ABSTRACT
Our purpose here is to discuss the meaning and place of agency in three schemes of
production of architecture: the Renaissance-Modern design, which we are explicitly
against, the participatory-mediated design, which we accept with criticism, and the
design of interfaces for autonomous production, which we propose as the central
theme for discussion. Instead of depending on the architect as the agent par excel-
lence or as the well-meaning mediator, agency in the last scheme happens as an inter-
relationship of people using interfaces to trigger social transformation. Since ‘(social)
space is a (social) product’ (Lefebvre 1991: 26) agency interests us in so far as it is
related to society, i.e. in a political perspective. We will therefore begin by examining
some common usages of the term agency and their political connotations.