Process of commoning in the production and proliferation of shared space

Commoning describes the social and psychological process that individuals and collectives are involved in as they establish and manage space and life shared in common. The values that underpin commoning can be adapted by spatial and urban designers to privilege and encourage more inclusive and shared social, civic and environmental conditions and disrupt existing models and economic forces that currently organise private and public space. Commoning produces spaces and social relations through participation, developing in the protagonists a sense of agency over their lives. Design practitioners with interests in the processes of commoning can engage with those values to interrupt the homogenization of communities and the cauterization of spatial imagination by commercial imperatives. Drawing on design precedents, theorists and activists involved with various aspects of contemporary commoning, this paper proposes how designers can be informed and guided by the interrelated spatial and social modes of productions that are integral to commoning. Through a commitment to commoning, spatial designers can encourage and support commoning and proliferate values capable of transforming the future