The project “Thalassanté: Methodologies of interweaving the commons” is based on an experimental research that focuses on the processes of creating commons. It takes as an example the work of Thalassanté, an association based in Marseille, and tries to understand how they arrive to collectively produce space. Space that is shared by the individuals who co-fabricate it and within which they develop practices of living together. Through this research focused on the material production of their processes, we seek also to demonstrate the ways in which individuals interweave with each other and create bonds of community. The methodology followed by the researcher consists of the active participation in practices with other people, their documentation, and at last their analysis.
This project calls us to reflect on the ways we choose to use architectural tools, by illustrating the potential impact of inclusion of more bodies in the processes. We wish to showcase the results produced by the collective ingenuity of the group and document in detail the methodology followed, to form a form of knowledge impulsively fabricated. And that in order to be able to share it with more individuals who wish to experiment with it. The aim is to create tools that can potentially facilitate the development of similar projects, symbiotic relationships and the appropriation of inactive spaces in the urban tissue.
This body of work hopes to present Thalassanté’s approach as an alternative example to the existing methods of space production, while as enriching dominant narratives and placing it in the realm of public sphere. All documents are produced within the framework of the integrated master degree’s project of Styliani-Ligeia Papaioannou, in the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly, under the supervision of professors Kotionis Zisis and Lykourioti Iris.