Exploring New Ideas, Practices and Alliances
ECC 2013 CONFERENCE
Berlin, Germany, May 22–24, 2013
Conference Organizers: Commons Strategies Group, Heinrich Böll Foundation
One of the most significant impediments to positive social change is the entrenched power of market-fundamentalism as an economic and political paradigm. The prevailing dogma is that only a scheme of individual self-interest, expansive individual property rights, market exchange and globalized free trade can advance human well-being. This view has increasingly been called into question as the predatory dynamics of the market economy became clear and as its threats to the biosphere have become more acute.
Economics and the common(s): from seed form to core paradigm seeks to open up some new vistas in politics, economics and culture by exploring the commons as an alternative worldview and provisioning system.
THE PROGETTO ARTENA
by Angelo Abbate, Antonio Caperna, Angelica Fortuzzi, Angelo Gentili, Giacomo Graziosi, Guglielmo Minervino, Stefano Serafini | International Society of Biourbanism
Presented at the ECC 2013 by Stefano Serafini
Abstract
The “Progetto Artena” (Artena Project) is a service of analysis, strategy and action for the revival of the village of Artena (Rome). It works on both structural and infrastructural level, by caring of several aspects, from social innovation, to architectural regeneration. Progetto Artena is the first application of the principles of Biourbanism (p2p urbanism, neuroergonomics, biophilia , structural sustainability, laws of form, scales coherence, constructal law) in order to design for social change. At the same time, it’s an experimental research, aimed at prototyping a new model of development process for Italy.
The entire project works through maieutic participation. It achieves its goal through sub-projects, that also support financially the initiative.
The Project aims to design the physical, virtual, and socio-economic space of the city, implying that every space has a bio-political value. Care for space thus means care for the people who live in it, and interact with it. The dematerialization of the city, linked to the global process of the political economy of the sign, should be balanced with the realization of actual physical places able to allow real interaction, and therefore the life of us all (placemaking). Working on a “minor” place like the small town of Artena has taught us that the heart of the world, such as the solution of a problem, can be found everywhere.
Further details: http://p2pfoundation.net/ECC2013 and http://progettoartena.com/ (in Italian)
http://commonsandeconomics.org/2013/05/24/commons-cases-progetto-artena/
(Michael Bauwens and Stefano Serafini)