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SUMMARY:Parallel Strips: London Allotment Gardens\, Self-help as Ideology 
 and Solidarity as a Project. A lecture by Olivia Neves Marra. Neighbours V
 ol. 2.
DTSTART:20231129T123000
DTEND:20231129T140000
DTSTAMP:20260528T031207Z
UID:370ac3b6b39980fb23c87d47dbba94fdb805d440d38b2111adee74e0
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Olivia Neves Marra (UCL\, Bartlett School of Architecture)\nOl
 ivia’s research practice reconsiders the enclosed garden as a paradigm o
 f ideological enclosures connected to concepts of ownership\, household\, 
 and urban territory. In her essay "Parallel Strips\," she proposes an alte
 rnative design theory with London allotments as possible nexuses between i
 ndividuality and mutual solidarity. Often overlooked by architecture histo
 ries and theories\, English allotments emerged around the late eighteenth 
 century as experiments of shared garden schemes invented by philanthropist
 s and the rural elites for the peasants (newly dispossessed of their custo
 m rights to common land). As these schemes have spread with the parliament
 ary Enclosure of open-field systems\, it is possible to identify the allot
 ment as an ambiguous spatial paradigm of re-parcellation\, distribution\, 
 and reproduction of land. On the one hand\, they have normalised private p
 roperty by individualising horticultural gardening – traditionally colle
 ctive before Enclosure – and celebrating the Evangelical value of self-h
 elp over mutual solidarity. On the other\, allotments were relatively affi
 rmative spaces as they secured workers with minimal means of production by
  keeping low-value land permanently affordable. From 1830 to the present\,
  these schemes have significantly changed in culture\, policy\, quantity o
 f sites\, and size of plots\, but only slightly as to the deep structures 
 behind the logic of their plot grids\, gardening rules\, and self-help ide
 ology. The essay questions this consistency as it closely reads three exam
 ples of allotment whose subtle transformations may illuminate critical his
 torical shifts in the London production of urban space and subjectivity. T
 his critical genealogy culminates in a projective epilogue proposing an al
 ternative design methodology that gives form to current trends and aspirat
 ions of existing allotment associations lacking free time for gardening an
 d struggling with threats of state-planned gentrification\, followed by ev
 iction from their sites. Moreover\, these strategies may enable these grou
 ps to do things in common within local networks of allotments by introduci
 ng new gardening rules and spaces that reconcile individual self-help with
  mutual solidarity.\n\nBiographical note\nOlivia Neves Marra is an archite
 ct based in London (United Kingdom)\, born in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). She
  is a programme head of the AA Visiting School Rio de Janeiro\, a lecturer
  at UCL Bartlett and an associate lecturer at UAL Central Saint Martins. S
 he earned her PhD from the AA in 2020 with a thesis on the relationship be
 tween ideological enclosures\, ownership\, and urban form. As a practising
  architect\, Olivia has worked on urban design and public housing developm
 ents in Rio and Paris (France).
LOCATION:Salle Archizoom
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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