Discussing Alternativeness to Incorporate Contradictions.

As the conditions in which architects and planners have operated since the 2008 financial crisis have become more tenuous, a group of practitioners has emerged questioning the legitimacy of the work and role of professionals, redefining what an architect could be. Refusing to turn toward interior discipline and reacting to emerging criticalities of architecture and planning practice, architects’ collectives and groups represent a socially-engaged design culture often narrated as an alternative to mainstream architectural practice; their main activity is the collective practice of architecture and urban design, characterised by self-construction, temporary structures, opportunistic occupation of spaces, and the practice of residence, involving the public in each phase. Questioning if the practice of architects’ groups and collectives is an alternative, and to what, this bibliographic essay explores the existing scientific and grey literature to let contradictions and ambiguities emerge, and investigates how contingency drives practitioners’ choices, producing dynamic categories that refuse binary oppositions