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Peer-to-Peer Architecture

Making the Commons Mode of Production Work in Urban Design

IRS%20Urban%20Commons%2003.doc

Georg Franck

Institute of Architectural Sciences

Vienna University of Technology

e-mail: franck@iemar.tuwien.ac.at

Abstract

Urban design is a kind of collective action once ruled by conventions prescribing how individual architecture has to behave in the society of other architectures. Modernity has abolished these conventions, thus resolving the commons mode of architectural production. In the meantime it is common to bemoan the decline of urban design. Instead of thinking about reviving deceased convention the paper suggests to explicitly reorganise urban design as a commons mode of production. Starting from the design principles set by Elinor Ostrom, the paper embarks on the project of designing the template of a constitution of a commons that groups of architects and landowners interested in producing high quality public space can make use of.

Urban Design as a Commons Mode of Architectural Production

Characteristically, the architectural quality of urban public space is the collective product of the individual architectures forming the inner walls of the outer space. The rank of the common product depends on the quality not only of the contributing architectures taken in isolation, but on the interplay also they are performing in both competing and cooperating with one another. Architecture differs from mere building in its claim to be of aesthetic value, which means that architecture is always involved in a beauty contest with neighbouring architectures. On the other hand, the collective product of the architectures forming the inner walls of outer spaces can be better than the individual contributions summed up if the individual architectures understand to interplay with one another. Even an average quality player can contribute to an excellent team performance by supporting neighbours in the formation of an aesthetically consistent wall of outer space.

The accords, overtones and resonances resulting from the synergetic teamwork are attributable neither to the individual object architectures nor to central planning. They are the product of something between single building architecture and town planning. This something in-between is public urban space made productive as a commons. The product thus produced is architectural quality in the urban scale. The particular quality of the finest campi in Venice and Siena, the superb street views in Amsterdam and Brügge, the finest corsi in Florence and Rome, the magnificent boulevards in Paris and Barcelona is brought forth in this commons mode of production.

In pre-modern times, public urban space seems to have worked remarkably well as a commons. It worked even though it was not organised formally as a commons. Instead of rules negotiated explicitly there were conventions ruling implicitly. First, it went without saying that architecture has a two-fold task: It has to envelop inner space not only, but to define outer space also in collaboration with other architectures. Second, it was understood without mentioning that contributing to the definition of outer space means to select a vista façade from the envelope of the inner spaces. The floor plans, accordingly, have to be oriented towards the street side irrespective of the compass. The outer walls of the more representative internal rooms thus turn into the inner walls of public outer space. Third, it went without saying that architectural expression makes use of a conventional stylistic vocabulary. The use of a conventional language could warrant that the architectural expression within an ensemble was compatible, and capable of entering a conversation, among the neighbours.

The Tragedy of the Urban Commons

Modern architecture denounced this tacit consensus. Avant-garde vies for distinction only. Modern urbanism declared that floor plans of residential buildings have to be exclusively oriented towards the sun. Modernity fought conventional styles. Even in traditional contexts, modern architecture preferred striking collision to collaborative alignment. Rem Koolhaas got the spirit of modernist urbanism on the nail: “Fuck the context!” The doctrine is perfectly right in terms of textbook economics. Dealing with urban contexts, in particular with high quality contexts, invites to free riding, shirking and the like. Wherever it is the quality of the surrounding architectures that makes an address good, you can exploit it without contributing yourself to the quality. While you can harvest the bonus of the good address individually, the costs that your detrimental insertion causes will be born collectively. In a context where you cannot be excluded from harvesting the collective product, defecting is the dominant strategy (put game-theoretically). In terms of economic rationality it only seems logical that the urban commons was overtaken by the proverbial ‘tragedy of the commons’.[1]

Today, there is much complaint about the misery of modern urbanism. In fact, if you want to experience high quality urban architecture you have to visit – or live in – historical towns. Understandably, thus, a movement has gained momentum in contemporary architecture that propagates the resumption of traditional styles for reviving the art of urban design. This movement, called ‘New Urbanism’, enjoys a somewhat dubious reputation, however. There are exponents deserving to be called masters of architecture as, e.g., Leon Krier and Quinlan Terry, but the average quality of what the new traditionalists come up with is clearly off the mark set by the tradition they emulate. There is an all too obvious decline in the standard of craftsmanship available, but a decline also in language proficiency of architectural expression. Above all, however, there is a decline of proficiency in using conventional languages for purposes of opening conversations between the architectures supposed to collaborate in the definition of outer spaces. Relearning the vocabulary and shape grammar of conventional languages is one thing, substituting the conventions that once governed the conversation in the society of architectures is another. The existential crisis of urban design as a discipline of art is due to the resolution of the social norms once enshrined in the métier. It is much harder to recover from the loss of conventional manners of conduct than from the loss of the vocabulary and shape grammar of conventional styles.

We have to face the bad news that architecture has lost one of the virtues it owes its traditionally enjoyed prestige to. We notice that architecture has lost its capability of being practiced as a team sport. In team sports, the challenge to the individual players is to find out the balance between competition and collaboration that translates individual proficiency into collective mastership. The players in the team are competitors regarding their individual performance, but have to refrain from competition wherever it interferes with the collaboration within the team. Architecture, done as a team sport, lies at the base of all those grand achievements we admire in historical towns. Today, it goes without saying that the architect’s business is thoroughly competitive and that the image he or she has to maintain of him- or herself is that of the individual fighter against conformity and convention. To call architecture a team sport even sounds strange to the contemporary member of the profession. Of course, there is collaboration within the firm. Cooperation with regard to the common production of the inner walls of outer spaces has vanished from the practice as well as from the education of architecture.

Urban Design Re-Organised as a Commons

New Urbanism is a sign of desperation. The new traditionalists are focused on reviving vocabularies and shape grammars because it seems hopeless to revive the rules of the game once played. It is indeed hopeless to think of re-animating deceased conventions. Conventions cannot be switched on and off on behest. Reanimating conventions is not the only way, however, of restoring decayed commons. In contrast to conventions, commons can be redesigned. Commons can be founded explicitly on the basis of a constitution that is negotiated and agreed upon by a group interested in the team sport in question. There is nothing utopian in considering the foundation of a commons for growing good addresses in urban public space. It is a far from trivial task, however, to design the constitution of such a commons. This task, nevertheless, can greatly benefit from the revival that the commons idea enjoys in the wake of Elinor Ostrom’s reconsideration of the tragedy of the commons. By brushing Garrett Hardin’s pamphlet against the grain, Ostrom could show, both empirically and analytically, that the tragedy is far from inevitable.[2] There are commons still working today that have worked since centuries. Ostrom even reports of newly founded commons (as, e.g., for the use of the groundwater basins of Los Angeles). When based on a set of rules appropriately designed, the commons mode of production can deal with a class of difficult to manage resources in a way that is superior to both privatisation and central planning. Examples are as diverse as fisheries and Open Source Software production. Regrettably, examples of aesthetic production are not among the cases analysed by Ostrom.

Building the inner walls of outer spaces is a case in point. The team play of architects did work as a commons for growing good addresses as long as the rules of the commons mode of production were governing by virtue of their being enshrined in the métier of architecture. They were governing, to repeat it, as long as they were conventions founding professional pride. It would be hopeless to restore these conventions as conventions. Commons, however, are institutions that can be founded like firms. The problem lies in finding the appropriate partners and in negotiating the agreement. For growing good addresses, a firm is the wrong institution unless you can afford to buy all the land that is needed for defining a neighbourhood experienced as an urban scene. If you are just a group of architects interested in building up or conserving a neighbourhood, you can found a commons, however. It is not so easy, of course, to design the constitution of a commons that promises to work. Still, why not try to drive the analysis of urban design as a common mode of producing good addresses up to the point where the analysis turns into the scheme of a constitution of a commons? Why not try to conceive urban design as an Open Source mode of architectural design? There are two major objections (among many others, to be sure) that such a proposal has to face. First, architects are no longer trained in practicing architecture as a team sport. Second, the landowners have to be included as players as well.

Regarding education, it has to be admitted that there is a worldwide agreement (however silent) in academia that urban design is to be taught as architecture in just in another scale. You will hardly find courses in the Open Source (or peer-to-peer) mode of collaborative urban design. Instead, urban design is taught as a top-down mode of planning. Planning has thus grown into a discipline sharply differentiated from the old-fashioned art of urban design. Today, space planners are educated in economics, sociology and jurisprudence. As a profession, planners are eager of being acknowledged scientifically competent engineers. They feel emancipated from the sloppy habits of artistic research. Science is supposed to supplant the ‘ancien régime’ of art. Accordingly, for urbanists educated as spatial planners, aesthetics is taboo.

Planners are no artists. Form planners, no aesthetic productivity is to be expected. There is no reason however why urban design should not be taught as peer-to-peer architecture. Peer-to-peer design means that the architects of the buildings forming the walls of street and square spaces collaborate as equals on a freely agreed upon base. It may be that the teachers are prevented from taking this idea seriously by their own preoccupation with the self-image of the individually fighting architect. Why not encourage students to organise courses in peer-to-peer production from their own initiative? Why not encourage students of architecture and students of planning to collaborate in figuring out rules of the game? Typically, the students know better about P2P and Open Source production than their teachers. Hence, even though it is true that architects today have missed to be trained as team sportsmen, this matter of fact is easily changed by making the idea of the urban commons more popular.

The second objection is harder to parry. In practice, peer-to-peer urban design is pointless without involving the land and house owners who engage the architects. The scope of the basin suited for growing ‘good addresses’ is a closed neighbourhood experienced as an urban scene. Founding an urban commons by negotiating an agreement thus faces a hard problem in the very beginning. Inclusion of a property into the scope of the commons turns the owner into a monopolist who has a veto right over the project. Even if interested in principle in utilizing public space for growing good addresses, the owners are exposed to the temptation of playing off their veto right. There are always special benefits inviting to be negotiated. We thus are back to the problem of free-riding and shirking. Even before the commons can be put into operation, we face the structure of perverse incentives as described in the tragedy of the commons. Ostrom calls this initial problem of  organising a commons at all the second-order dilemma.

The Catalyst Needed to Make Self-Organisation Work

In order to overcome the second-order dilemma, a kind of catalyst is needed to facilitate the reactions needed for bringing about a working agreement. The most telling case reported by Ostrom is the foundation of commons for the use of the ground water basins of LA. The catalyst doing the job was the ‘home rule principle’ favoured by the constitution of the state California. The state of California provides facilities that help to reduce the costs of negotiating home rule agreements. It even subsidizes the costs of involving courts of justice in the design of the institution.[3] It is thus possible to secure from the outset that the eventually agreed upon constituion is acknowledged by local and state authorities. The working of the catalyst consisted in providing the possibility of a stepwise introduction of the commons mode of operation with initial steps that can be taken at low costs and low risks.

What could be the equivalent to this catalyst in the case of a commons for growing good addresses? In order to facilitate the foundation of an urban commons, a worked-out template of a constitution should be available. The interested parties themselves are badly equipped to design a constitution from scratch. It would mean to ask them too much when they were expected to disregard their individual benefits and hidden agenda as soon as these interfere with the common interest in designing a workable institution. A commons, though being an association of equals collaborating voluntarily, needs rules, as does any team sport. These rules, moreover, have to be designed in a way that grants that the agreement is acknowledged by municipal and state authorities. The constitution, thus, should at best be given a legal status, a status of the kind that firms receive when they adopt the template of “Ltd.” or “Inc.”. The design of a respective template for “ Urban Commons” is a difficult task that asks the best expertise and the most objective knowledge available. The template has to define operationally what the ‘team sport of urban design’ means. It specifies what the members of the team are expected to take responsibility for both individually and collectively. Work on such a template has to be held free of biased perspectives and particular interests. The parties interested in founding the commons, on the other hand, should know in detail what it means to run a commons before they start to negotiate. They should know what the parameters are that it makes sense to negotiate and what is not negotiable.

In order to make the template of the constitution work as a catalyst, it should rule out explicitly arrangements of the kind that give rise to the second-order dilemma. Arrangements should be declared null and void as soon as they grant exceptional privileges to individual members. It should be clear from the outset that only those agreements will be acknowledged by political authorities that conform to the template.

By virtue of the legal status of the urban commons, groups of architects having agreed upon working according to the template, can act as legal persons. They are admitted to architectural competitions on a par with individual architects and architectural firms. Hence, there can be urban commons without landowners. In this embryonic form, urban commons is the working agreement among architects who design inner walls of outer spaces in a peer-to-peer mode of production. The agreement specifies the way in which the architect in charge of an individual building is expected to exchange her or his suggestion with the other architects in the group who, in turn, are expected to re-work the proposal and find out ways to make the ensemble resonate. Even in this embryonic form, the agreement should provide rules for dealing with situations of rule violation and conflict. The paragraphs should include sanctions that those violating the rules have to face, mechanisms of conflict and disagreement resolution as well as procedures by which the operational rules can be modified. Ostrom highlights these points in her list of design principles.[4]  She comments that the sanctions need not be particularly harsh in order to be effective, but that rapid access to low-cost arenas for conflict resolution is essential as well as agreement on a participation and voting procedure for the modification of the operational rules.

In order to translate urban design into the buildings forming the walls of outer space land- and house-owners have to take part. Since the inner walls of outer space are formed by adjacent buildings, the owners of a neighbourhood should participate as a closed group. It is this requirement that confers on each neighbour a veto right over the project. A constitution that is supposed to rule out arrangements of the kind that give rise to the second-order dilemma, will have to override these veto rights. Why should an owner forego this right? There is one reason: the interest in growing or preserving good addresses. Accordingly, it is of no interest for investors looking for quick profits to incur the commitments implied in a commons. There are landowners, however, who are in fact interested in the quality of the environment of their property. There is reason to forego the veto right if the owners in the neighbourhood do the same. A key condition beyond the common interest is trust among the prospective participants. Even under favourable conditions however a process of gradual introduction of the commons mode of production is in place. The template of the constitution should provide a sequence of steps of growing commitment on each of which the costs and risks incurred can be easily overlooked. The challenge for the design of the process lies in the provision of initial steps that promise early achievements while holding the costs and risks low.  The higher steps will be reached in projects that prove to work. As an incentive to incur higher levels of commitment, certain competences lying so far with the planning authority are transferred to those commons that have proved to work operationally and to be productive architecturally.

The Aim of the Project

The design of a constitution for a commons that produces architectural quality on an urban scale is a demanding project that itself asks for collective action. The project is thoroughly interdisciplinary, joining inputs of experts as divers as architects, economists, planners, legal experts and theorists of urbanism. The aim of the project is to come up with a template suitable to be tested in a real-world experiment. In the pilot project(s) both the feasibility of p2p architecture and the compatibility of architect’s standard contracts with the commons mode of production are under test. Above all, it has to be shown whether the commons mode of production has the potential to improve urban design or not.

All these questions are quite open and cannot be answered but by a real test. The experimental arrangement, however, is a design task that consists in implementing that kind of multiple methods research that Elinor Ostrom recommends for topics such as collective action and the commons.[5] As a scientific project, the analysis of urban design is a first step towards investigating commonal modes of aesthetic production. It thus not only involves methods of fields as diverse as architectural theory, economics, planning theory, legal science and urbanism, but has to make them deal also with a subject as delicate as the quality of the built environment. It even has to make them touch questions of artistic research.