Architecture and the Commons  | a hypothesis for the “Scugnizzoliberato”

In 2013, the Municipality of Naples established the Observatory on Common Goods. With this act, an innovative but also highly controversial position was made official, relating to the management of public or private properties by "communities" that use these places and by doing so generate a “social profit”. The 1994 issue of the periodical Lotus entitled Commons explored and traced the relationship between the characteristic economic, political and social aspects of this topic and those of architecture. In Naples, particularly, the nine places identified by the Observatory pose novel questions to architects; above all, that of how to reconcile the management from below method, which certainly has the merit of returning to the community often forgotten and abandoned places, with the need of protection and conservation of the city’s cultural heritage. Starting from the case of the "ScugnizzoLiberato", this work will attempt to define a possible role of architecture in the management process of Common Goods.