Rebel Commons: Reimagining Commoning, Connectivity, and Civic Space Through The 2025 Gen-Z Uprisings
Date of Submission
Spring 5-12-2026
Degree Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Architecture
Department
Architecture
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Ameen Farooq
Abstract
In September 2025, Nepal’s Generation Z, those born roughly between 1997 and 2012, mobilized one of the largest horizontally organized youth rebellions in South Asia, using digital platforms to coordinate mass protests against corruption, unemployment, restricted opportunity, and failures of public governance. These grievances are exacerbated by Nepal’s unique geographical conditions, leading to severe physical disconnection due to the country’s extremely mountainous terrain. In tandem with this physical fragmentation, the nation has experienced years of political instability following the 1996 to 2006 civil war. As a result of these factors, young people face limited mobility, deteriorating infrastructure, and weak institutional trust. This creates an escalated pattern of outward youth migration, a phenomenon known as “brain drain”; in 2025 alone, 1.5 million Nepalis left the country seeking employment and education opportunities, further depleting the nation of its future workforce and intellectual capital.
This thesis argues that architecture can serve as both a civic mediator and a tool of collective agency by constructing new forms of shared spaces and hybrid structures rooted in participation, transparency, and commoning. Commoning is the social process of maintaining and sustaining shared resources or “commons” through collective action, self-organization, and collaboration, aiming to shorten the gap between the governing social elite and the affected common citizen. Centered in Kathmandu, the nation's capital and the rebellion’s epicenter, this project proposes the adaptive reuse of government structures in the Singha Durbar plaza. Primarily focusing on the parliament building, this thesis creates interventions addressing five identified "disconnects" experienced by Nepali youth: government participation, education and opportunity, physical and digital divides, terrain disparities, and generational understanding. This proposal transforms the Singha Durbar plaza into a testbed for hybrid structural typologies, responding to current youth crises while providing a framework for future generations.