What if looking after the places we live wasn’t just left to councils, charities or businesses - but was something we did together? Not just as volunteers or campaigners, but as co-owners, caretakers, and neighbours?
That’s the heart of commoning - a way of working where people share responsibility for the land, buildings, tools, skills, and resources around them. It’s about building trust, sharing power, and learning how to take care of the things that matter most.
In one of this year’s Living Places Network gatherings, we heard from Zoe Gilbertson, a brilliant designer and educator who’s been working on these ideas for years. She’s helped communities grow their own textiles, repair what they have and consider how we can create completely different ways of making fibre, textiles and clothing. Her work experiments with fibre and textile enterprise to see how we can build new systems - learning when existing methods must be used for now, while still keeping sight of a more sustainable and equitable future.
What is Commoning?
It’s not a new idea - but it’s one that’s been forgotten in many places. Commoning means doing things with each other, not to or for each other. It’s about deciding together, working together, and looking after shared things with long-term care.
Zoe explained it like this: it’s not just about sharing land or resources, it’s about building the relationships and agreements that make that sharing possible.
That might sound abstract, but in practice it looks like:
A group of people growing natural dyes for fabric in a shared garden
Communities taking over empty buildings to run events, workshops or tool libraries
Sharing looms, wool, or even weather updates to help each other craft and farm
Taking time to listen, repair, and maintain what already exists
This isn’t charity work. It’s not profit-driven. It’s about building a way of life where everyone can contribute - and where the work is shaped by care, not control.
Key Ideas From The Conversation
It’s not just about things - it’s about relationships
You can’t look after land or buildings together without trust. Commoning gives people ways to build that trust, through doing, making, and deciding together.
We all have different roles to play
Not everyone needs to be at every meeting or grow the food or fix the roof. Some people gather, some make, some care, some challenge. All of those roles matter. It’s about the web we weave together.
Looking after things is the work
So much of this approach is about maintenance—not always starting something new, but keeping what we have alive. In Zoe’s world, that might mean darning socks, fixing tools, or helping someone learn a skill.
It takes time—but it builds something lasting
This isn’t a quick fix. But over time, commoning creates a strong fabric of community. People feel proud, capable, and connected. That’s what makes places resilient.
Why This Matters
We’re living through a time of massive change - climate breakdown, loneliness, broken systems. The old ways of organising often don’t work anymore. But communities still hold huge potential.
Zoe’s work shows that commoning can help us unlock that potential. It’s a way to move forward that’s grounded in kindness, shared work, and real connection.
And it’s already happening - in small ways, in many places. A sewing group here. A shared garden there. A repurposed space that becomes a new kind of town hall. These aren’t side projects. They’re seeds of something bigger.
Commoning in Practice: The Bristol Commons
If commoning sounds abstract, Bristol shows us what it can look like in real life.
The Bristol Commons is a living, growing movement of people, groups and organisations reimagining how the city can be shaped - by and for its communities. Rooted in the legacy of Coexist and Hamilton House, this network emerged from a desire to safeguard the spaces, relationships, and resources that allow Bristol’s culture to thrive.
Since 2023, they’ve hosted city-wide gatherings, painted murals together, formed working groups, developed shared governance, and invited passers-by to co-create visions of collective care. They’ve read books, hosted talks, debated definitions, and - critically - they’ve built structures for decision-making that are transparent, participatory, and joyful.
It’s not a finished model. It’s a process of becoming - a commons in the making. But it shows how a city can start to reclaim agency, build shared power, and protect what matters through relationships, not transactions.
Their work asks a simple but powerful question: What if everyone had the right - and the tools - to help shape the places they live?
By creating infrastructure for shared ownership, participatory politics, education, grants, and celebration, The Bristol Commons offers a glimpse of how we can move from isolated action to interconnected systems of care.
It’s not a side project. It’s a prototype for a different kind of future - one woven through practice, participation, and deep community connection.
Thanks Laura for writing this article, it's brilliant to be a participant in This Living Network. We all have so much to re-think, re-value and re-construct that the only viable way is together.