2025 05 10 Architensions presents Architecture as Commoning Practice: A Vision for San Ferdinando at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
Architecture as Commoning Practice: A Vision for San Ferdinando is a participatory project led by Architensions that tells the story of and provides a vision plan for the seaside town of San Ferdinando, Italy, its history, its complexity, its resources, and its people. The project offers strategies to create shared spaces that restore economic opportunities, social solidarity, and a new cultural terrain by bridging physical and social gaps between the port infrastructure, the sea, the farmland, and the urban center. The first phase of actualizing the vision plan included the curation of workshops as part of the town’s Collective Visions Festival in July 2023. With the participation of the community, Architensions designed three pavilions, spaces for the community that doubled as shading canopies, placed in the public spaces built by volunteers of various collaborating organizations. The pavilions were sites of workshops around communal activities, such as cooking and gardening, led by collaborators such as MOS Architects of New York and MAIO Architects of Barcelona.
The work is on view in the Italian Pavilion, under the section “Social Activation and Participation.”