ABSTRACT
The International Village Shop is open-ended and functions through continuous production and trade across geographically dispersed local projects and temporary and semi-permanent shop manifestations. To declare the social, cultural and economic actions in our projects an act of making architecture is political and suggests collective constructions, which adapt the realities of types of buildings that are familiar to us to explore and practise alternatives. The starting point for the new development and production of goods is always a community and their environment as a localized lived and spatial reality. The making, consuming and trading of drinks both represent and facilitate changing collectivities. As both tangible and consumable goods, the drinks can be just a simple commodity, but they can also be an agent for economic and cultural changes, and the making of new public realms. The products are embodiments of a collective ambition and the trade allows for spatial extensions into a larger general public realm.
