In order to understand the phenomena of commoning, one has to go back to the era of hunter-gatherers and to the rise of agriculture. As The hunter-gatherers were mostly nomadic in character and their motivation was to move around the seasons in order to reach and foraging food supply, the rise of agriculture signifies the first action of land grab, thus reducing common resources. The Hunter-gatherers tended to have equalitarian ethos with social customs that strongly discourage hoarding and displays of authority, and encourage economic equality via sharing of food and material goods. The rise of agriculture did not only define territory but also addressed it, later on, for a specific economical use. Thus by working the land, the other communities that were on the move, had less grounds to pick and hunt from. Thus a given natural resource was accommodated to a specific use and market value. With time, as agriculture spread, the free lands for hunting and fruit picking were shrinking and with that the abundance was lost. As a result, hunter-gatherers were pushed to territories where agriculture was difficult. 

In the 19th century Joseph Pierre Proudhon, has identified that “property is theft”, bringing forward an anti-capital discourse with the idea in mind to restore the commons. Thus not only agriculture, but also the real estate phenomena, and other industrial practices that extract materials from nature and grab and take control of what have been seen as commons: land, natural resources, natural materials, soil, water and air. 

The circles of enclosures do not end by that, since this phenomena finds place in other human activity, such as the world wide web, surveillance in public space, to name a few, indirectly affecting other commons like human rights and freedom of speech. One can see that this very forceful dynamic of enclosure in any profitable dimension is pushing towards affecting the balance of systems into a new global order that affects all, from humans to all components of nature, down to fungi, bacteria, fauna and flora..

The tragedy of the commons, as it was conceptualized in 1968 by Garrett Hardin, is contemporarily taking a multi-dimensional horror scenario, affecting stability of all living systems that still survive on earth, including humans. This troubling time is calling for research and action, where the systems of enclosures need to be mapped and their mechanisms understood, in order to develop and implement new systems that are based on commoning actions, thus building back the commons, to bring balance again to compensate and ease the agonizing situation.

The act of mapping asks for interdisciplinary critical research, in order to fully understand a given situation and with that to identify all players and agents in the task. In our critical situation, in order to achieve a direction of change, the research outcomes need to be translated to new policies that need to be developed and implemented, locally and globally. New responsibilities need to be developed organically into new social entities. Collaboration needs to be the everyday language between all organic entities in order to find sustainable balance, which includes novel ways to share resources. 

Art and culture play a central role in finding creative and participatory ways to mediate the new agenda to the public. The public’s will and motivation is crucial for establishing change, thus the public needs to be encouraged through diverse modes of actions: involvement, participation and public engagement. Since hard data from researchers are addressing a rational understanding, they are limited to their ability to call for actions. That’s where art and culture can fill the gap, in collaboration with researchers and policy makers, in order to create and deliver public actions and participatory events that mediate vis-à-vis the call for change.

The task in front is enormous, since the challenge is in all possible fronts: air, water, soil, energy and more. The overarching philosophy and spirit of addressing the commons is urging to be one of CARE – care for resources, care for community needs, caring for the more than humans; caring, building up and adopting resilience for an unpredicted future.

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The Challenge of Mediating the Complexity (and Messiness) of the Urban Biosphere Vision.

Establishing the conditions for a growing biodiversity in urban areas is a challenging process that requires mediation and an expansion of active collaboration by the public. The main challenge here is a shift in perception, which needs to be expressed and mediated, and understood and internalized by the public. The challenge emerges from the call for a paradigm-shift, from a human-centered way of thinking, relating to function and efficiency, to a new more-than-human perception that includes all species as possessing personal rights, and where humans are just one species in a large biodiverse world. While humans are privileged with political power, which dominates and affects biodiversity, the challenge is to shift this and the overall public mindset to the cause of a Commons of all species. Accepting and adjusting to the messiness of nature in its multiple, complex habitats and ecosystems, is an extended process of learning through experience.

Bridging the gaps of modern perceptions, pre-conceptions and behavior, requires that one engage, hands-on, with communities that experience urban daily life and are willing to expand their understanding of the urban biosphere. As possible methodologies of engagement, Public Participatory methods suit the challenge, since those who stand to be impacted by such a paradigm-shift have a right to be involved in the decision-making process. This can develop into a local public contribution that can sensitively influence and shape the necessary transitions. Public participation allows for an extended process and a learning journey of the new realities that a progressive urban biosphere perspective will bring and its affect on community life. 

The messiness of biodiversity is evident in the soil-burrowing of the wild boars, the foxes’ hunt for prey, the grazing by the rabbits, the courtship sounds of the deers, the screeching of the crows, the waterways-interventions of the beavers and much more. The human challenge is to adjust to nature’s phenomena, in the same way that nature found ways to adjust to human presence and interventions. It is to fully accept that with nature comes the messiness of other species, a messiness that needs to be recognized and accepted as part of the complexity of biodiversity.

Participatory art and design methodologies are the most promising tools for an extensive hands-on approach, where humans and their communities can engage not only with decision-making but also with the actual creation of new realities that support biodiversity. The language of culture, art and design can bring about unique interpretations that assist in mediating such complex contexts. Culture as defined by R. Buchanan “is not a state, expressed in an ideology or a body of doctrines. It is an activity. Culture is the activity of ordering, disordering and reordering in the search for understanding and for values which guide action.” Participatory Art & Design is on the one hand a process which builds empathy among the participants and on the other hand, a process that can build up solidarity and caring for the non-human others, and which allows for solving substantial challenges in a more holistic fashion. According to Sarkissian and Perglut, because planning affects everyone, it is believed that “those whose livelihoods, environments and lives are at stake should be involved in the decisions which affect them”. Overall, a participatory project can consolidate and empower a given community, therefore building up its resilience, in order to address the unfolding environmental challenges.

The proposed vision of Biosphere Berlin can be seen as a provocation that calls for a responsible and thoughtful action. It is also an attempt to define and refine the participatory, social-ecological toolbox, adapted to a complex urban context. This process is interdisciplinary in nature, requiring a working and collaborating with professionals from diverse fields. This process is rooted in local collaborations, with an extended invitation to join and take part in this unique and essential journey.

David Behar Perahia

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Fences are a human-made intervention over space, supplying a mode to mark territories and to enclose spaces. It is also a means for protecting trespassing of other humans and of specific wild animals. For some, it can give psychological confidence of security. Looking at the others, the non-human species, fences can create protected areas for specific species and guide movement in risk areas (e.g. protect from vehicle collisions on the roads). On the other hand fences can cause injuries and hair loss, help to develop stress, alter wildlife movement and enclose natural habitat and life cycles.

Looking at the urban context of Tegel, with its expansive green areas and lakes, we can ask whether fences support or restrain biodiversity? In the shade of the environmental contemporary challenges it is time to consider a paradigm shift about the use and practice of fences. Animal Aided Design§trademark (AAD) gives a possible alternative and supply design tools that are based on scientific research. It uses an interdisciplinary approach encompassing ecology, zoology, architecture, landscape architecture, and planning to show how specific initiatives to protect and develop urban biodiversity in the living environment can succeed in a way that is both ecologically meaningful and aesthetically pleasing. This approach was developed by landscape architect Thomas E. Hauck, University of Kassel, and ecologist Wolfgang W.Weisser, Technical University of Munich.

The core assumption of AAD is that plant life and animals live in coordination, supporting  each other in various life cycles, which include migration, food chains, procreation, birth and hibernation phenomena. The challenge at task is to find supportive ways that can facilitate these natural processes in an urban context, thus creating conditions for rich biodiversity. AAD suggests design tools for that, such as:

• planting native trees which can support dirts and insect lives, 
• plant hedges and shrubs that can support little birds, insects and small mammals like the hedgehogs, 
• leave space for wildflower meadows that supports insects and the pollination processes, 
• Introduction of large stones and boulders that support insects and create places for hibernation
• Creation of sand beds, where birds can do sand baths, and can support insects, invertebrates and reptiles 

And more complex, labor oriented solutions:

Insect hotels, bird houses, bee boxes and the use of flat roofs for plantations. 

Creation of wetlands with shallow bodies of water, which supports amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and insects. This situation can pave the way for a rich biodiversity.

A passive way of creating life conditions: dry leaves and twigs presence on the ground can support fungus, insects and small mammals. They also improve the health of the soil.

Creating an area that support biodiversity, by planting trees and implementing activities such as stones and creating wetlands, is not enough, since in urban context, in order to create an ecological shift, there is a need to expand to cover all urban area, and that’s where the AAD has a very interesting contribution, which brings back to mind our initial concern with fences.

AAD defines three types of connectivities between species:

• no connectivity, where separate islands of habitats – life forms exist with no possibility to connect
• Functional connectivity, where the presence of hedges and shrubs allow the possibility of species to go from area A of biodiversity to Area B (the squirrel challenge). But there are some animals which are very shy and hesitate to do such jumps, which can be risky as well. Thus it depends on the type of the species to achieve such mobility.
• Structural connectivity offers continuity between zones, with the use of stepping stones, habitat patches that altogether create green corridors composed of all possible components: trees, hedges and shrubs. Thus allowing free species movement between the different habitat patches.

Implementation

By the creation of habitat patches buffering and bridging actions, where planting trees, hedges and shrubs, help to create different habitat patches, with the use of stepping stones as a way to bridge in between areas. And finally creating corridors that serve as ways for connections, by again planting trees/shrubs/hedges.

By planting native plants and trees there is an optimal chance to achieve biodiversity, since they have the power to start life cycles.

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For example, cement pools that were designed to receive overflow of water, because of heavy rains, floods etc., were to become an ideal living area for the ducks and other water species. Furthermore, neglected human structural monuments, as a peer with a view terrace, deterred by human visits, leave the site for birds to find tranquillity.

Footpaths over earth mounds clearly manifest the way this “natural” environment, this landscape was engineered to provide resilience to the nearby neighbourhoods in times of flooding. Nevertheless, nature has slowly taken over and man’s traces are well hidden and camouflaged.

A fallen tree on the lake shore is used as an ideal sun bathing platform for a lonely man.

A neglected big shed structure, fully covered with colourful graffiti reflects better times of human/social and sport activities.

A man sitting and gazing over the lake, meditating the landscape while his bicycle awaits behind a huge oak tree.

Closed from the public with a fence and barbed wire, a nature reserve protects the birds’ nesting activities. A sealed visitor centre, which again had known better days.

Falling trees are left to decay, bringing into mind that this forest has its internal cycle of life and death. Trees seem to be falling everywhere, with some places their fall seems to never end, or is it evenly bent by the frequent winds?

Suburbs, high rise living areas, living solutions for the masses, now participating in graffiti mural public art projects … reflecting signs of the coming wave of gentrification; Their scale dialogue with the entrepreneur appetite for business with this plot of land…. 

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