Convivial Ground

Stories from
Collaborative
Spatial Practices
Constructlab /
Joanne Pouzenc /
Alex Römer /
Peter Zuiderwijk
(eds.)

THE STOOL

Content
8 Editorial: Tuning our Voices
by Constructlab / Joanne Pouzenc, Alexander Römer
and Peter Zuiderwijk
19 The Convivial Ground
Prologue by Joanne Pouzenc, 2019
32 GATHER
To Gather
55 Let Me Introduce You To …
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
58 Once Upon Today
Story by Mascha Fehse, 2019
63 Who Decides?
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2019
67 Pixelated Relationships
Story by Carla Rangel, 2019
72 Beyond The Coffee, And The Machine
Story by Laëtitia Chamekh, 2018
76 What’s Cooking?
Story by Johanna Dehio, 2019
80 EAT
97 Architects Also Need To Eat
Story by Rebecca Acosta, 2021
102 Give A Man A Barbecue
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation
with Pascal Lazarus, 2019
106 Brad Pitt Is Cool
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation
with Pascal Lazarus, 2019
111 Red, Red Wine
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
3

114 Gotcha!
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
118 The Housekeeper
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation with
OST collective (Julie Guiches and Benoît Lorent), 2019
123 Nothing Planned
Story by Sofia Costa Pinto, 2019
126 Talking To The Wall
Story by Peter Zuiderwijk, 2022
132 The Unpredictable Drift
Conversation between Joanne Pouzenc, Alexander
Römer, Mathilde Sauzet, and Malte von Braun, 2019
To Learn
154 Telling What We Really Want To Learn (And How)
Essay by Merril Sinéus,
based on collective statements, 2021
176 DISPLAY
193 The Wall That Turns Decisions Into Skills
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation
with Alexander Römer, 2019
198 Means To Distribute Ideas
Story by Peter Zuiderwijk, 2019
209 Lingo Flows
Story by Lucas Devolder, 2022
212 How I Heard The Cry Of The River
Story by Merril Sinéus, 2021
217 Trial And Error And Trial Again
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
220 Doubt Is Good
Story by Linus Lutz, based on a conversation
with Alexander Römer, 2019
4

224 LEARN
241 What Nobody Really Wants,
Until They Really Really Want It
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
245 The Hot—Very Hot—Hour
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
250 The Fortune Teller
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a fortune telling
session with Merril Sinéus, 2021
257 Today I’ve Learned—Part I
Story by Sara Belrhaiti, 2021
259 Today I’ve Learned—Part II
Story by Sara Belrhaiti, 2021
262 Today I’ve Learned—Part III
Story by Sara Belrhaiti, 2021
266 What Did I Learn?
Collection of learnings and connections
by Merril Sinéus, 2021
272 COOK
290 Reflective Round Around An Italian Tea
Conversation between Antonin Basser,
Naim Benyahya, Diego Sologuren, and Merril Sinéus
296 The Future School
Constructlab in conversation
with Tiphaine Abenia and Hae-Won Shin, 2021
312 The Learning Community
Essay by Joanne Pouzenc, 2022
To Work
330 Tuning In
Story by David Moritz, 2019
334 A Coffee For Erik
Story by Bert Villa, 2019
5

340 The Community Factory, Unless It’s
The Factory Of The Community?
Story by Linus Lutz, based on a conversation
with Sebastien Tripod, 2019
345 Them, The Making, The Makers And
The Ones Who Make The Making Possible
Story by Noel Madison Fettingsmith, 2020
352 WORK
371 A Motionless Theater
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation
with OST collective (Julie Guiches and Benoît Lorent),
2019
374 Watching Each Other Improvise
Story by Linus Lutz, based on a conversation
with Patrick Hubmann, 2019
378 Useful Lost Information Board
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
382 The House With Too Many Doors
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
387 The Auction To Get Less
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
391 The Auction To Give Back
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, 2021
396 We Should Design Our Waste
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation
with Refunc (Jan Korbes, Denis Oudendijk),
and Peter Zuiderwijk, 2019
400 REST
417 The Little Person Who Holds A Piece Of Wood
Story by Joanne Pouzenc, based on a conversation
with Lucas Devolder, 2022
6

420 600 Steps
Story by Angie Volk, based on a conversation
with Alexander Römer, 2022
428 Conviviality, Work, Leisure, and Retirement
Thierry Paquot in conversation with Joanne Pouzenc
and Alexander Römer, 2022
455 About the Constructlab Network
458 Image credits
462 Acknowledgements
463 Imprint
464 PLAY
7

DRUCK AM DREESCH
16

17

18

Essay:
19

Emergencism
Community is as old as humanity and the need for the
other as important as the need for water and food. Within
all communities, organizing survival has led to the invention
of different forms of sharing, in order to distribute
resources, roles, and tasks. Clearly, the idea of a community
in which every single individual is responsible for
sustaining himself entirely would be unfeasible. Nobody
can know everything, and even if they could, nobody can
make everything. While the market based on common
value has managed to offer a solution to transcend the
conflicts and negotiations that come along with sharing,
in a world of limited resources and limited growth, that
system also increases inequality: when one gets more,
another one loses out.
The dematerialization of the relation to the other, made
possible through free trade and the rise of technologies,
has reached a new level. But while individualism
is still possible in daily life, the current emergencies and
contemporary challenges—ecological, social, political,
economical—underline the necessity of global common
action towards one possible future. It is up to us all to
invent today the conditions of that action.
20

Common Ground Is Not Enough
Beyond Common: Convivial.
On the opposite side of the extra-connected, extra-marketed
society, the trend towards adopting new (old) ways
of life, whereby needs are reduced to a minimum in order
to assume self-sustainability, represents a new alternative
for living a good life. But if reducing our needs seems
like an appealing idea, it is only a partial solution. In one
sense, movements such as minimalism or survivalism
contribute to the negation of the need for community and
the acceptance of the failure of society to find common
answers to the contemporary challenges together. While
those challenges are commonly identified—we call them
“climate change,” “crises of capitalism,” etc.—commonly
agreeing on the actions to implement to solve those issues
together seems a utopian task. Working together implies
acknowledging not only the common agreements, but also
the individual discords. If community is only a need, it is
tempting to let conflict rule, which divides that community
into smaller opposing units with a centralized power. But
if community is a desire, then desire rules over conflict
and the search for common solutions, without discord,
becomes possible. In that sense, common ground is not
enough. A convivial ground could be an answer.
21

Built upon the notion of “conviviality,” 1 the Manifesto for a
Convivialist Society 2 draws the baselines for a legitimate
politics based on four main principles: the principle of common
humanity—beyond all differences, there is only one
humanity that will be respected by every single member
of that one and only humanity; the principle of common
sociality—humans are social beings and their largest
asset lies in their social relationships; the principle of
individuation—legitimate politics should allow every person
to express their individual selves, by developing their
abilities and empowering them to act without damaging
somebody else’s individuality, in search of equal freedom;
the principle of handled opposition—opposition as the
free expression of individual opinion is inevitable, but it
should not endanger the principle of common sociality
that allows conflict to be fruitful rather than destructive.
In that sense, if what we need is a common ground, what
we desire is a convivial ground. How does this translate
in terms of design?
22

GATHER
WE OFTEN GATHER IN A CIRCLE.
A LARGE, MEDIUM OR SMALL ONE,
MADE OUT OF WOOD OR PEOPLE.
THE CIRCLES OFTEN HAVE
DIFFERENT FLOORS AND A CENTRAL
STAGE IN THE MIDDLE. AS IN
CHILDREN’S GAMES, IT’S ALWAYS
POSSIBLE TO INVITE SOMEBODY
NEW IN BY STRETCHING THE
DIAMETER OF THE CIRCLE. WITHIN
THIS SPACE, WE ARE ALL ON THE
SAME LEVEL. NOBODY TAKES A
CENTRAL POSITION.
32

AGORA FOR TRANSLATION ACTS

MON(S) INVISIBLE
34

MON(S) INVISIBLE
35

TO

GATHER

55
Let Me
Introduce You To …
Once Upon Today
58
63
Who Decides?
Pixelated
Relationships
67
72
Beyond The Coffee,
And The Machine
What’s Cooking?
76
97
Architects
Also Need To Eat
Give A Man
A Barbecue
102

106
Brad Pitt
Is Cool
Red, Red Wine
111
114
Gotcha!
The
Housekeeper
118
123
Nothing
Planned
Talking
To The Wall
126
132
The
Unpredictable
Drift

Once Upon
Today
She shivers when she hears his words. They’re identical to hers—
she put them down in the same order—now they’re recalled,
retold, in front of the camera, replayed in loops. Woland, the devil
himself, tells the protagonist of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita
that manuscripts don’t burn. Stories can hardly be extinguished,
despite all efforts to burn their pages in the fireplace, made by
the so-called master and by the author alike. The history of narratives
is a very curious journey of manifestations, materializations,
vaporizations and reappearances. Traces of these stories cross
political camps, national borders, generations, and professions.
When an idea is sparked, it can be multiplied in the heads around
it and persist through its storyline. It can grow, become uncensorable
or unreasonable, radical and powerful, or imprecise,
defamatory and oppressive, for that matter. It can become a
common goal, a shared fear, a mutual entertainment. Then the
story takes one path or another: one speaks of a fiction, when
one sees this constructed or deconstructed alteration to the
real. One more likely uses the word “fake,” when one perceives
a distorted image of reality.
And yet, not only can satirical masterpieces not be silenced, but
everyday narratives too. When he tells her, “Let me show you how
58

to use this circular saw,” he reproduces widespread narratives
of roles in which most of us are deeply entangled. Fictions are
frequent encounters that linger in many corners. Given the amount
of what we don’t know and what we don’t understand, fictions are
extent our most reliable friends. A fictional character for whom
an additional plate was prepared around the lunch table can be
called upon. Luckily, this person never shows up, because every
once in a while somebody from the office next door comes for
lunch. Rather than waiting for something that’s likely to happen,
the people around that table wait for something unlikely to happen,
something unexpected and astonishing.
The narrative is a simulation in a parallel universe: a dialogue
between fiction and reality that throws suggestions back into our
world of what should or could be tried. Some words have to be
invented to complement a story, which functions as a common
ground for the people who come together for lunch. Its invention
is a journey from everyday practices into the unreal, into a time
beyond what can be planned, an exercise in changing one’s perspective
or an attempt to deconstruct what’s given. It’s debated,
experienced and confusing.
At that moment, by going through the pages of that narrative
anti-manual, she thinks, “What do they mean by putting all these
abstract associative bits and pieces together?—Isn’t the goal
simply to involve some people and make something nice? Well,
give a woman (or a man) something nice to eat, and she’ll be
hungry after an hour; give her a nice story and she can write the
next chapter.”
59

CASINOTOPIA
60

61

Beyond
The Coffee,
And
The Machine
It’s a big machine like the ones you see on coffee-shop counters.
We don’t really know how to use it. Two people are grinding
beans. There are special cups and tools. It’s a gift from Peter.
For him, coffee is a tool to meet, to enjoy a break, to develop
spontaneity, to link words and thoughts. He shows us how to
deal with the grinding, the different choices of coffee and the
importance of cleaning. Since the team is always changing, we
hand over what we’ve learned and each of us experiments with
being a coffee maker.
One day, something stops working. The coffee machine struggles
to fill a cup. People are laughing; it’s like an excuse to stay
around longer. We almost forget about the coffee, talking about
ideas we’ve had, texts we’re writing, the lock someone needs
to fix, the benches others are building, the moving workplace,
the meal someone wants to cook for dinner, the vegetables in
need of water, the movements to relax the body and the movie
to play at night.
72

THE ARCH
73

Another day, the machine sparks in all directions, the grinders
chop too coarsely the beans and the coffee is really bitter.
People make faces. We think that we could manage instead
with a thermos full of coffee. A neighbor brings his own coffee
machine and now we make the coffee faster. People ask what’s
happening. They miss the choreography of the gestures that
came with the old machine and they wait for it to come back.
At this moment, we start to understand what it represents for
the community and we decide to try it again.
Then the machine goes down completely. Everybody is really
embarrassed. Peter arrives fast with a new machine. He insists
that we use it. We’re afraid of breaking it again, but we can’t say
no. Peter believes in the coffee machine. People here believe
in it too. We understand that: we need what the machine does.
It’s not just the power of the coffee itself, but the way the machine
provides a place where we say hello, where we connect
to each other, chatting, telling stories about what’s happening
all around. We have fun drawing in the foamy milk, adding spices
or chocolate. Meeting around the coffee machine offers a
specific moment to share what we did, what we do, what we
will do, what we saw, what we see and how we feel.
We think about the thermos again, that it would be easier, faster
and more effective. But people continue to come, enjoying the
coffee machine. It’s part of daily life here, important to share;
it’s creativity. We don’t need to do it faster. We need to take
time for coffee. When you listen to all the stories around this
machine, when you observe, when you sit amongst the people
having coffee, you can’t imagine letting it go.
74

THE ARCH
75

WORK
THE WORKSHOP ALLOWS FOR THE
SAFE REPETITION OF GESTURES.
IT IS A CONSTRUCTION LINE
TRANSFORMING RAW MATERIAL
INTO FINISHED MODULES, WHERE
EVERY TOOL HAS A DEDICATED
PLACE. ITS SPATIAL ORGANIZATION
IS BASED ON A PRECISE SEQUENCE
OF RATIONALIZED MOVEMENTS:
RECEIVE, CLASSIFY, ALIGN, CUT,
ASSEMBLE.
352

MAIN HALL / OSTHANG PROJECT
METAVILLA / EXYZT
353

MAINHALL / OSTHANG PROJECT
354

MUSEUM OF ARTE ÚTIL
355

IMPRINT
© 2023 by jovis Verlag GmbH
Texts by kind permission of the authors.
Pictures by kind permission of the photographers/holders
of the picture rights.
All rights reserved.
A book by Constructlab
Editors: Joanne Pouzenc, Alexander Römer, Peter Zuiderwijk
Copy editing: Melissa Larner
Project management jovis Verlag: Franziska Schüffler
Graphic Design: Collective Works, The Hague, NL
Lithography: Bild1Druck, Berlin
Printed in the European Union.
Bibliographic information published by the
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the
Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are
available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de
jovis Verlag GmbH
Lützowstraße 33
10785 Berlin
www.jovis.de
jovis books are available worldwide in select bookstores.
Please contact your nearest bookseller or visit www.jovis.de
for information concerning your local distribution.
ISBN 978-3-98612-004-7 (Softcover)
ISBN 978-3-98612-005-4 (E-Book)
463