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

Leipzig Context
Leipzig

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.

Anthony says :

"it's true that some buildings in Leipzig are being sold for 30k€. But some of these require 30k€ of repairs. It's important to visit the buildings with an engineer to determine the move-in cost. Also, count on 6% to 12% in legal fees."

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!

Anthony says:

"The LWB (former DDR housing authority) does own many buildings in Leipzig. They are trying (with DDR efficiency) to sell them. When I first started talking to them, I did not speak German, and they were very patient and helpful. It was a positive experience every step of the way."

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.

Living Costs and Taxes
Robrecht asks :

"concerning the Leipzig project, we need an estimation of living costs (in the first stage), so how much is the yearly tax on a building, other costs like for waste water etc, energy and heating etc of course we want to be self suporting cc energy etc, but in a first period this would maybe not at once be possible."

Anthony answers :

"The annual tax on the GS-10 is a couple hundred euro and the water is about the same."

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.

Projects
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://onceuponaschool.org/

"The essence of the program is that it's like school, but it's not school.

"826 National is a nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization with locations in seven cities across the country." "Our work is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention"

Practices
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"

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."

Practices supported by potentially collaborating houses
Rockzipfel Leipzig Project @ GS10 ...

Wikipedia entry on "Continuum Concept"

"The continuum concept is an idea relating to human development proposed by Jean Liedloff in her book The Continuum Concept. According to Liedloff, in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings—especially babies—require the kind of experience to which their species adapted during the long process of their evolution..."