This talk presents an alternative trajectory of architectural practice that moves across academia, public and private sector, and community-led initiatives, challenging the dominant market-driven model of the profession. Drawing on different experiences in participatory design, social innovation, and ethnographic research on urban commons, Eleni explores how spaces of everyday life – public spaces, neighborhood infrastructures, and collective spatial practices – can become sites of care, collective agency, and spatial justice.
Through work ranging from community participation in the UK and USA to ongoing research and action in Nikea, Greece, the talk proposes a different stance of the practitioner: one who operates between sectors, works with communities as co-producers, and understands design as an ongoing commoning process rather than service delivery. Ultimately, it asks what kinds of infrastructures, practices, alliances, and imaginaries are needed to reclaim the city as a shared and democratic project.