User’s Manual: The Grand Domestic Revolution

Anarchitecture 9 – Active City

On Saturday August 28 the Anarchitecture pavilion was used as a discussion platform. I invited Jasper Ludolph, working at Politiek Online, to talk about the city dialogue. The municipality of Delft asked Politiek Online to design a participation project for four public areas in the new plan of the railway zone. Through the city dialogue, which was partly held online, the citizens of Delft could post ideas for these public areas. This city dialogue will result in an inspiration document for the designers of the public space.
Next to Ludolph I invited Right To The City, a social movement which questions urban developments like social segregation, gentrification, marginalisation of underpriviledged groups, privatisation of social housing, the anti squad law and pseudo participation models. One of their members, Agnes Verweij co-founded the RIA (Rotterdammers in Actie), a resident organization in Rotterdam. Verweij gave a talk about the attempt of RIA and other resident organizations to develop a participation contract together with the municipality of Rotterdam and the housing corporation. This contract would be the result of the negotiations between three partners: the municipality, the market and the residents. In the end RIA had to step out of the process because the resident organizations where not given enough power to be an equal partner.
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1 September 2010, 13.44 — posted by Doris — 0 responses

Anarchitecture 8 – Fertile City

Go Neighbours

Cocky Eek and Theun Karelse from FoAMlab

Saturday August 21

Today we started with a workshop by FoAMlab: an expedition into the edible city landscape. We searched for pioneer plants on the Calvé terrain in Delft. These notorious weeds who pop up first are often use full or even edible. There where around 50 participants, under which many weed specialists from the neighbourhood. Together with the KNNV (Dutch field biology association) we found many usefull species.We focused on the edible plants and plants which could be used for architecture.

New Library books

Referencing

Self-Organisation in Precarious Working-Conditions

Every Monday, Mister Blue works from sunrise to sunset. At 7 o’clock, the sun rises. Mister Blue comes out of his house, and walks to the toolshed at the end of his backyard.
There are five tools in the toolshed.
Mister Blue takes the first one, which is a B, and carries it off. At 8 o’clock, Mister Blue comes back to the toolshed. He takes his second tool, which is a C, and carries it off.
At 9 o’clock Mister Blue comes to fetch his third tool, a D, and carries it off.
At 10 o’clock Mister Blue comes to fetch his fourth tool, a E, then he goes off.
At 11 o’clock Mister Blue pays his last morning visit to the toolshed. He carries off his fifth and last tool, a F.
[…] He smiles to himself. He is thinking: ”Such good tools I have. With them I can finish in one day what it takes others one week to do. I’m lucky.”
Yes, of course, Mister Blue is lucky. But what he forgets to say is that as he gets into bed, first, I am lucky, second, I am clever, and soon, third, he is asleep. (blurb)

An Architecktur Magazines (from issue number 1 to 23)

The journal An Architektur was founded at the beginning of 2002 continuing the work of the architecture collective freies fach – a group that had sought, since the mid 1990s, to assess critically the restrictive reconstruction of Berlin and the relevant political and economical conditions through actions, exhibitions, and small publications.

The Production of Space

The production of space is a search for a reconciliation between mental space (the space of the philosophers) and real space (the physical and social spheres in which we all live). In the course of his exploration, Henri Lefebvre moves from metaphysical and ideological considerations of the meaning of space to its experience in the everyday life of home and city. He seeks, in other words, to bridge the gap between the realms of the theory and practice, between the mental and the social, and between philosophy and reality. In doing so, he ranges through art, literature, architecture and economics, and further provides a powerful antidote to the sterile and obfuscatory methods and theories characteristic of much recent continental philosophy.

23 August 2010, 10.47 — posted by Casco — 0 responses

Labeling and refining

Home Works

17 August 2010, 15.32 — posted by Maiko — topics Mutirao (Collective effort), Self-organization, Spatial production — 0 responses

Anarchitecture 7 – workshop and opening

Go Neighbours

workshop 'Are you coming to the city of my dreams' by Annet Nooijen

the opening of the Anarchitecture pavilion

Artist Annet Nooijen organised a workshop for kids in the Anarchitecture pavilion. They could design their own dream house. The result where beautiful cribs with flat screens, Jacuzzis and slides.
In the evening we opened the pavilion for the public with the Dutch speciality “poffertjes”.

16 August 2010, 20.42 — posted by Doris — topics Domesticity, Neighbourhood, Self-organization, Sharing knowledge, Spatial production, Utopian city — 0 responses

Library organization

Home Works

Constanca and I were discussing how to make the library organization more efficient as the current numeric system by alphabet doesn’t help the reshelving process. She suggested physically labelling the books by theme (letter) and listed book (#) (e.g. A = “Certain Utopias, Certain Experiments”, so label A1= Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, the first book listed under the theme.

So Constanca, Elsa and I started the new cataloguing process…

along with some shelving changes…

Hopefully this new cataloguing system would allow people to feel more free to browse through the books and move them around, without having to spend too much time to get the books back in order.

16 August 2010, 15.14 — posted by Maiko — topics Mutirao (Collective effort), Self-organization, Spatial production — 0 responses

Anarchitecture 6 – Day

Go Neighbours

Day 4: vegetable patch

Day 4 - First part of the roof

Day 4: Performer Toine Klaassen with his family of Dutchbushmen

Day 4: communal eating

Today the pavilion housed already different activities; the salad is growing in our new vegetable patch and Toine Klaassen, a Rotterdam based performance artist used the place for his new performance. Tomorrow I will upload his text on this piece. In the evening we had a communal meal, one of the patterns of Anarchitecture. The good food lifted everyone’s spirit after an other day of building.

Text by Toine Klaassen on his performance ‘The Dutchbushman”:

Het Westers Delict: ontparadijselijking van moeder aarde

De “Dutchbushman” komt voort uit een mijn gedachte. Ik bedoel hiermee dat er een oorspronkelijk soort bewoner in Nederland is die niet leeft zoals de huidige westerling maar iets oers en echts (aborigine) heeft.
De “Dutchbushmen” leeft dicht bij de natuur die in deze dagen in mijn ogen het best te vinden is in de ruigtes van bijvoorbeeld braakliggende terreinen. Het zijn een soort pioniers van het eerste begin of in de toekomst gekeken mensen die leven op de ruines van onze beschaving.
We zijn er als westerlingen zo ver van verwijderd dat we deze bushmen niet eens zouden kunnen zien. Uit schaamte voor hoe we met de aarde omgaan zijn ze onzichtbaar geworden. Met een bepaalde bril op lukt dat wel. Die bril manifesteert zich door de visualisaties en betekenissen die ik onderzoek en inzichtelijk maak middels performance, foto’s en film..
Binnen mijn werk komt de “outlaw ”(vogelvrije) die buiten deze beschaving staat vaker in beeld. Hierbij maak ik gebruik van mijn aliassen zoals bijvoorbeeld de “Dutchbushman” en “De Bestekridder”.
Voor meer informatie www.toineklaasen.com

15 August 2010, 20.32 — posted by Doris — topics Alternative economy, Mutirao (Collective effort), Pattern Language, Self-organization, Sharing knowledge, Spatial production, Utopian city — 1 response

Anarchitecture 5 – Day 3

Go Neighbours

Day 3: the building modules of three pallets

Day 3: Every day we are buildig with around ten people, mostly artists and architects

15 August 2010, 20.02 — posted by Doris — topics Alternative economy, Mutirao (Collective effort), Pattern Language, Self-organization, Spatial production, Utopian city — 0 responses

Anarchitecture 4 – Day 2

Go Neighbours

Day 2: categorizing the materials and a lot of rain

Today we started to play with the pallets. We tried different methods to construct building blocks of alternating heights. By making a cubus of three pallets connected to an other similar cubes we can make stable blocks using little material. These blocks will be the building modules for our mount pallet with gardens on top.

15 August 2010, 17.04 — posted by Doris — topics Alternative economy, Mutirao (Collective effort), Pattern Language, Self-organization, Spatial production, Utopian city — 0 responses

Library Systems

Domestic Exercises, Referencing

I’ve been getting to know the library books by moving complete thematic sections of the books into various locations around the flat. It’s been interesting and visually stimulating to view the books in different lights, arrangements, heights, and orders. It highlights the thematic organization of the books in new ways. Or its placement in proximity to past project ephemera in the house, contributes new meanings to the categories as well as the projects in relation to each other.

During this process, I encountered a maintenance problem. There is not an easily employable labeling system for “reshelving” books which makes me hesitate to move books around in different areas of the apartment because it will be a lot of work to move the books back to their sections. The problem leads me also to think of how future creative activations of the library can be supported.

A new robust organizational system for the books needs to activated!

15 August 2010, 16.59 — posted by Maiko — topics Spatial production — 0 responses

Anarchitecture 3 – Day 1

Go Neighbours

Day 1: choosing a location

Day 1: making a plan

Day 1: waving arms

Day 1: drawing a rough plan

The first day of Anarchitecture we started with discussing “A Pattern Language” of Christopher Alexander. We made plans for the pavilion based on the pattern “Public Outdoor Room”, following Alexander’s design tips. We started to walk around and to wave our arms to come to a communal plan. Alexander describes this as a good method to for a group design process; you can overcome different backgrounds and ideas by phisically visualising the building you are going to make. By making only rough drawings you allow the design to develop gradually and organically.

During the discussion on the pattern language the question came up if the archetypal patterns where formed by the level of prosperity more than by anything else. In our design process we used the materials we gathered as a starting point. These where pallets and second hand canvas we got from a festival.

15 August 2010, 16.49 — posted by Doris — topics Alternative economy, Mutirao (Collective effort), Pattern Language, Self-organization, Spatial production, Utopian city — 0 responses

Tool Research begins!

Family Matters

For the months of August and September, Chris Lee and Maiko Tanaka will be organizing with Casco’s team to research and connect with the local neighbourhood on questions relating to peoples’ material environment. Questionnaires, interviews, and conversations with possible stakeholders will be the method to explore the themes and problems addressed in GDR, such as self organized governance, cooperative living, and spatial organization in and from the domestic sphere.

A newly structured GDR website will be the container for the knowledge gathered towards activating this goal. The responses from the research will be shared, discussed, and processed into concrete categories of “tools”. We are defining “tools” as devices, models, machines, concepts, agents, or anything that is used as a means to perform or accomplish a task or purpose. The web-based “tool registry” will function like a tool itself, to envisioning a possible future, provide visual and tactical examples to facilitate discussion, identify problems, propose new models, and stir creativity for adaptation to other specific contexts.

The overall aim is to further explore the GDR’s questioning of the actuality, necessity, and/or possibility of contemporary forms of “grand domestic revolution”, and propose ways to mobilize ourselves with regard to these questions.

14 August 2010, 13.19 — posted by Casco — topics Mutirao (Collective effort), Neighbourhood, Self-organization — 1 response

IN TRUST WE TRUST

Home Works

examples of money issued in Surinam (1760-1827), Spain (1938), The Netherlands (1574) and France (1711 and 1713)

History of money has been continuously affected by moments of scarcity that have forced communities to push their creativity to the extremes in order to redefine the idea of value. My research is focused on historical cases of currency issues that exemplify the idea of money as an abstract concept in which value depends on trust.

We find the most heterodox cases of money issues throughout modern history around the World; from coins minted in pages of books in Holland, the validation of poker cards as their national currency in Suriname, the use of circles of cardboard with postage stamps stuck to them in Spain, to the use of pieces of paper backed by a wax seal in France. Particularly abundant are the post-war Germany notgeld issues or the Civil War period in Spain, where small municipalities, cooperatives and even small businesses issued up to 7000 different forms of money. All these cases underline how necessity fed creativity of communities in order to establish new parameters of agreement regarding the use of something as a medium of exchange, that is to say, necessity forced communities to rethink the idea of value and trust.

Theoreticians as Silvio Gesell have also contributed to the development of changes in perception of the established economic system. He presented his ideas on how to change the economic organization of society in “The Natural Economic Order” (1911). According to Gesell, freeing money from interest payments is a prerequisite in the movement towards “free money” (Freiwirtschaft), which would be the basis for social justice and welfare. During the Great Depression some experiments based on Gesell theories were conducted in Europe and the U.S. leading to very interesting results. One of the most striking cases was that of the Austrian town of Wörgl which, being in bankruptcy and with an unemployment rate of 75%, issued its own money based on principles such as the penalization of hoarding and speculation, and the acceleration of circulation. In a few months, the town emerged from bankruptcy, went back to a minimum unemployment rate and even developed infrastructure.

The mentioned historical examples of the Netherlands, Surinam, Spain, etc. represent, in my point of view, the formal precedents for a creative way of thinking that faces the fact that money is nothing more than an idea waiting to be redesigned according to circumstances. But if those cases would stand for the most formalist approach, experiments like Worgl and others, are the ideological roots that complete what we now understand as alternative currencies. Nowadays, all these cases are particularly relevant as they remind us that the opportunity to redefine the concept of value is always present.

Emilio Moreno

ROBINSONADE

Home Works, User's Manual

Robinsonade is an adaptation to comic of A History of Robinson Crusoe, a short story included in The Natural Economic Order written by Silvio Gesell in 1911. Gesell used the form of a short story in order to explain how it would work an economy avoiding interests.

Here you can see a homemade edition of that comic.

10 August 2010, 21.58 — posted by Emilio — topics Alternative economy — 0 responses

Anarchitecture 2

Go Neighbours

From the 9th-12th of August we will design and build the Anarchitecture pavilion based on the Pattern Language of Christopher Alexander. Everybody is invited to join the process! We will work from Monday to Thursday from 11.00-17.00 h on the Calve terrain in Delft (Wateringseweg 4). We can camp on the lot.

If you would like to join, please let me know; anarchitecture.delft@gmail.com

The Patterns of Anarchitecture

For the Anarchitecture pavilion I selected six patterns as a starting point. The main one is Public Outdoor Room. This is a public space where people can hang out which is partly enclosed. I have some roof, columns but no walls, and maybe with wooden framework. This space should be placed next to an important path and in view of many houses and workshops. Until now, the squatted lot is very empty. The Anarchitecture pavilion aims to start the development of the area.