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Life in Common: Re-enchanting the City through Urban Commoning

Part 1 Project 2023
Stephanie Ng
Central Saint Martins, UAL | UK
The project unfolds in Woolwich, where once was flourishing with “self-thumping vitality” being at the forefront of the cooperative movements is now felt by its inhabitants as being merely a passive site of capital extraction– with local agents being threatened out of their spaces due to top-down gentrification schemes.

However, the alternative world surrounds all of us, it is tangible and constantly being re-shaped by our collective struggle. From collective emancipation through social movements to collective re-appropriation of space, or just mundane initiatives of everyday solidarity– these are all ever-expanding narratives of “urban commoning” where networks of solidarity have been dispersed to transgress the thresholds of the city—from barriers of difference into the common.

“Life in Common” re-imagines how an abandoned and forgotten corner of the city in which through 5 distinct phases, projected across 50+ years, could have the potential to blossom as a key transitory space and active frontier if it was to be incrementally re-claimed and re-appropriated by local actors. Building upon the existing conditions of the Woolwich with real characters, experiences and networks, my project becomes the medium to re-construct the narratives, characters and changes that are necessary to make the potential future a reality.


Tutor(s)

2023
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