriation and space/sources management that can have a regenerative character for our cities.