Leipzig project

Basic Idea
In Leipzig whole houses are up for grabs for relatively little money. The idea is to buy several of those and open them up for sharing.

Housing locations

 * Put findings on this shared Google map

People interested
Isis, Alex, Dante, guaka, Meinhard, Rob, Florence

add yourself

House features

 * Communal and public space in ground floor
 * Several flats with different parties in upper floors
 * Empty large shared space in attic (for exhibitions, seminars, conference sessions, yoga, dance)
 * Community connected Hackerspace/workshop/lab room (computers, bikes, crafts, arts)
 * Info cafe with people's kitchen
 * all kitchens meat free
 * at least one vegan kitchen
 * networking with other urban projects world-wide
 * Renewable and efficient energy
 * Recycling
 * Sauna (yeah!)
 * Organic community garden
 * composting
 * Designated smoking areas (if any)
 * nah, smoking is for pussies
 * No meth cooking in the kitchen you fucking junkies!!!
 * Regular meetings
 * Free shop

Prices of Buildings
A 5 story building (1910 buildings?) costs :
 * around 50.000 euro to purchase in an emerging western neighborhood of Leipzig.
 * 20 to 30.000 euro to purchase in a rather empty centre east neighborhood of Leipzig.

Dante prefers to buy a whole street, or neighborhood, in the cheaper areas of town

BUT

The empty streets in the centre-east part of Leipzig might still be owned in great part by the former GDR Housing Cooperative (currently under city authority?), although there are also privately owned buildings for sale.

It might require a re-development plan to present to the local authorities to create an opportunity to get one of the streets out of what might be a current market hoarding of these streets from the housing cooperative. - needs to be verified!

Renovation Costs
to evaluate - Dante is interested in the possibility to set up cooperative business for building modular interior structures ?

Funding
Funding is possible through Syndikat, 3/4 credit, without interest? For a 20.000 euro, 5 story building, this would represent an initial cash investment of 5000 euro for the purchase of one building.

Local Groups for Leipzig
Various local groups wanting to invest resources or time in one or more Leipzig housing projects.
 * Brussels: http://groups.google.com/group/bxl4leipzig

Income Streams
Ideally (according to Dante), developing "resilient communities" through setting up our own (open cooperative?) production infrastructures, from food to potentially micro-electronics, and potentially inspired by other projects such as "Open Source Ecology" such as "Factor E-Farm".

First stage ?

 * Musical Parties
 * Added value food production ( slow food volks kuche ? )
 * Events and hospitality

Alternative Finance
Dante feels that there is potential in supporting local economics through complementary currencies. To start with, mutual credit, or demurrage types of currencies, which can eventually be guaranteed through a reserve of euros, or guaranteed by production.

Local economics could trade outside of their economies, which could increase the reserve of euros that can also be used to buy products outside of the local economic production, especially to build up local production infrastructures.

Formal Learning
As in the factor e-farm project ( note: need to find reference ), Dante suggests to use "alternative learning" related to the build up of resilient communities as an enabler to converge resources either through :
 * direct participation
 * investment in euros

Participating students could guarantee a certain amount in euros for every semester, which they gain back trough their participation in the local economic development,

in exchange of which they get a certification and experience.

Dante feels that certain courses related to the Gaia university could be hosted by a Leipzig_Project alternative university.

Informal Learning
Dante very much wants to support the emergence of informal learning, including through connectivist and rhizomatic learning cultures, and access to empowerment through various medias, and spaces.

see for example :

http://p2pfoundation.net/Bank_of_Common_Knowledge

"BCK is a pilot experience dedicated to the research of social mechanisms for the collective production of contents, mutual education, and citizen participation. It is a kind of laboratory platform where we explore new ways of enhancing the distribution channels for practical and informal knowledge, as well as how to share it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism_(learning_theory)

"One aspect of connectivism is the use of a network with nodes and connections as a central metaphor for learning. [2] In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node: information, data, feelings, images. Learning is the process of creating connections and developing a network. Not all connections are of equal strength in this metaphor; in fact, many connections may be quite weak."

http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/06/03/rhizomatic-education-community-as-curriculum/

"Thus the foundations upon which we are working are changing as well as the speed at which new information must be integrated into those foundations. The traditional method of expert translation of information to knowledge requires time"

"In the rhizomatic model of learning, curriculum is not driven by predefined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process. This community acts as the curriculum, spontaneously shaping, constructing, and reconstructing itself and the subject of its learning in the same way that the rhizome responds to changing environmental conditions"


 * Also see Wikipedia about community of practice

"Community of practice (CoP), according to cognitive anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, is a term that describes a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the member's common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created specifically with the goal of gaining knowledge related to their field. It is through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group that the members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop themselves personally and professionally (Lave & Wenger 1991). CoPs can exist online, such as within discussion boards and newsgroups, or in real life, such as in a lunchroom at work, in a field setting, on a factory floor, or elsewhere in the environment."