Architecture as a Convivial Tool

Starting from Ivan Illich’s concept of conviviality, which challenges the excess of consumption and the mass industrial production of goods and services of contemporary society, this paper analyses three projects of the French practice BAST. Particularly, through a triangulation with Illich’s theories, the paper highlights their potential to produce use-values. The case studies – an apartment, a restaurant, and a community hall – are interventions on existing buildings characterised by a sensitive approach focused on care, repair, and reuse. By foregrounding specific design actions employed by BAST alongside Illich’s theoretical framework, this study aims to identify generalisable and transferable strategies that can enable architectural practice to produce use-values and thus act as a convivial tool, addressing the fragilities of our contemporary world.