Emergent Synthesis

This page can be used to facilitate our emergent synthesis, both for nomadic and location specific viable systems solutions.

Also read : http://sharewiki.org/en/Spime_Housing

"Context described below"

= Show yourself as "interested" / or define your interest as collaborator =

Your name, or nickname + Email/Website/Contact ( click edit on right hand side )

based in Brussels ( 2011 ) roaming, mostly in Germany
 * Dante-Gabryell Monson - dante.monson - at - gmail ,
 * Moritz - moritz - at - hackerbus dot eu
 * Devin - devin - at - beex - dot - org, based in New York, occupy everywhere/opensource everything
 * Flawer interested in dante's doings (he always have something edgy, new and surprisingly normal for me)
 * ko nne konnesens- at - yahoo.de already living in Leipzig, for this even more interested.Now finishing studies (sociology) but after (and already) higliy interested/motivated in creating an own workspace for theory and utopias, for sure with an open and cooperating approach.
 * Spencer Campbell (spencer@ultroneous.org)
 * Peter H. Meadows (http://bwcd.vdcn.org/doku.php/people:peter)


 * you ?

= Groups you know and want to get involved? =

For Direct Collaboration + contact

 * your informal group of friends ? ( and its current location and projects ? )


 * http://bwcd.vdcn.org

For inspiration

 * http://p2pfoundation.net
 * http://opensourceecology.org/
 * http://futureforwardinstitute.com
 * http://forwardfound.org
 * http://hollymeadcapital.com
 * http://socialmediaclassroom.com
 * http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/
 * http://appropedia.org/

note : if you can not, or if you wish not show it on this page, you can also send it to Dante ( dante.monson - at - gmail . com )

= Context and Vision =

3 November 2011
Dante :

I wish to provide an

experimental ground for our interests
and learn together by creating more autonomous, self organizing, emergent, local yet globally networked viable systems.

I wish to ask for feedback, and converge such feedback on a specifically allocated wiki / website / or drupal platform, for which support is also needed.

Add you name above if interested.

Various groups and mailing lists already exist. feel free to add url's of the ones you know above.

Feel free to share url's to projects, mailinglists, or the location of informal groups of people and possibly the name/nickname of such groupings ( and their contact )

Priorities can go into providing visibility towards solutions for shared living experiences ( such as meetings, collectives, living spaces - static and/or nomadic - ... )

//

I wish to find an easy way to converge such data about people's pledges, and visualize a "value network" map of inter-dependencies.

I also wish to find people who feel enthusiastic about translating the following message into a more attractive way. ( asking for any inspiration and contributions from people who write, draw - comics ? -, can produce short videos, ... )

///

How do you position yourself in relation to defining and building up a viable systems project ?

I propose, as a test for further projects all over the world, to use Leipzig / Leipzig Projects as an experiment.

http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project

The aim is to inspire and engage people to collaborate, progressively providing a sense of shared, visible accomplishment.

and at first, to draft/define aims and needs, set up a list of priorities

///

Based on your own interests, where would you like to position your contributions if you like to contribute to such visions, and what do you need to collaborate in specific objectives, which themselves can fit within such larger picture ?

If I create a map ( or if I map it out on a wiki ), would you be willing to be included into it, and what information can you provide? :

availability, sweat equity contribution capability and its needs or conditions, current geographical situation or potential future situation, financial support and its conditions, other available resources and/or existing networked collaborations working on specific topics ( ? ), ...

/// General Description :

It can ask pledges ( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pledge ) , in the form of engagements and equity / sweat equity ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_equity ) , even short term - measurable, combined with subjective mutual interdependent objectives based evaluations.

This includes :

- people collaborating on various tasks on the terrain ( Leipzig, and surrounding land ),

- people collaborating in their respective regions to converge engagements and further needed resources ( answers to specific questions : legal, financial, architectural, etc )

- alternative financial products, which are set into the commons ( using this commons crowdfunding mechanism ? http://www.goteo.org/?lang=en ) in exchange of long term measurable use value.

- such recognition and/or use value related guarantees can also be earned through participation.

////

Interdependent Priorities :

For Collective Housing / Development Phase :

1a) Individuals in support of communication : drawings, leaflets, wiki-drupal-net platform, ... expressing a general vision, setting up tools for easily converging needed data, tools for coordinating pledges, mapping resources-questions-needs-contributions-interdependencies, ...

1) Setting up a centrally located base/aggregator in Leipzig which is comfortable to live in, and big enough to enable each individual to self organize in their own space, based on their affinity/relation/collaboration preferences, with defined temporary collectives. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective )

2) Supporting the development of "decentralized" bases in and around Leipzig, and all over the world, through proposing modular living structures, light weight, inexpensive, locally producible, co-developing open source research and development with a open copyleft / hardware license.

aka : Tensegrity Tents, with components that enable parametric design. see : http://sharewiki.org/en/Nomad_Tribe

3) Have a collective intelligence aggregator / team of people supporting each other in the definition of "code" and "legal solutions", itself supporting "financial solutions", in transparency of interdependencies of the "Value Networks" ( ? ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_network

For example :

- set up of a not for profit organization in Germany for converging local support towards defining and building a viable system regionally. ( in Berlin and/or Leipzig ? )

- set up of a international not for profit organization in support of open source collaborative design of modular living structures ( in Brussels )

- set up of a Limited Liability Partnership structure ( in the UK - London ) for investment purposes.

- defining a combination of legal structures, as to enable a commons, interdependent oriented approach regarding ownership, such as separating land from buildings, studying various existing legal models such as Mietshauser Syndikat ( combination of cooperative, corporation and not for profit ? ), ...

- definitions of contracts ( access to use value, visibility of contributions and recognition within gift economy, managing investments of capital in support of commons, conditions of usage and/or property holders, conditions related to usage of regional economic IOU's and their architecture, etc )

4) Set up recognition by means of measurement based on objectives

5) use web based solutions in development ? "Global Survival" collaborations with tools including Netention, ... : visualize current or future intentions, visualize interdependencies, visualize pledge future contributions, present contributions, past contributions, ...

6) reach out to organizations and movements who may benefit from a similar approach

thanks ! Dante-Gabryell Monson

///

http://www.race.u-tokyo.ac.jp/uedalab/mirai/overview/overview-e.GIF

graphic from

http://www.race.u-tokyo.ac.jp/uedalab/mirai/overview/overview-e.html

Update 27 December 2011
This particular project will need to

emerge out of sharing.
I would be happy to find a similar organization as the

"Sustainable Economies Law Center"
http://www.shareable.net/users/sustainable-economies-law-center in Germany and other european countries.

If any of us has suggestions for

bootstrapping viable local sharing systems
, including access to infrastructure, without or with little money, they are welcome.

Perhaps you know of similar projects ? I am aware of some co-housing and co-working approaches, and other, more temporary 'free of rent' against 'renovation labor' models

///

As for now, I found a person to buy a 100 000 euro building in Leipzig, as a first step to invite more people, in the form of a permanent collective, rent free.

But I still need to :

- Find people willing to host me in Berlin or Leipzig
, while...

- Finding a building to buy in Leipzig
- Finding people in Berlin / Leipzig ( or willing to move there ) to share and co-create such visions

///

I have no surplus financial resources, and wish it to be accessible to others who have no, or very little financial resources, while making sure it avoids financial speculation over time as to remain accessible.

I imagine one of the floors of the building could become a Nomad Base http://nomadbase.org/ http://www.shareable.net/blog/every-guest-a-host-inside-a-nomad-base

I wish to include all the aspects mentioned in the articles, enable it to scale, progressively purchasing the cheapest nearby land, vacant factories for various local cooperative co-working spaces and production, with as objective to bootstrap a local autonomous economy with several thousand people self organizing across a network of small interdependent cooperatives.

I ( we ? ) now have a 100 000 euro budget to buy a first building, which will be shared / enable rent free hosting for people supporting a further development of ( their own ? ) inter-related projects in Leipzig, and more broadly a region stretching from Berlin to Leipzig.

The 100 000 euros comes out of some kind of agreement to have someone I know buy a building, but there is no budget to set up the legal frameworks, nor budget to cover living expenses while finding the appropriate first building.

Hence, if any of you lives in Berlin - or Leipzig -, and want to share some of your living space with me, or some food, I would be happy to use it as to find some more people interested in sharing and supporting such vision.

Other urban centers near Berlin may also be considered.

I am now based in Brussels.

Update 26 December 2011
-- Forwarded message -- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson  Date: Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 2:58 PM Subject: Re: Your visions : Supporting some permanent p2p collectives to physically converge to ?

Thanks Michel for your reply.

In short, I found a first investor to buy a building in Leipzig, to kickstart

http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project

I will need support to develop such approach, and will invite people contributing to live there rent free.

Leipzig ( and more generally parts of Eastern Germany ) is relatively cheap in european terms ( 100 euro square meter ), while having relatively good infrastructure. I see potential for scalability.

Till now, the process is slow - though I feel it can accelerate.

The longer version below... I see other interesting conversations related to such approach on a facebook group called "The Next Edge", and on which some people on this list seem to participate. ( let me know if I can invite you to it )

///

Indeed, it is true that I have been fully engaged for many years, such as a number of people on this list, maintaining a vision for an emergent approach.

Thanks Marc for your understanding regarding the 24/7 space availability importance, which I personally see as aggregators enabling emergent and currently VIABLE ( social and economic ) distributed systems.

Yes, It is already possible, with time, to individually have access to our own options, some which can be considered as 24/7 spaces. ( aka "homes" ), while also knowing about places open part time ( universities, coworking spaces, etc ) - this is, for me and for other people I am in touch with, a current stage.

In addition to this, there are events which enable temporary convergences, and online convergence spaces, such as this mailing list, and I wish to understand how to further harness the potential of the people each of us meet, because... idealistically, I wish to meet each of the people sharing such interests :) ... and enable, not only individual options, but also "emergent options".

Now...

What I wish, is to make a

24/7 physical NETWORK of spaces
available to each of us ( including financially ), in a way that can reduce our dependency on systems we do not wish to support, and without requiring to adapt to any one specific collectivist culture, yet enabling a local mesh of a plurality of cultures which are not closed on themselves and can be open to individualist collaboration , enabling each to set their own approach while having the choice to integrate ( or not ) with other's protocols, and in a setting that enables easy connections to trans-regional networks, in cities but in connection to the local countryside.

I visited many places and communities, experienced different cultures, over the past years, and wish to integrate some practices I encountered into an emergent synthesis.

I imagine several places could enable such kind of approach. I think especially of places which are not too expensive, as to avoid getting into debt. Some of the approaches may have been discussed on p2pf lists. I for example wish to buy where the land is cheap compared to the available infrastructure, and then create our own value while avoiding financial speculation on such creation, through a combination of commons and cooperative approaches.

The

revival of certain declining cities
, in post-industrial frameworks, provide some inspiration to me, which I can see as an approach to combine various existing movements while enabling the creation of viable complex systems.

A number of people on this list, a number of people we may be meeting, have experience in such fields, and I wish for further convergence.

This is the approach I am planning ( remotely ), in Leipzig :

http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project

A difficulty I face in an emergent process is to

create engagement in initial stages
especially when I have no personal ( monetary ) resources, and when my current access to shelter and living is far from the place I wish to develop the intentional engagements for co-creating and sharing viable economies.

I now found an investor for buying a 600 square meter building in Leipzig, which is a first step for me to spend more time there and to invite people to live there without rent, progressively setting up with people speaking german other legal and financial solutions to purchase our own flats ( in good condition, and with a renovated roof ) within the city for one hundred euros a square meter ( 100 euro / m2 )

I did build up small local networks of friends here in Brussels, and am or have been connected to other communities - ecovillage, nomadbase, etc over the last 8 years.

What I express now is a further synthesis. Not only a place to pass by, not only the potential for an isolated collectivist space, but a potential for a scalable regional economy converging various of the practices and experiments we mention.

A european base
for people sharing certain memes, a base where people can purchase and develop their own usufruct infrastructure, while also having access to mainstream existing infrastructures.

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson  wrote: Thanks Michel

Further below, some thoughts which stem out of this french lecture.

I extend the lecture context as to delve into broad questions :

-

How to increase the potential to share
and create with individuals who attend the same events, when such events are too short in time to truly get to know each other

- How to make it easier to introduce some people we meet, to other people we may not yet know personally within our interconnected networks, based on shared interests, specific objectives or geographical proximity ?

- How to do so in a way that enables a general appreciation of context, and context building processes ? [5]

- If we get to know each other, how do we enable further engagement for co-creation based on respective individual social and financial contexts ?

- Do we have p2p physical places to go to, converge and experiment p2p approaches, and get to know each other ?

Permanent p2p collectives ?
///

When listening to the lecture and questions asked by people attending it, I realize there are very probably people I could interact or collaborate with.

Unfortunately, I was not in Paris for that specific seminar, yet indirectly, I experience that each of us can indirectly benefit from the contacts other people in our networks make

When I go to seminars with people sharing interests, it is not always easy to get in touch personally, especially when there is no time for informal get to know's, or for art of hosting type of approaches.

Lists such as this one are useful - yet I can hear that for some people ( including sometimes myself ) it represents an overflow of information.

Hence more specifically defined lists or information aggregation stemming out of more general ones ( can ) get created around more specific objectives. [1]

At some point ( around 1hour30-31 minutes ), a lady asks if you are connected to movements such as "Attac", and you reply that you stay open for dialogue with a variety of backgrounds [2]

Within such larger framework, regarding strategies used [3] ,

I realize that as an individual, though well connected, I can find difficulties in finding approaches to not only interact but share and engage together with other individuals who apply such culture and approaches in their daily lives, to build up such infrastructures of interdependence beyond the immaterial - internet based exchanges.

Some of the people I connected to in face to face interactions are on this list. A number of us are spread across europe and/or the world.

A variety of initiatives and environments exist [4]

If Phyles related to some of our interconnected networks further emerge, how do you imagine them ?

Would you personally ( or other people on this list ? ) be interested in supporting "co-living - co-working" spaces ?

Would we end up living together ?
I realize living together, or at least have a physical convergence point where to contribute to based on shared memes, is important to me. Yet till now I find initiatives and people spread all over.

Hence my interest in finding low cost ( kind of venture communist ? ) approaches to make infrastructure available, as to enable contributions to local viable systems based on p2p approaches.

I d wish for p2p phyles to support such permanent p2p collective approach.

Here is a suggestion : http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project

I d like to provide people with such physical location to converge to, as to facilitate the process of getting to know each other through collaborating.

I do remember, Michel, watching a video of an annex to your home in Thailand, which you imagined could host such p2p friendly facilities. Though I am also aware it may, for individuals such as me here in Europe, be somewhat far.

Is there anyone else interested in such approach, and what are (y)our visions ?

Thanks!

Foot Notes :

[1] and mapped as to see how they relate or stem out of each other ?

[2] some who are more distributist, others more mutualist, but also people from the right, etc and that you even go and talk to the catholic church upon invitation from the pope. You then further comment that "indignados" and "occupymovements" may possibly relate more easily with the p2p approach ( and ethos ? ), yet that with the more traditional left you may have felt more resistance, as some left wing backgrounds may remain more conservative in their mode of thought then, as you noted, some profit oriented backgrounds who stay open to new ( p2p ) ideas because of an interest in finding new approaches to make money.

[3] to facilitate potential through collaboration around shared intentions, and at the current stage of development

[4] Ecovillages and other communities already exist, and can share a number of subcultures brought up here on p2p lists.

Fablabs are emerging, and can also bring people sharing such culture together in an approach to be co-creative while increasing our autonomy through choosing our interdependencies.

For now, more Fablabs in urban centers ? And generally speaking, at the moment still mostly available to a very specific elite of technicians and progressive cultural researchers ? Yet possibly opening up, connecting to community / co-working spaces, such as in Berlin : http://opendesigncity.de/ , or initiated ( or funded ) by research backgrounds with the intention to open up to the community, such as MIT's center for Bits and Atoms http://fab.cba.mit.edu/, such as this one http://wiki.fablab.af/index.php/Main_Page

[5] Holopticism ? http://www.slideshare.net/AlanRosenblith/holopticism

Self Replication and Support from Existing Projects ?
perhaps this can be the

topic for a new wiki ?
not yet having all the answers myself, it may be what SELC ( and p2p urbanism ) seem to be doing :

- "Sharing for self-replicating / bootstrapping sharing systems and infrastructures", - "Existing projects supporting other projects to emerge", - self-replication support for

"Big Picture DIY"
+

"Tactical Urbanism"
I'm enthusiastic at the perspective of more

"Share Events"
http://www.shareable.net/blog/announcing-share-san-francisco http://www.livestream.com/shareable/video?clipId=pla_87e1c9e8-e602-4cad-84b5-0b2c6ed732ab&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb

I am curious to find out about

other organizations
such as SELC http://www.shareable.net/users/sustainable-economies-law-center in Germany, the UK, France, etc... ( I may have missed articles on these topics ? )

Organizations that support and share their experience ( and resources or infrastructure ? ) to

bootstrap other projects ?
Bringing their expertise and credibility to open up paths for collaborating with local authorities, or potential investment funds ? ( such as, specifically for housing, in German, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mietsh%C3%A4user_Syndikat )

Eventually also a network of hosts and organizations, who support activists / social entre-donneurs - such as me ? -

People invested in sharing communities, who wish to further engage in supporting such projects without ( mainstream financial ) resources ? Such as Route des SEL ? http://route-des-sel.org/ Or eventually members of intentional sub-groups on couchsurfing.com, hospitalityclub.org , bewelcome.org , ... ?

Social Reproduction Email ( 2008 )
http://sharewiki.org/en/Social_Reproduction

28 December 2013 Email Update
Hi Wolfgang,

Thank you for sharing your article - it overlaps with approaches I like to take.

I see a number of potentially overlapping and emergent "layers". I like to hear from other people's dreams or personal experiences.

I see the potential for an understanding of distribution / aggregation layers, mutually empowering each other in an emergent way, building up Critical Diversity for further emergence, resilience, and ( ideally ? ) viable systems.

I ll be happy to map out our non linear understanding. ( a mapping tool where we can export our data ? )

// in advance, apologies to Silke - this will be a long post with a lot of links //

Some layers I experiment(ed) with, followed by a few projects.

I want to talk about Nomadism, as it embodies imho an understanding of distributed systems - understanding I wish to use even when not moving ( geographically ).

I see layers of distribution and aggregation mutually empowering each other in an emergent way.

Short, medium and long term approaches, and resilience through their overlap, can also be taken into account.

I want to bring forward potentials for synergies and emergence ( based on "critical diversity" ? ), and using Integral City and some research ( if one can call this research ? ) I did or am doing, to compare or apply it to.

///

- Nomadism :

- it can imho be translated into the experience many more have, for example at a city scale, or also via "seminar hopping" lifestyles , movie production lifestyles, etc -

talking from personal experience of a type of nomadism based on a low ( monetary ) threshold ( hitch hiking ).

I would aim at experiencing a flow of temporary autonomous zones ( often events ), hitch hiking from the one to another, taking into consideration a "logistics of options" to direct myself across europe. ( moving east or west, north or south, depending on how events may seem to empower more options for intentional convergence and supporting needs at later stages )

I am glad Wolfgang mentioned "non places". Much of the time was spent crossing "non places", moving towards aggregators where, for a moment, some shared "warmth" could be experienced.

Nomadism ( especially moneyless, or almost moneyless ) , in my view, embodies an experienced understanding of a distributed system of distributed systems : hitch hiking as intentional distributed system - used as a layer to facilitate access to - ... hospitality as a distributed system - being hosted for a limited amount of time - ... which can empower meeting people, which itself can lead to events , to shared learning, distributed information networks, etc ...  each of these potentially empowering distributed intentional "tribes".

Such social capital constantly being worked on - if not, the energy imho dissipates over time.

Such understanding of nomadism ( / of distributed approaches ) can be applied within more specific geographical environments, such as a particular city itself. I guess others wrote about this ... ( Deleuze, Negri, Hardt, ... )

I personally like the contents of this site : http://nomadology.com/

It is important, imho, to reduce "empty places" and time ... as to make it viable. Focusing on places where there is a higher density and diversity of mutually empowering potentials, that can, even if one uses a temporary autonomous approach, further feed other processes and enable a continuity of flow.

This is some of my shared experience of too much "spreading out" :

http://sharewiki.org/en/Beyond_Road_Burn_Out

http://hitchwiki.org/en/Aimless_trajectory

Convergence may be possible in cities - yet the cost of space, in monetary terms, or of securing access to space ( if one squats ) is often very high, itself leading people to allocate their time to service such monetary cost, reducing availability, and increasing the potential for "empty places" ... or "empty social places", as people are "too busy" ...

Finding distributed approaches to use such spaces and generate spaces on top of existing infrastructure, as to converge social networks / aggregate, may be one approach. Narratives imho also play a central role in such flows of aggregation. Time, too, plays a role. High turnovers in certain cities may not enable long term continuity or development of projects, unless a combination between longer term residents and short term residents can be found.

Planning is not always possible when there is such constant reshuffling - hence the potential for stigmergic information tools to manage logistics of options and generate flow and emergent collective intelligence.

///

As it requires constant work on social networks, but also as I sense there is a need to create reference points for oneself to return to, aggregators which can overlap as to enable continuity, rather then leaving empty spaces of nothingness,

after 5 years on the road I needed to find solutions for places of unconditional return.

A tribe, even if it morphs, yet enables shared intention, can be such "home" - even if and when it moves in space. Sometimes families can represent such form of tribe, yet in western societies, imho, families end up being instrumentalized in favor of dominant socio-cultural narratives. In some cases, people like me who wish to generate alternative / less coercive narratives may end up marginalized from both society and family.

Underlying logic that I notice from people in mainstream narratives being : "if I "have" to do this, why would s/he not, hence I can not support him, as it would furthermore requestion my own sacrifices over time to survive in this system". Not all adopt such stance - and it is interesting to understand what processes or contexts opens people up ...

//

I see a need for overlap in terms of time frameworks.

At casarobino ( a nomadbase.org which hosted over 1000 people in a small flat over a 3 year time framework ), I noticed how overlap between short term ( a night or two ), medium term ( a few days to a week ), and longer term ( a few weeks ? ) residents enabled transfer of self organized cultures and information needed for such self organization, and how it enabled some form of fluidity in terms of internal social dynamics. Furthermore, the casa seemed to serve an aggregation role, enabling a place of return on a longer time framework, leading to individuals coming back to the space, feeding and at the same time maintaining what imho looked like intentional subcultures enabling its self organization. ( may be interesting to study this further in depth : the role of such aggregators, and intentions that may serve as shared engagment and underlying social contracts )

///

For the moment, debt seems to be one of the powerful forces leading people to be prepared to share engagement / generate social contracts. ( often generating more centralized control and artificial scarcity ? )

To free ourselves from ( monopolistic and hierarchical ) debt information systems of control, I sense we need to generate alternative distributed engagement tools.

Reification is imho risky business ( in terms of control - see this article https://www.academia.edu/4498786/How_does_reification_ensure_our_wilful_subordination_to_authority ), yet worth experimenting in a distributed form - to facilitate temporary aggregation , as stigmergic tools ? ( hence mentioning the netention research, which also includes understanding regarding Linked Data, ... )

Yet, indeed, "places" can be aggregators. I see the risk of "institutionalization" of places ( and centralized control )

Potentially, such institutionalization of spaces can be ok as long as networkes are not enclosed within it, and that such networks can access sufficient diversity, as to never depend on any one source ... yet be able to build on top of institutionalized infrastructure, although I do not see this as a solution. Ideally, one would aim at enabling distributed forms of ( temporary ) infrastructure away from institutional influence and conditions.

In some cases, there may be potential to support a distributed commons through institutional support, playing on the strategic interests of specific institutions in doing so - yet rarely does this seem to come, imho, without a cost / conditions. Mapping externalities can be a potential of tools such as suggested by netention research - including practices visualizing open value networks ?

///

Here is some research ( draft ) I did as to attempt such approach in Leipzig.

http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project

The idea being to benefit from existing infrastructure, at a lower cost ( in terms of debt ), and creating a sufficiently great diversity and amount of individual projects, as to build distributed systems on top of the proposal of the usership of a living space

Prices in Leipzig now seem to have increased - so I needed to change approach.

///

Using the potential for FabLabs / local small scale manufacturing based on open source research and development,

I imagine using vacant spaces ( in urban or countryside environments ) to build up temporary housing.

Eric H. used the terms "pop up villages" and "furnitecture" ( portemanteau for furniture and architecture )

see : http://sharewiki.org/en/Spime_Housing

It can include approaches such as wikihouse ( http://www.wikihouse.cc/ ), ... Ideally, I imagine modular and parametric approaches ( I noticed some designer and architect active on Edgeryder forums think so too )

Some cities, such as Brussels, see imho high turnovers ( 15 to 20 percent of its population annually ? ).  There is a lack of housing, prices are rising as population increases, etc

In such kind of context, I also see the potential for some of the approaches expressed earlier on ,

using the potential of massive amounts of vacant space ( for example : over 2 million square meters of empty office space )

to generate temporary contracts where temporary structures ( furnitecture / urban pop up villages ) can be set up, as some form of temporary living.

For example in Brussels : http://www.annedoloresmarcelis.com/index.php?/camping-town/

Various subcultures can / are converging and overlapping, with each having high turnovers, or people keeping a base while living nomadic lifestyles - for example dancer networks, theatre networks, but also all kinds of students, people doing internships, people on short term contracts for international institutions or businesses, etc

The environment itself can generate new layers and opportunities.

Beyond reducing costs / increasing quality of life with limited monetary income via a sharing economy approach,

it can be about generating conviviality, liberating time by reducing costs, and increasing potential for interactions around shared intentions or interests.

Freed time opens up potential for participatory action research and learning.

Approaches that combine subcultures and generations can also be adopted. It can be an evolution from the "co-living" approaches which have permeated into many urban living / social practices.

In effect, such types of temporary spaces generating defacto "free schools", some of them leading to "project incubation"

Also see :

http://opendoor.io/ --> projects

///

I wanted to generate such spaces for a number of years,

yet I realize that a more specific and easily understood narrative is needed to enable shared intentional engagement.

A narrative for a "school" can be an example of a way to bootstrap such engagement. Incubators, coworking spaces , or even, in the countryside, permaculture or construction / renovation projects can all be narratives attracting people for a certain period of time.

Yet often there needs to be a "spark", and the threshold for such spark often requires a minimum of resources ... which itself already requires engagement.

Although I shared this link earlier on, also see :

http://emergentbydesign.com/2012/01/08/93-superhero-schools-collaboratories-incubators-accelerators-hubs-for-social-tech-innovation/

///

Convergences such as http://bwcd.vdcn.org/doku.php

seem to already be a filter for those ready to engage in setting such prototypes...  hopefully building on the experience of past "communes", but hopefully also enabling neo nomadic / distributed overlap, as explained in this mail.

On Sat, Dec 28, 2013 at 12:28 AM, Wolfgang H. wrote: Thank you for your thoughts, Anna, Dante, Wouter!

Something that I wrote that resonates with what you are saying, Dante, is here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/49712621/Making-Place-for-Abundance

And of course, at the Commons Abundance Network, we are seeking to provide links to any initiatives of the types that you mentioned, and develop our network as a virtual collaboration space to help such things develop. The more networking there is among such initiatives, both online and in actual places, the more they will be able to coalesce into real alternatives.

Wolfgang

-Original Message- From: commoning-bounces@listen.jpberlin.de on behalf of Wouter T Sent: Fri 12/27/2013 4:54 PM To: Dante-Gabryell Monson Cc: commoning@listen.jpberlin.de Subject: Re: [commoning] [P2P-F] The Co-operative University

Dante,

I love the idea of such "uncompromised temple". It would be a reference site where so many free/libre/open/commons-governed/knowledge initiatives would come together.

Ideally it would be in a bottom-up organised country. And it would of course be a node in the distributed network of already existing nodes.

Some would spend more time their while others, even with a longtime commitment, would only come there physically from time to time. Teachers, learners of all disciplines would join in special sharing sessions to construct collective knowledge and common projects.

As you say, if such initiative can be seen as a kind of insurance, it will be easier for some to invest/contribute. The transition is probably not going to be easy for many people, so assuring some basics would be helpful.

I need to continue other conversations right now, but the ideas discussed here have my interest. Thanks and best wishes for sustainable and solidary systems.

Best Wouter

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