A full research framework, conceptual foundation and methodological position

Introduction: Architectural Design as Transformative Academic Praxis

The Research Lab for Concrete Utopias (RLCU) advances architectural design as a transformative academic praxis—an approach that understands design as a mode of producing knowledge through situated engagement, material experimentation and collective processes of negotiation. This research orientation emerges from the understanding that space is not a neutral container, but a continuously produced field shaped by everyday practices, power relations, embodied interactions and social imaginaries. Architectural design, therefore, becomes an epistemic and political instrument: a way of revealing, questioning and reshaping the spatial conditions that structure lived reality.

RLCU’s work examines how architectural praxis can be collectively developed and materially prototyped through processes that intertwine conceptual reflection, lived experience and design-build experimentation. Design is approached as a transductive practice in which analysis, speculation, making and inhabitation unfold in reciprocal exchange. Knowledge emerges not through detached observation but through active participation in the situations, conflicts and relational dynamics that constitute everyday life. The Lab investigates how spatial propositions—developed through iterative design processes, 1:1 experiments and field-based inquiry—can function as “experimental utopias”: provisional, open-ended and speculative interventions that activate alternative modes of relation and cohabitation. These experiments form the base for “concrete utopias”: tangible, inhabitable and collectively produced configurations that materialise possible futures within the present.

The conceptual triad #autogestion – #différence – #utopie provides the Lab’s structural, epistemic and operative orientation. #Autogestion frames spatial production as a collective, negotiated and self-determined process, foregrounding shared agency and collaborative authorship. #Différence defines the epistemic field from which RLCU’s research emerges, emphasising situated, plural and embodied forms of knowledge that challenge universalising approaches to architecture. #Utopie guides the Lab’s forward-looking mode of working, connecting speculative imagination with material experimentation in order to develop spatial propositions that open new socio-political horizons. Through this triad, RLCU positions architectural design as a practice that engages critically with existing spatial conditions while cultivating the imaginative and material capacities necessary for transformative change.

RLCU’s research is developed through design-led investigations, transdisciplinary collaborations and full-scale spatial experiments that move between conceptual development and material production. By integrating insights from spatial theory, feminist and decolonial perspectives, critical pedagogy and everyday life research, the Lab seeks to expand the epistemic scope of architectural design and to contribute to spatial practices that are socially responsive, politically attentive and oriented toward more just, plural and relational futures.

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RESEARCH FOCUS

The Research Lab for Concrete Utopias (RLCU) focuses on architectural design as a academic transformative spatial praxis. This orientation approaches design not as the creation of formal solutions or objects, but as a mode of engaging with and producing knowledge about spatial, social and political realities. Architecture is treated as a situated practice that operates within—and actively reshapes—the conditions of everyday life. Through design-led research, RLCU investigates how spatial practices emerge, how they are structured by power relations, and how they may be reconfigured to cultivate more just, plural and responsive futures. At the core is the understanding that space is continuously produced through interactions between bodies, materials, institutions, routines, atmospheres and imaginaries. The production of space is not a neutral or technical process but a deeply political one, entangled with questions of access, agency, visibility, care and collective life. For RLCU, architectural design becomes a critical and imaginative instrument for engaging with these entanglements: it reveals spatial dynamics that often remain unexamined and opens possibilities for reconfiguring them through speculative, conceptual and material interventions.

RLCU’s research focus grows from the insight that design produces knowledge in ways that are distinct from textual, representational or purely analytical forms of inquiry. Design unfolds through sensory engagement, material testing, imaginative projection, negotiation and embodied experience. It brings conceptual reasoning into contact with tangible, lived situations. These processes generate insights that cannot be obtained through theory alone. For this reason, RLCU positions architectural design praxis as an epistemic activity: a means of accessing, articulating and transforming the spatial, social and material conditions that shape how people inhabit the world.

The Lab investigates how architectural design can operate within the complexities of everyday life. Everyday practices—routines, gestures, conflicts, appropriations, frictions—are understood as essential sites where spatial realities are produced and contested. They form a primary field of study and intervention. RLCU asks how architecture can attend to these processes, learn from them and work with them to develop propositions that respond to actual needs, desires and forms of coexistence. The research does not seek to abstract away from everyday conditions; instead, it treats the everyday as a source of situated knowledge and as a terrain for transformative architectural experimentation. This research focus also addresses the need for architectural and spatial practices that challenge dominant narratives and open space for epistemic plurality. RLCU examines how design can integrate forms of knowledge that are often undervalued or excluded in architectural discourse—embodied knowledge, experiential knowledge, vernacular expertise, community-based knowledge, informal spatial intelligence and critical or minoritised perspectives. By engaging with these plural knowledges, the Lab situates architectural design within a broader field of relations and acknowledges the multiplicity of ways in which spatial experience is shaped and understood.

Another central dimension of the Lab’s research is the role of imagination and projection in architectural praxis. RLCU explores how design can create openings for alternative spatial propositions—speculative yet grounded in real conditions, collective aspirations and collaborative processes. These propositions do not remain abstract; they materialise through 1:1 experiments, spatial prototypes, temporary structures, pedagogical interventions and collaborative design-build processes. Through such experiments, RLCU examines how speculative ideas interact with lived contexts, how they reshape everyday situations and how they can become concrete utopian propositions that anchor emerging possibilities in the present.

RLCU’s research focus therefore emerges at the intersection of conceptual reasoning, embodied experience, everyday life and spatial experimentation. It is shaped by the conviction that architecture must respond to contemporary socio-spatial challenges not only through analysis and critique but through active, collaborative and imaginative engagement. The Lab investigates how architectural practices can contribute to radical democratic processes, relational forms of cohabitation, decolonial re-orientations, ecological responsibility and the cultivation of shared agency in the production of space.

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CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATION

#autogestion · #différence · #utopie

RLCU’s conceptual foundation articulates three interrelated dimensions of spatial production: the politics of agency, the epistemics of lived experience and the imaginative-material horizon of spatial transformation. Together, these concepts provide the analytical and operative ground through which the Lab understands, investigates and reconfigures architectural praxis. The triad forms a coherent conceptual architecture that orients the Lab’s research, pedagogical experimentation and design-led inquiry.

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THEORETICAL POSITIONING

RLCU’s research is grounded in a theoretical understanding of space as a continuously produced, negotiated and contested field. This orientation draws fundamentally on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, which conceptualises space not as a passive backdrop but as a living and dynamic social reality shaped by the interplay of the perceived, the conceived and the lived. These dimensions—sensory and material experience, conceptual frameworks and abstract representations, and embodied everyday life—form a triadic structure through which spatial realities are generated and transformed. In RLCU’s research, this triad is not treated as a descriptive model but as a critical and analytical instrument that reveals how spatial practices, power structures and lived experiences intersect. Within this framework, everyday life becomes a central epistemic field. Routines, gestures, conflicts, rhythms and informal practices are understood as primary sources of spatial knowledge—sites where the social production of space can be observed and where possibilities for transformation emerge. Lefebvre’s insight that everyday life contains both the reproduction of dominant structures and the seeds of radical change is foundational for RLCU. It positions architectural research within the material, sensory and affective conditions through which space is actually lived, rather than within detached abstractions or disciplinary boundaries. Everyday life is therefore not background context but a decisive terrain of inquiry where spatial agency is exercised and alternative architectural imaginaries can take form.

At the same time, RLCU’s theoretical grounding is shaped by the principle of situated knowledge, which emphasises that spatial understanding is always partial, embodied and located within specific social, cultural and political conditions. This notion foregrounds the importance of positionality—who speaks, who decides, who imagines, who occupies and who is excluded. It aligns with feminist, decolonial and critical perspectives that insist that knowledge emerges through relation, vulnerability, embodiment and everyday situatedness. In RLCU’s research, situated knowledges are not treated as “perspectives to add,” but as the epistemic ground on which architectural design praxis stands. They shift architectural research away from universalising narratives and toward an engagement with plural and differentiated spatial realities. Together, the production of space and situated knowledge frame architectural design as an epistemic practice—a mode of knowing that operates through conceptual reasoning and material engagement as much as through embodied experience and social interaction. In this view, design is not merely a representational or problem-solving activity; it is a practice that generates knowledge by engaging with spatial conditions directly and relationally. Design becomes a tool for sensing, interpreting and transforming spatial situations, unfolding through a transductive process in which analysis, speculation, making and inhabitation continuously inform one another. This theoretical positioning allows RLCU to treat design not as a linear sequence, but as a dynamic and open-ended process that moves between different modes of thinking and acting.

Central to this orientation is the recognition that space is a political medium. Spatial configurations reflect and reproduce relations of power—through access, visibility, exclusion, appropriation, regulation, material affordances or everyday encounters. RLCU’s research examines these dynamics not simply to critique them but to understand how spatial agency can be reconfigured and redistributed. In this sense, architectural praxis becomes a transformative and radical-democratic practice: it exposes underlying structures while simultaneously offering propositions for how space might be co-produced, inhabited or organised differently.

The theoretical positioning of RLCU is also informed by the dialectic between the present and the possible. Drawing from Lefebvre’s notion of the possible as a material realm of action and from utopian thought as a method rather than a fantasy, the Lab approaches architectural praxis as a field where new propositions can be projected, tested and materialised. This understanding provides the conceptual ground for experimental and concrete utopias—spatial propositions that interrogate existing conditions while articulating potential alternatives. These propositions are not abstractions detached from lived realities; they emerge from engagement with the everyday and return to it as experiential interventions.

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METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

RLCU approaches architectural design as a transductive academic praxis in which research, teaching and spatial experimentation form one continuous field of inquiry rather than discrete activities. Design is understood not as a sequence of steps but as an ongoing movement between analysis, speculation, material engagement and lived experience. Knowledge develops through conceptual reasoning, embodied interaction, dialogical exchange and full-scale experimentation, and our pedagogical orientation follows the same logic: research and teaching reinforce one another as mutually generative practices. A central methodological principle is situated knowledge exchange, which begins with proximity—listening, observing and engaging within concrete spatial, social and material contexts. Instead of treating fieldwork as data collection, we approach it as a reciprocal encounter shaped by positionality and shared agency. Knowledge emerges through the relationships formed between researchers, students, communities and spatial conditions, recognising that architectural understanding is always partial, embodied and shaped by the specific relations through which it is produced. Everyday life is therefore a core field of investigation. By attending to the routines, gestures, frictions, vulnerabilities, appropriations and sensory experiences that generate spatial meaning and structure socio-spatial relations, we identify how power circulates and where latent possibilities for transformation exist. This requires attentiveness to the temporal, affective and material dimensions of the everyday, as well as an openness to forms of knowledge that sit outside disciplinary convention. In this sense, everyday life is not background but the primary terrain in which architectural praxis is observed, interpreted and reshaped.

Another foundational element of RLCU’s methodology is embodied and experiential engagement. We treat the body as an epistemic instrument capable of sensing atmospheres, constraints, potentials and relational dynamics that cannot be captured through abstraction. Through movement and material testing, design becomes a mode of understanding how space is lived, negotiated and continually remade. This embodied dimension shapes how spatial propositions develop—through prototyping, modelling, drawing and 1:1 experimentation—giving design a tactile and relational character. Full-scale (1:1) interventions function as academic tools for exploring speculative and concrete forms of spatial transformation. These are not produced as architectural outcomes but as research and pedagogical devices through which hypotheses are tested, concepts are challenged and spatial agency can be experienced directly. 1:1 experiments materialise ideas within real conditions, making them available for critical reflection, collective negotiation and embodied understanding. They often generate concrete utopian propositions that inform subsequent cycles of research and teaching. RLCU operates within transdisciplinary constellations that bring together diverse forms of expertise and lived experience. Collaborations with practitioners, researchers, activists, cultural actors and community partners allow the research process to develop from within, generating hybrid and contextually grounded forms of knowing. These constellations reflect the Lab’s commitment to relational inquiry and its belief that meaningful spatial transformation requires multiple epistemic positions and situated contributions.

Within this orientation, pedagogy is not an additional component but a constitutive field of research. Studios, workshops and collective design processes act as laboratories where methods are developed, tested and critically examined. Students participate as co-researchers whose perspectives help shape the direction of the work, and pedagogy becomes a mode of architectural production in its own right—one that cultivates new forms of authorship, collaboration, critique and experimentation. Teaching is understood as a spatial practice that produces knowledge rather than merely transmitting it.

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RESEARCH STRANDS

RLCU’s teaching, research and collaborative work develop across three interconnected fields of inquiry that emerge from the Lab’s conceptual and methodological orientation. These strands articulate the directions through which the Lab investigates spatial conditions, produces architectural knowledge and experiments with transformative design praxis. They guide how RLCU engages with situated contexts, builds academic and community partnerships, structures design-led and design-build formats, and develops methods for research-through-design. Each strand defines a distinct yet interrelated terrain in which the Lab searches for alternative forms of architectural praxis grounded in agency, lived experience and material experimentation.

1. Collective Agency & Spatial Self-Management (#autogestion)

Academic focus

This strand investigates spatial production as a collective, negotiated and politically situated process. Grounded in Lefebvre’s concept of autogestion, it examines how spatial conditions emerge through diverse constellations of actors, shared responsibilities, everyday negotiations and conflicts. RLCU understands collective agency as an epistemic and organisational dimension of architectural praxis: a way of revealing how power circulates, how infrastructures of decision-making operate, and how spatial life can be co-produced rather than imposed. Research in this field explores the dynamics of self-management, co-production, commoning and collective authorship, focusing on how architectural design can support more democratic, accessible and situated forms of spatial organisation.

Strategic orientation:

• project contexts where spatial issues require collaboration, negotiation and shared authorship
• alliances with civic groups, municipalities, NGOs, cultural institutions and collectives working on democratic spatial transformation
• funding frameworks tied to civic agency, community innovation, public space, inclusion or territorial governance
• teaching environments where students can work with real actors, conflicts and responsibilities
• research networks engaging with commoning, co-production and distributed spatial agency

in practice…

• co-designed interventions developed with communities and local actors
• mapping of actor constellations, governance structures and spatial inequalities
• design-build and project formats based on shared decision-making
• negotiation labs, assemblies, collaborative workshops and field-based co-creation
• spatial propositions that support collective management, stewardship and cohabitation

2. Situated Knowledge, Lived Experience & Everyday Spatial Practices (#différence)

Academic focus

This strand examines everyday life as a primary epistemic field and investigates how architectural understanding emerges through embodied experience, relational practices, sensory conditions and lived difference. Drawing from feminist, decolonial and everyday-life theories, #différence conceptualises spatial knowledge as situated, partial and produced through lived situations. RLCU studies how spatial meaning arises from routines, frictions, cultural practices, vulnerabilities, informal adaptations and micro-political dynamics that often lie outside dominant architectural frameworks. Design is treated as a technique for engaging with lived realities — for learning from them, amplifying them and transforming them into spatial propositions.

Strategic orientation:

• research contexts where everyday life, vulnerability, informal practices or cultural plurality shape spatial conditions
• interdisciplinary collaborations with anthropology, STS, gender studies, social work, geography, ecology, cultural studies
• partnerships with groups working on care, migration, community practices, decolonial perspectives or vernacular expertise
• funding lines addressing social innovation, urban welfare, gender equity, cultural transformation or everyday-life research
• teaching formats rooted in fieldwork, embodied methods, sensory investigations, narrative documentation and spatial ethnography

in practice…

• field-based studios using observation, participation, sensory mapping and embodied research
• collaborative projects focused on care, gender, belonging, informality or vernacular practices
• documentation formats (drawing, video, photography, modelling, text) that translate lived experience into spatial knowledge
• design propositions grounded in affective, relational and embodied dimensions of space
• transdisciplinary seminars where design meets ethnography, sensory studies or critical theory

 3. Utopian Projection & Material Experimentation (#utopie)

Academic focus

This strand investigates the speculative and material dimensions of architectural praxis through the dialectic between experimental and concrete utopias. Building on Lefebvre’s notion of the possible, #utopie foregrounds design as a projective and materially grounded mode of inquiry. RLCU explores how speculative ideas, when translated into prototypes, temporary structures or 1:1 experiments, open new spatial horizons and enable alternative modes of inhabitation. Utopian projection is treated not as idealisation, but as a method for testing, negotiating and materialising possibilities within real contexts, constraints and social relations.

Strategic orientation:

• contexts for full-scale experimentation, including public institutions, cultural venues, municipal settings and community infrastructures
• funding structures supporting prototyping, design-build, artistic research and practice-led experimentation
• technical partnerships with workshops, fabrication labs, engineers, artisans and material researchers
• international collaborations on speculative, experimental or design-led research
• teaching opportunities in which modelling, prototyping, iterative experimentation and design-build become integral components

in practice…

• 1:1 prototypes, temporary installations and spatial experiments
• iterative design-build processes that test spatial hypotheses in real conditions
• speculative scenarios translated into material, inhabitable spatial propositions
• interventions that reorganise everyday routines and modes of cohabitation
• prototypes that act as negotiation devices between actors and institutions
• concrete utopias that materialise emerging possibilities within present contexts