Architecture of Togetherness
A research project by Carolina Vasilikou and Laura Doehler

In order to conceive spaces and structures of togetherness we need to ask questions about our ideas of identity, including the bare bones of life and death even, what we value and the knowledge we seek. With our sense making of being part of a wider ecosystem that is gradually seeping into mainstream consciousness, we have the possibility to integrate a decentralized version of selfhood that effectively serves the self better.
It requires not only thought but practices in order to share and co-create knowledge, secular rituals, ways to heal so as to realign what matters and how to live by it.  Architecture of Togetherness is a research project that looks at people, places and somatic practices that have shaped and inspire a human and environmental connectivity where selfhood and collectivity is investigated philosophically, physically and architecturally to create a proposal for the Arts and Community space Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Germany to develop the Betonnest. 
 
From 'Entangled Life' by Merlin Sheldrake
"Some call it ego dissolution. Some simply report that they lost track of where they ended and their surroundings began. The well-defended 'I' that humans depend on so much can vanish entirely, or just dwindle, shading off into otherness gradually. The result? Feelings of merging with something greater, and a reimagined sense of one's relationship to the world."  



 
 
 
 
 

How to approach this research
Zine project
We asked who is interested in this conversation and join the research?
12 people from our Exit Map community, participants, students, friends, fellow artists and members came together during two dinners in December 2022 with some time in between to digest and conceived this little marvel.







You are welcome to get in touch if you would like to order one.

Dinner of Doing Things:
During those dinners even more ideas sprung up on how we can facilitate a togetherness wherein we share spaces more for example by making our very own home available for others to visit and co-author these personal spaces  by sharing the tasks that extend away and back into it like gardening shopping or the awkward shelf building. We identified that our Exit Map practice of Openly Spaced Out or events like our tree planting initiative offer action and include the body in conversations, navigating thoughts in new ways because suddenly breath and pauses are integrated effortlessly and organically. Throughout we can become more familiar with one another's space and in co-authoring we lessen expectations or the need to have a presentable home by shaping it together.
That's how the call out for the Dinner of Doing Things began.
If you would like to join us please write to info.exitmap@gmail.com