ARC3018HF (LEC0110) 
Instructor: Petros Babasikas

(A Studio in Planetary Agency)

Gordon Matta-Clark, Conical Intersect, New York, 1975
Jayson Cortez, Okello in Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild things Are” Performance

Repair Commons, formerly known as the Archipelago Studio, invents real design actions and architectures for an age of crisis.  This studio pursues research and design across global, networked sites -places without a center- reframing problems that no single discipline can resolve on its own.  It finds strength in the periphery, works with what we have, and tests new buildings, conservation, or preservation engaging with -and not opposed to- human labour.

From fall to spring, students follow a simple method:  find a site and stay with it;  document research as a story;  take a position;  build experimental physical models that register time and place;  craft one building, field, or drawing;  present 8 months of work in 5 minutes;  exhibit your project as an arc of research and design.  Other than that, students do their own thing.

Beyond optimism, pessimism, solutions, or irony, Repair Commons comes up with new forms of design partnerships -with agents of change- seeking clarity and direct lines of action into an uncertain future.  It explores marine and fire urbanisms, small social condensers, Indigenous worldviews, structures of play, walkscapes and floorscapes, the material intelligence of rock and paper, architectures that resist yet bend with future storms.  Repair Commons builds shelter, sanctuary, spaces of freedom and joy.

It is not enough to build a table;  you must build a table to use as cover, but also to dance on.