51N4E + REAL

On Designing the Brief

The last session of the year is focused on the potential of self-commissions and designing briefs. The capacity to read the times and tactics to create the conditions for an architecture project to be born. Our guests are REAL (Real Estate Architecture Laboratory) and the Brussels-based architecture office 51n4e. Both guests will introduce the attitude of their practices and ongoing projects, sharing their methodologies to enable concrete possibilities for spatial reproduction.

In English, this conference starts with a presentation of each studio, followed by a talk moderated by the curators of Common Field Diana Menino and Felipe De Ferrari. All those who attend are invited to participate with questions.

  

Biographies

51N4E
This architecture studio is rooted in Europe, where comfort slows down change. In the face of a democratic and ecological deficit, transformation happens here in a space that is already occupied by multiple and often parallel realities. In this context, we use design to help overcome opposition and create integrated value and new experiences.

51N4E is a self-steering collective that wants to empower people to be both autonomous and connected. It does so by organising the supportive processes needed for a collaborative design culture. This collaboration platform combines the internal studios with a growing network of external partners. As such, it mirrors today’s complex reality and produces an ecosystem of knowledge.

REAL
REAL is a London-based cultural institute and architectural practice founded by Jack Self in 2016, that promotes inclusivity and social equality through the built environment. We specialise in alternative models of housing ownership and the design of project finance.

REAL’s projects include exhibitions, publishing and architecture. REAL curated the British Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale with Home Economics, conceived projects for the 2017 Chicago Biennale and Maxxi in Rome, co-housing schemes in Britain and New Zealand, mortgage products for national banks, and private homes. As a collaborative organisation with light bureaucracy and minimal overheads, REAL is focussed on how property and ownership, forms of labour, and our management of time affect our everyday lives. It is above all dedicated to the highest quality of intellectual and creative output.

About Common Field

This lecture series takes architecture as a strategic attitude to space and resources. By adopting a critical and optimistic attitude, it can take on reality in radical ways, unveiling contradictions and potential, and developing projects that enable emancipatory ideas, thus building a common field. Such an approach can be conceived as a cumulative process of constant appropriation, imitation, repetition, translation, and re-contextualisation with open-minded thinking - embracing pragmatism and humour - based on the careful review of material reality and social conditions. Exploring these threads will lead us towards a collective form of construction.
Curated by Diana Menino and Felipe De Ferrari.