Recipro-Cities

As part of our commissioned core programme, Recipro-Cities is a research and design project which seeks to present speculative future-facing prototypes of architectures which are collaborative, reciprocal, and transformational rather than extractive or transactional.

Taking the form of an exhibition, film, and events programme, the project seeks to use traditional methods of architectural communication such as models, drawings and propositional texts to subvert mainstream norms to advance architectures and forms of practice which invest in and support mutuality, exchange and the common good.

What might architectures of exchange look like? How might the imagining of more reciprocal forms of practice authentically support sustainable development via progressive shifts in values, ethics, and working conditions? What exchanges could we re/develop with the natural world - to re/contextualise our land, building, and industrial cultures with the living biosphere? How might communities with disparate conditions across culture, geography and space, say, find common ground and opportunities for mutual aid and reciprocal exchange?

In using the city (in its broadest sense) as a point of complex focus, interrogating ideas of transaction in architecture, Recipro-Cities seeks to imagine other ways of doing architecture that are reciprocal, ecologically regenerative, socially progressive, culturally enriching and civically ambitious.

The project will be undertaken in two phases. Phase 1 [Work In Progress] will be presented at The Briggait as part of the Architecture Fringe Festival in June 2025. Phase 2 [Proposals] will be presented through an exhibition in the Spring of 2026.

The commissioned practices are;

Arc Architects
Arc Architects specialise in new eco-buildings, vernacular materials, conservation of historic places, community regeneration, and research. Based in Cupar, Fife the practice their work seeks to transcend the normal range of architectural practice to encompass diverse creative and learning activities that help develop skills and deliver positive architectural, community and environmental outcomes.

BothAnd Group
BothAnd Group are a research-based design studio investigating the social, ecological and political forces that shape rural territories. They uncover, design for and translate these concerns through their work in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and exhibition design. Their ongoing investigations include an examination of global food landscapes and indigenous land management practices.

Resolve Collective
Resolve Collective are an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. They have delivered numerous projects, workshops, publications, and talks in the UK and across the world, all of which look toward realising just and equitable visions of change in our built environment.

An in-person event with Arc Architects, BothAnd Group and Resolve Collective discussing Recipro-Cities will be announced shortly.

The Core Programme for the Architecture Fringe 2025 has been made possible through the support of Creative Scotland Multi-Year Funding, Moxon Architects, Helen Lucas Architects, and Collective Architecture.