Living together : on the role of architecture in the production of habitable collective spaces

The paper reflects on the need for another approach to the concept of habitability that would allow the application of collective solutions and proposals simultaneously and transversally at all scales, from the room to the city, reclaiming the values of the collective as an alternative to the reigning individualism and atomization. In front of those practices that either linger in the unstoppable race to produce the new and its new shapes and forms or align with neoliberal currents in the production and absorption of surplus values at the cost of the creative destruction of urban spaces and territories, one must claim the urgent need of other ways of doing and making that engage decisively and uncompromisingly in the task of designing coexistence. It is paramount and indispensable to advance beyond the formal and typological, incorporating not only the already known discourses of adaptability, dissociation and other contemporary private rituals but also the critical design of common, collective, public and intermediate spaces that foster sociability and conviviality making the sharing of spaces, resources and experiences possible