Dirty Commons: Messy Solidarity, Unruly Materials, Collective Care

Sahar El-Zein

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Trúc Tâm Mélanie Huynh

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Célia Lesigne

The student center is reimagined as a student-led support network, an alternative where institutional systems fall short. Space formerly occupied by associations are transformed to harbor autonomous hubs for mutual aid, skill-sharing and collective resilience. Dirty Commons critique the imposed purification and control of architecture, the deceiving neutral and impersonal character of these spaces. Architectural design is instrumental to deconstructing oppressive and increasingly controlling power systems, it is to be reclaimed as a collective practice of expression, resilience and agency by the community instead of marginalizing it. Mobilizing biobased, unprecise materials, the rooms hosting the Dirty Commons demand care and maintenance by the community, transforming institutional voids into evolving ecosystems of solidarity and empowerment. 

Team
Unit:
RIOT
Teachers:
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes
Assistants:
Elif Erez Henderson, Antoine Iweins D'Eeckhoutte, Nathalie Marj
Infos
Year:
2026
Period:
Y3 (BA), Y1 (MA), Y2 (MA), Spring
Category:
Semester Project
Topic:  
Architecture, Construction, Society, Structure
Copyright:
CC BY Licence
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