FORMS OF COMMONS

Unit 2 - THE INFRAORDINARY Learning from London Tutors - Chiara @chiara_malerba , Margherita @margheritasorgentone , and Costanza @zesssen , as FORMS OF COMMONS @formsofcommons References: -Thomas Demand, Model Studies I & II (2015–2020), Mack Books, 2020 -As Found: The Discovery of the Ordinary, Lars Müller Publishers, 2001 -Irénée Scalbert, The Architect as Bricoleur, Candide: Journal for Architectural Knowledge, no. 4, 2011

Unit 2 – THE INFRAORDINARY Learning from London Tutors – Chiara @chiara_malerba , Margherita @margheritasorgentone and Costanza @zesssen as FORMS OF COMMONS @formsofcommons London unfolds through interiors, infrastructures, temporary arrangements, and small acts of repair. On Caledonian Road, Richard Wentworth reveals the city through everyday improvisations: tied, patched, and repurposed objects become the focus of his depiction of urban life. Students will produce weekly physical outputs while training their gaze on the city. This approach draws inspiration from Georges Perec. In Species of Spaces, the attentive gaze becomes a method for recording the ordinary rooms, streets, staircases, objects, and gestures. Through lists, descriptions, and small inventories, Perec develops a way of analysing space from the inside out, revealing how everyday life quietly constructs the environments we inhabit. These weekly outcomes will gradually build the narrative of a collective scenography at 1:1 scale within the school. Students will transform observations of daily life into space: a system of rooms, conceived as white canvases, will host actions and stories, forming a shared mise-en-scène. References: -Bloomsbury, London, The Images of Architects, Valerio Olgiati -Various Small Fires and Milk (1964), Ed Ruscha -Book cover of Der Spaziergang (1917), Robert Walser -Bloomsbury, London, The Images of Architects, Valerio Olgiati -Exhibition Martin Margiela (2021), Lafayette Anticipations -Installation view, Its Walls, Floors, Ceiling and Window (2019), Richard Venlet -Installation view, Arper pavilion (2022), MAIO Architects -Painting, 4 Color Frame Painting (1984), Robert Mangold -Atlas, Various Motifs (1978), Gerhard Richter

Unit 2 – THE INFRAORDINARY Learning from London Tutors – Chiara @chiara_malerba , Margherita @margheritasorgentone and Costanza @zesssen as FORMS OF COMMONS @formsofcommons In contemporary architectural discourse, urgencies increasingly frame how buildings, cities, and their futures are discussed. While these questions are necessary, they often privilege the quest for answers, leaving less space for attention to everyday life. Our unit proposes a different attitude: to understand care as a practice of looking closely. Observation, of how people live, move, adjust, and inhabit space, will be approached as an architectural act looking into the the familiar, at times unnoticed, environments that quietly structure urban life. Learning from London means learning to notice these conditions, discovering how architecture emerges through the everyday life that takes place within it. References: Excerpt 1: Babylon, Franco Rosso, 1980 Excerpt 2: Ghost Town, The Specials, 1981 Excerpt 3: Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966 Excerpt 4: Sunny Afternoon, The Kinks, 1966 Excerpt 5: Sunday Bloody Sunday, John Schlesinger, 1971 Music: I Hope The Goats Come Back , Elijah Minnelli

UNIT 2 THE INFRAORDINARY What if architecture began by questioning how we look at things rather than through grand gestures? Our three-week unit explores the infraordinary—the overlooked, the habitual, the everyday. Through careful observation of London’s interiors, infrastructures, temporary arrangements, and small acts of adaptation, we will train our gaze and learn to see with care. London offers particularly fertile ground for this approach. Read from within, the city reveals itself in fragments encountered over time—patterns of life unfolding quietly through repetition and use. From documenting gestures and routines to collectively constructing a full-scale scenography within the school, students will transform daily life into space. A system of rooms, conceived as white canvases, will host actions and stories, creating a shared mise-en-scène. This Unit is lead by FORMS OF COMMONS FORMS OF COMMONS is an architectural practice. Its work is driven by an understanding of architecture as a cultural framework—one that engages with space and form as collective means of knowledge. Chiara Malerba, Margherita Sorgentone, and Costanza Zeni established FORMS OF COMMONS in 2023 while actively teaching and practising, developing an ongoing dialogue between research, education, and design work. #aaschool #aavisitingschool #architectureeducation #architecturalassociation #london

Developed in collaboration with @xx0000xx.insta and the engineering team at @scop_2401 , our competition proposal for a Maison de Quartier in Geneva aims to create a defining presence for community life. The project is articulated by a new gabled roof resting on a mineral base—a natural stone extension that integrates and reinterprets the existing structure on site. By minimising the building’s footprint, the design frees space for generous openings that extend indoor activities onto two new terraces. Organised over three levels, the project allows for spatial adaptability and programmatic flexibility to accommodate evolving needs. The modular timber roof structure further reinforces the project’s capacity to adapt over time while defining the architectural identity, making the building a distinctive urban figure.

A glimpse of our competition proposal for the renovation of the residents’ pavilions at the French Academy in Rome,Villa Medici, developed in collaboration with architect and artist Franco Raggi and the designer François Lafourne @francois_lafortune . The project reimagines the seven existing pavilions as a living archive, inspired by the historic fragments and bas-reliefs that have long shaped Villa Medici as a place of study, culture, and reinterpretation. Our proposal introduces a series of small plaster fragments embedded within the interior walls of the living spaces, echoing Renaissance and Baroque traditions where fragments functioned as objects of study rather than decoration. Each pavilion becomes an artistic microcosm — a map of the arts — dedicated to a specific practice, from music to architecture, literature to cinema. The fragments subtly evoke artistic disciplines, while a continuous grid system, derived from the existing floor pattern, extends onto the walls to structure space, color, proportions, and furnitures. Some images in this post are courtesy of the Villa Medici website. ©️ Molajoli Nuti

Lake Villa is an extension project for a lakeside residence. Our proposal takes shape through the addition of a new level—an attic volume— that follows the outline of the original building. In compliance with strict local regulations, the project aims to maximize the allowable volume in order to accommodate a new, independent unit. Within this defined perimeter, the new volume is positioned above the main body of the existing house, while the remaining area is conceived as an elevated terrace, suspended between the residence and the surrounding landscape.

FORMS OF COMMONS EPHEMERAL AGENTS : STAGING EXCEPTIONS *Symposium Speaker -By treating staging as design research, the proposal invites a shift from established practice toward spatial experimentation. -A temporary architectural gesture can act as a lens, calling us to re-see what we thought we already knew about our everyday surroundings. -Can the street become a spatial laboratory where order and disruption reveal how people negotiate space and movement? -Mute columns placed randomly, in clusters and in lines within familiar space provoked movement or avoidance, revealing spatial agency through subtle disruption. -Do fleeting interventions have the agency to expose social patterns, challenge public behaviour, and reframe architectural practice? Photography by Hannah Weisz @hannahchampagner Chiara Malerba, Margherita Sorgentone and Costanza Zeni established FORMS OF COMMONS in 2023 @formsofcommons Ephemeral Agents will take place at Gallery House Zurich @galleryhouse.zurich - Quellenstrasse 27, 8005 Zürich. The programme combines an exhibition of projects selected through Open Call A, and a symposium featuring invited speakers. Thursday 11.12.2025 Exhibition 16:00-23:00 Symposium 18:30-21:00

What an amazing journey these past weeks at the AA Summer School have been. Thanks to everyone who made this possible. @aasummerschool Here’s to carrying this inspiration forward into future projects! Support Brace Through attaching an unstable column to a load-bearing one, a relationship of needing support and wanting acknowledgement is created between the two. The connecting belt highlights their co-dependency. Emilia Eggers @emiliaa.caroline Hannah Weisz @hannahchampagner Raffaello’s Corner The column plays with illusion, draped in a trompe-l’œil curtain borrowed directly from Raffaello’s Loggia of Psyche. Here classical form and visual artifice meet to question our sense of space. Amanda Brundler @amanda.brndl Judi Aldlaigan @jabdullahh It’s All a Bit...Surreal? Playing with perception and misdirection, the three mirrored faces dissolve the column into its surroundings, while the fourth, absurdly cloaked in carpet, breaks all spatial logic. Hanyu Yang @wastein_time Pelin Gezer @pelinsgezer Postcards From A Temple The scenography echoes the stillness of a Taoist temple. A peaceful space for contemplation. The drawings on the column, tell us stories of harmony with nature and the balance within human beings. Luis Lang @luiswildcats2 References: Image 2: Jacopo Valentini. From the series Monumento, inkjetprint, 100X66cm, 2024. Together with C. Franco and E. Tresoldi. @jappivale Image 4: Raphael. (1512). Triumph of Galatea, Fresco, Villa Farnesina, Rome Image 7: White Cube, 2025. Untitled (Acrylic Column), Robert Irwin. Image 10: Unknown artist. Daoist/Buddhist mural (temple wall fresco), China. Special thanks to our TA Hannah Weisz @hannahchampagner

Unit 5 - Forms of Commons: Staging Exceptions (WIP) Sharing our #wip of the past three weeks at the summer school. From exploring, site-seeing and documenting perceptions to understanding, constructing and staging exceptions. Special thanks to Jacopo Valentini for his talk on „Photography and Staging Exceptions“ @jappivale Lorenzo Gatta for his lecture on „The Column, or How to Rethink the Origins of Architecture“ @gatta_lorenzo Our mid-review guests, Nele Bergmans @nelebergmans , Unit 2 @like_a_gloveee and @helenitasjetsjenita Students Hanyu Yang @wastein_time Luis Lang @luiswildcats2 Pelin Gezer @pelinsgezer Emilia Eggers @emiliaa.caroline Amanda Brundler @amanda.brndl Judi Aldlaigan @jabdullahh Tutors Chiara Malerba @chiara_malerba Margeritha Sorgentone @margheritasorgentone Costanza Zeni @zesssen as @formsofcommons TA Hannah Weisz @hannahchampagner

Unit 5 – FORMS OF COMMONS Tutors – Chiara @chiara_malerba , Margherita @margheritasorgentone and Costanza @zesssen as FORMS OF COMMONS @formsofcommons WEEK 3 In the final week, we will shift our focus to the exterior of the column. How do we ‘dress’ a column? How can its surface—through texture, color, or ornamentation—convey a narrative? By exploring materials such as paper, fabric, or found objects, referencing visual artists and theatrical designers who use surface as narrative, we will investigate various techniques as painting, layering, wrapping, patterning, or scripting, to give the columns their own character and identity. The final exhibition will serve as a showcase of students‘ work and ultimately as a celebration of what we will collectively create within the framework of the AA Summer School, a Staged Exception. References: Image 2: Excerpt from the magazine San Rocco - Happy Birthday Bramante!, 2015 Image 3: Excerpt from the book What is Ornament? by Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Lisbon Triennale, 2019 Image 5: Excerpt from the magazine San Rocco - Happy Birthday Bramante!, 2015 Image 8: 3 Colonne 3, Study for air conditioning device, Franco Raggi, 1994 Image 9: Excerpt from the magazine San Rocco - Happy Birthday Bramante!, 2015 Image 10: Student works developed in the MArch Architecture course, Courtesy of Smith & Taylor Studio and Kingston School of Art, London, 2018 Exhibited at What is Ornament? exhibition by Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Lisbon Triennale, 2019 picture by Fabio Cunha

Unit 5 – FORMS OF COMMONS Tutors – Chiara @chiara_malerba , Margherita @margheritasorgentone and Costanza @zesssen as FORMS OF COMMONS @formsofcommons WEEK 2 After the field trip, we will return to the AA: the school becomes the site for the students‘ to explore their own staging. Using the same tools developed during the field trip students will begin to observe and document the school itself, looking closely at different spaces: rooms, hallways, staircases, and outdoor areas. How do people move within these spaces? Where do they sit, wait, talk, or gather? These places will become the context for columns installations. Students will begin to built their own full-scale (1:1) column mock-up. The construction will be lightweight and movable, allowing to test different scenographies throughout the school. What happens when a column enters a space? Does it guide movement or interrupt it? Does it change how people behave? The documentation of interventions will be carried out using media chosen by the students. References: Video: Footage of San Satiro by FORMS OF COMMONS Image 1: Plan of Santa Maria presso San Satiro, 1482, Milan Image 2: Plan of The Lloyd’s Building, Richard Rogers & Partners, 1986, London Image 3: Plan of Sainsbury Wing, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, 1991, London Image 4: Plan of Sir John Soane’s Museum, John Soane, 1824, London Music : Flesh And Blood, Cindy Lee