This minisite is dedicated to the practice-based research project COMUNfARE (literally ‘making commons in common’) by Brave New Alps in the Vallagarina district, northern Italy.
A few technicalities first: planned to evolve over 40 years, the initial period of the research is the object of a PhD in Architecture at SSoA that Fabio is engaging in from 2014 to 2021 under the supervision of Doina Petrescu and Jenny Pickerill, and which aims to partially answer first research questions around the how of long-term, situated, commons-fostering design.
The practical part of the research (see the Projects section) builds upon 10 years of eco-social design work as Brave New Alps and also represents one possible response to the question of how a design practice can take root in a locality and construct *meaningful* social relations, spaces and economies. This, by working towards long-term outcomes, as part of an ecology of people and projects reclaiming happy lives for all, and in a situated and care-full way.
In this sense, COMUNfARE emerges from Bianca’s research on precarious working conditions, which allowed us to get a better grasp of the economic system we are in, the destructive dynamics it enforces, how it all plays out in our everyday and how we should react by creating supportive ecologies.
The theoretical framework that informs much of the practice happening in COMUNfARE is around commons & commoning (Massimo De Angelis & Co.), diverse & community economies (J.K. Gibson-Graham & Co.) and multispecies becoming (Donna Haraway & Co.), and thus is also very much aligned with the previous research on precarity.
In here you will find all sorts of things connected to the research and the PhD-part of it. Happy browsing.
Exploring tentative approaches to commoning and community economies in the Vallagarina district 