Spaces of Conviviality

This project looks at trying to create a more just, sustainable, and cooperative future through the implimentation of a space where the concept of "conviviality" can develop.

As the planet faces massive biodiversity loss, a climate emergency, and growing societal inequality, this project seeks to image a new future based on the reading of 'Tools for Conviviality' by Ivan Illich.

My project looks to retrofit two 1960's office blocks into a series of spaces that contain the infrastructure for convivilaity; a place where the seeds of this radical new system can grow and spread. Formally, this has led to a diverse set of programmes that seek to work together to create a system including: a political forum, community workshop, marketplace, community garden, wintergarden, co-working spaces, and a housing cooperative.

For many of the spaces the existing building is stripped back to its concrete frame to provide the structure for the new programme. For some other spaces, the forum in particular, a new, self-built structure has been designed to allow for participatory architecture. A new balcony structure is fitted to the outside of the existing structure which provides exterior space for the dwellings, protects against excessive solar gain, and creates a new relationship between the building and the public realm.

This project hopes to create a vision for a new society that may be able to tackle the issues of our current context. As Illich says “If you want to change a society then you have to tell an alternative story”. I hope that my project starts to tell this story.