Hanne Van Reusel analyses the case of Recup’Kitchen, an ongoing process to collectively envision, fund, construct and manage a mobile kitchen, that facilitates the preparation of healthy and vegetarian dishes, made from recuperated food products. 

Recup’Kitchen creates a place to meet in public space and hosts debates by bringing people together around food. The structure is functioning as a means to expand facilities (like energy and water) for the temporary use on the Josaphat site in Brussels.

In contrast with the more traditional design process, this collective design journey took a very unstructured course. If the conventionally structured design strategy, with a solid direction and clear time frame, can be compared to a walk along an outlined path, the Recup’Kitchen design process can be described as a process of ‘wandering’. The design of Recup’Kitchen is continuously being questioned and rethought in order to respond to the changing and varying needs. 

In this article, Hanne Van Reusel claims that the wandering approach can reinforce infrastructuring. The findings in the design process of Recup’Kitchen suggest the design expert to a ‘let go’ of the design process, so she states.

You'll find the paper here.

The paper was published in the Strategic Design Research Journal, volume 9, number 2, May-August 2016.

La première Assemblée européenne des communs a réuni pendant trois jours près de 150 personnes venant de tous les horizons européens à Bruxelles. Les gens de Commons Josaphat y étaient.
Voici leur rapport qui est à la fois aussi un regard un peu plus analytique du mouvement autour du 'commun' en Europe.

A most vivid discussion at the Commons session of Brussels Academy on the 22nd of April. Tine De Moor pleaded for terminologic hygiene : the concept ‘commons’ should be strictly reserved for resources that are 1) offered by a collective and 3) used by a collective. Philosopher Lieven De Cauter reacted by saying that however, we also need a word to describe the broad universe that is neither private nor public. For Lieven the concept ‘commons’ is a way out of our capitalist tunnel vision. At the end both agree that the concept can help to protect global goods.
Somewhere in between De Moor tells us a secret about institutions for commons: sanctioning seems to be way less important to their resilience then simple talking.