Becommoning Design Framework

Characteristics

Tomor, Zsuzsanna and de Waal, Martin:

"We present our ‘becommoning’ design framework drawn on the findings from the literature review. The framework describes three main aspects of the becommoming process, each consisting of two or more ‘building blocks’. Together they provide an overview of elements that prospective commoners need to design or arrange in order to start off their initiative. These aspects can be more broadly related to commons projects, and not solely to cohousing groups, since they concern fundamental organizational and design attributes of any emergent resource community:

1. Community and values. In order to set up a commons, a community of prospective commoners needs to be established. This community consists of people who intend to collectively maintain a resource, and need to agree upon the foundational values for their commons. Value discovery and alignment as well as community building are important aspects of any becommoning phase.

2. Making and designing. The resource itself, its governance scheme and technological support infrastructure need to be designed, and definitions and rules about membership and relations to society need to be established. This aspects explores the various elements that need to be set in place for a commons to take off.

3. Facilitating and contextualizing. To realize a commons, future commoners also need to form alliances with external parties, and find financing for their project. They also need to cope with regulations or customs either by influencing or capitalizing on them so that the foundation of the commons becomes possible."

(https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1144&context=iasdr)