Productive Rural School and Social Reconstruction of the Habitat in Ixtepec, Mexico
Comunal Arquitectura
Affiliations
Comunal Arquitectura
Comunal is a women-led collaborative team who, since 2015, operate as facilitators and mediators who comprehensively accompany organized groups, collectives and inhabitants in the defense, management, and social production of their habitats. Comunal works under the vision of the production and social management of habitat (PyGSH), an ethical-political position that comes from recognizing the habitats as collaborative social processes and considers participation as a collective right. Their work has been recognized nationally and internationally in several contexts including Venice (2016, 2018), New York (2018), London (2019), Lisbon (2018, 2019) and in Latin America (2016-2020).
Comunal’s practice brings multiple lessons to an approach aligned with degrowth. The defining concept of the practice’s format and procedures is the Production and Social Management of Habitat. According to Comunal, this acknowledges people as active subjects with an epistemic, political, organizational, and creative agency. Their practice engages in undoing hegemonic narratives based on patriarchal models in order to build work strategies strictly linked to self-determination, collective knowledge, and people’s autonomy.
