Anu aos30@cam.ac.uk

Anu Sofuyi The Peripheral Commons

What could it mean to dilute boundaries between formal residential typologies and collective activities that intersect and overlap at the peripheries of the Grafton retail fortress?

By integrating residential space and industrial economies, ‘The Peripheral Commons’ seeks to expand the notion of commoning beyond agricultural production.

The project makes space for forms of resistance already emerging at the fringes of the Grafton area. By creating an alternative network of workshop microeconomies, the commons facilitate everyday theatricality and common ownership in materials and space. The component language of the site consists of movable and modular systems to institute an independent means of production.

The Peripheral Commons is sustained by commoners: local residents, craftspeople and designers, co-working, learning and teaching. This project aims to reinvigorate the neighbourhood by engaging in citizen participation: encouraging a culture of shared knowledge and skills, and restructuring local democracy by giving agency back to commoners.