Commoning the Seed: Ritual and Preservation as Practice for the Modern Monastery

Abstract

Characterized by strict organizations of time, rules, and divisions of space, the monastery has provided the ideal set of conditions for early religious practice. While monastic practice has been categorized as increasingly anachronistic, it is precisely these rules that have allowed possibilities for freedom of thought throughout the centuries. Situated upon the site of a former monastery complex now left as a public open ground, this thesis proposes a contemporary renewal in the form of a commons within the city. By adapting to a world of shifting cultures and climates, it seeks to strengthen what may be shared for all communities. The assemblage of spaces and discrete elements shape attitudes upon the individual, the collective, as well as the public by framing and choreographing ways of communing at various scales. Specifically, the proposal calls attention to the growing seed crisis amid the roots of capitalism and sees potential in the monastery as a closed-loop ecosystem for preservation through practices of ecological and cultural commoning today.