Urban Commons at Irish Life

Tadhg Spain

Thesis

Proposal: Resource Centre and Public Space Intervention
Location: Marlborough Place, Marlborough St. Dublin.

This thesis endeavours to understand the ties between current social inequality, political and economic ideology and the resulting architecture found at the Irish Life Centre and its immediate context.

Commoning practices require a foundation of care and ways of doing that respect and understand limits. These ethics centre the affective, moving beyond technical and output oriented resource management.

“Capitalism continually perpetuates itself through the enclosure of our capacity to support and reproduce life. This capacity for social reproduction involves not only giving birth but a multitude of acts bearing, protecting, feeding, clothing and socialising that cannot be individualised and depend on collective care. By contrast, commoning practices can foster a resillient transition towards alternative social structures, allowing individuals to feel supported and empowered as a collective.”

The architectural proposal then is an extension to the Irish Life Centre, creating a public space and building on the vacant site at Marlborough Place. This results in a facility which unlocks resources necessary for affective labour. In doing so creating a space which cares for and is cared for by the community who use the building.

Affective labour is work carried out that is intended to produce or modify emotional experiences in people.