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.