The Palatial Commons Part 1 Project 2025 Beth Gavine Central Saint Martins, UAL | UK The project suggests marriage of disorderly forms and emergent architecture designed in correspondence with local networks to establish relationships of mutual aid and exchange. Giving grandeur and ‘regality’ back to the ordinary and every day, 'The Palatial Commons' imagines a community-owned, community-led epicenter for collective spatial stewardship and active participation in urban governance. London’s social and cultural infrastructure is at risk and has been disappearing rapidly in recent years. The decisions around what architecture deserves value, should be preserved or protected, does not often lie with the people who need and use these spaces. To combat this, the project re-writes the RIBA stages of work to include more mandatory engagement and cyclical processes that re-center the lived experience of the locals. These new ‘stages beyond work’ prioritised empathetic enquiry, iterative testing, and reciprocal relationships that create a feedback loop of spatial empowerment.A key part of this process was systems of circularity, not linearity. Contesting the existing heritage significance plans of the Ladywell Playtower, social legacy was instead brought to the forefront of preservation efforts. In negotiating the redesign of a heritage building, material reuse and repurposing was emphasised over needless demolition, creating a building that is a palimpsest and imbued with memory and history. Tutor(s) Kleanthis Kyriakou Esther Escribano