Our intervention emerges out of a process of continuous displacement of matter within the city’s boundaries. A process in which obsolete structures would not be wasted but seen as a local repository of building elements and materials for future construction. The repository is to be considered as a material commons – a free resource of building materials available for public use. In the post-war city, these elements and materials are typically generic. Standardized and industrially manufactured, they are designed to fulfil a single purpose. By displacing such an entity from its original context, new and unforeseen architectures can emerge. This involves an opportunistic outlook in which used entities are explored for qualities that may go beyond their intended use. Technical detailing from bygone eras become cryptic ornaments or are adapted for new functions. Odd couplings of objects sourced from different sites, designed in different styles, and for different purposes, are mined for their architectural effects. We approach the site and the work of previous authors with the idea of redistribution rather than additive or subtractive manipulations. Various structures that other interventions have made redundant – posts for overhead lines, lampposts, and scaffolding for signage – are collected. With this kit of parts, we imagine a public space shaped by a surplus of used material, where construction is conditioned by locally available building elements. New structures start to densify and partition the open and continuous urban fabric. Posts and scaffolding act as structures for enclosures that create a backdrop against which other interventions as well as urban life unfold. This approach produces a civic architecture that is quick, spontaneous, and temporary. As a scenario, Material Commons is neither dystopic nor optimistic. It responds to a near future where raw materials and energy may become scarce but where used structures, elements, and materials are abundant.

Daniel Norell and Einar Rodhe, “Material Commons”, in Rotterdam Ripresa: Future Fragments for the Neoliberal City, edited by Marius Grootveld, Architectura & Natura, Amsterdam, 2023.