spatial commons. on the communalization of urban spaces
Publisher: adocs Hamburg
Translation and proofreading: Sonja Hornung & Robert M. Homsi
Graphic design: Katharina Hetzeneder
Scans: Beke Bücking
Commons are resources that are accessible to everybody. They include air, language, or knowledge, and – so long as they are shared – also involve yields, which are collectively attained. Both resources and their yields can be material or immaterial, such as firewood in the traditional commons or a Wikipedia entry as part of the digital commons. Social relationships that arise in the commons are also yields, as are values, rules, and norms as well as the concrete spaces in which these are applied. The commons includes all phenomena, processes, and models that invoke an idea of communalization.
This book addresses the question of the differentiability and designability of commons in urban space today. Additionally, it uses mapping to explore processes of communalization in open, commercial, and residential spaces in Berlin as potential spatial commons. The maps, which arose through collective and at times interdisciplinary formats, provide insight into the types, components, and rules of collective spatial action in the urban commons. In particular, spatial commons can be differentiated from spatial clubs through their contingency on production of space through inclusion and self-determination.
