- Event
Architecture Symposium 2025: Spatial Commons between Conviviality & Planetarism
The symposium will focus on the topic of collective management of common goods and focuses on ecological and social issues. The event is aimed equally at students, researchers and practicing architects.
20.06.2025, 9.30am–5pm – Farelhaus, Oberer Quai 12, Biel
Factsheet
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Start date
20.06.2025, 9.30am–5pm
Add to calendar - Place Farelhaus, Oberer Quai 12, Biel
- Application deadline 06.06.2025
- Costs A CHF 25.– fee will be charged to cover food and beverages. The fee must be paid on site (via TWINT or in cash).
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Spatial Commons between Conviviality & Planetarism
The symposium will deal with the potential of collectively organised commons resources for our urban and rural habitats and living environments. The extent to which such commons can contribute to the preservation and promotion of the planet’s habitability depends largely on how they succeed in organising cooperation and social interaction.
The symposium will therefore focus on the relationship between the social and ecological dimensions, which is crucial for the practice of commoning. How can this be conceptualised and put into practice?
Contributors from various disciplines and countries will discuss examples from theory and practice, past and present, and question the analytical potential of the concepts of the convivial and the planetary.
Programme
|
9am |
Arrival of participants |
| 9.30am |
Welcome speech |
| 9.45am | Keynote: «Resources of Conviviality: A View on the Material Biographies of Cities» Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete, Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design, ETH Zurich |
| 10.20am | «Spatial Commons – Urbane Subsistenzökonomie als räumliche Praxis» Dr Dagmar Pelger, Architect, coopdisco, Berlin |
| 10.45am | «Das Commons-Paradigma im Zeitalter der Fragmentierung» Dr Lukas Held, historian, Ruhr University, Bochum |
| 11.05am | Break |
| 11.20am | «Commons schaffen: das LeNa-Haus» Roger Portmann, initiator of the LeNa-Haus and landlord of the Cantilena cooperative, Basel |
| 11.40am | Discussion |
| 12.30pm | Convivial lunch at the Farelhaus |
| 2pm | Keynote: «Joy to the world: Elinor Ostrom, commons and conviviality for global ecology» Derek Wall, political scientist and lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London |
| 2.40pm | «Housing cooperatives, neighborhoods and commons» Dr Benoît Molineaux, physicist, founding member and resident of Cooperative EQUILIBRE, Geneva |
| 3pm | «Greening the city through commoning: the potential of green commons in the city of Bern» Dr Jessica Verheij, geographer, Laboratory of Landscape Development, EPFL |
| 3.20pm | Break |
| 3.40pm | «Urban common green spaces as opportunities for building regenerative human-nature» PD Dr Tina Heger, biologist, Technical University of Munich |
| 4pm | Discussion |
| 4.45pm | Daily summary with first achievements Hans Widmer, author and philologist, alias P.M |
| 5.pm | Convivial apero at the Farelhaus |
The event will be held in German and English.
From the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century, washhouses provided running water and a shelter for communal laundry
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