Design-Supported Urban Commons in Collective Housing Regeneration in Eastern and Western Europe

This paper examines the transformation of the designer’s role in the regeneration of collective housing districts in both Western and Eastern Europe, particularly when their actions support the emergence of urban commons. Given the ongoing privatization in both contexts, there is a need to repair the broken and fragmented public amenities of these neighborhoods. To this end, commons-based initiatives offer an alternative approach. Grounded in participatory methodologies and combining methods from architecture, urban planning, social sciences, and co-design, the research provides a comparative reflection on the collective production, use, and transformation of shared spatial infrastructure in neighborhoods in Bucharest, Cluj, and Paris. The findings demonstrate how emerging forms of urban commons (such as informal libraries, community gardens, and civic hubs) lay the foundation for bottom-up, resilient regeneration of collective housing estates, and highlight how these initiatives can be critically supported by designers and citizens across various local, social, and political contexts.