Open Field Production: A Reverse Archaeology

Open Field Production is a project produced by Alastair Parvin at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture, under the studio brief Softpraxis; an opportunity to re-evaluate the role of the architect in society. It interprets the rise of the amateur as a fundamental challenge to the embedded design values of systems and cities, and proposes an alternative to the ‘creative clusters’ planning model currently favoured by policy makers in the development of a UK ‘knowledge economy’. Using Sheffield as a case study, it anticipates the re-emergence of commons as a primary space of production, speculating with “absurd logic” upon how such a type might manifest itself in design terms. By proposing only minor distortions of existing sites, existing systems and existing hardware, it steps beyond the conventional limitations placed upon what architecture might do; abandoning the preoccupation with form in order to apply design-thinking to the continuous processes of formation.