Housing as a Commons

Transcript

Going live in 10. Are we ready? Rajan, I'm waiting for you.

>> Ready? Okay. Thank you. Okay, now that I have your attention, welcome to I don't know which day because I stopped counting this week. Someday in week three. Um, how are we all feeling today? Good. We had a free morning for once. We could sleep a bit longer and all start our day together. How are we feeling in our energy levels? High, low, high,

high. Oh, nice. Very nice. Okay, this is rare. Um, this is very rare. Um, so welcome. Before I bring on the next speaker, like always, I have a bunch of announcements to make. The first announcement, we need chefs for weekend cooking because today the shopping list needs to go out. Who wants to be the lead chef for the weekend? Wow. Crickets. Nobody. Jesse.

We need three more. Tom Tamas. Tomas. Tomas. Who else? We need two more. Andre. Should we keep like one as leftover day so that one person then cooks just a lot >> for two meals? >> Ah then that's use then >> so we have Jesse and we have Tomas. We need at least one more head chef. No head chefs. Well, we're going to be hungry for the weekend then.

Really? Okay. Well, then I guess >> Yes, I guess that's how it's going to be. Uh Jesse and Tamas, can you please contact Reuben with ideas for things you want to make and uh make leftovers? If people are hungry, then they're going to eat the same thing for dinner. Um because >> No, no, he's not. When do when do we need to go for shopping? Huh? Tomorrow.

Yeah tomorrow. Okay, great. Uh, how are you feeling about a cleaning party? >> Do we need it? No. >> Okay, everybody's happy with the toilets. Okay, seems like it's fine. Okay. We drown in our collective mess. That's the part of it. >> Yes, that's main street. The entire world can hear this nonsense.

Okay. Um, do we have any other requests from the group? I know that we didn't really do a proper morning circle, but maybe this is a good time to sort of like speak of something. Don't mess with the equipment. >> Don't mess with the AV equipment. And also, don't mess with Reuben's knife in the kitchen, please. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Don't do it, please.

>> They are hostile. They are hostile. Ask Lon. She knows. >> Yeah. No, no, no, no. Please be careful with the hornets. They do bite and they are quite painful. Um, for people that have just arrived, please be careful. Um, okay. With that, I will move to the programming. So, today's speaker is Clara Gromaches who's going to talk about housing comments. A funny story. I have not met Claraara up until earlier this year, but I've been hearing about this human being from all common friends and they all assume that we know each other and we're like best friends or something. So they always talk to me about Clara like I

know her for ages and I'm like I don't really know who this person is. And then finally I meet her at Commons Up earlier this year and I'm like oh you are that person and I'm like that makes sense that we that people assumed that we would be friends. Um Claraara works with Charlie who's going to give a keynote tomorrow on comma systems and she's also been working with DORG. She's also an architect who has been doing a lot of interesting projects around housing commons. Uh and I'm sure she's got a lot of nice things to say. So with that I welcome.

>> Thank you. >> Yeah, it goes both ways actually. [laughter] Um Okay, here we go. All right. Um so yeah my name is Clara I'm an architect I've been doing and in creating housing cooperatives working in

bioclimatic housing also assessing in policy making towards affordable housing in Spain in the mostly like in rural areas and on boarded into web 3 looking for tools to unlock some of the blockers we find on the way um to sort of like a scale housing or a collective housing um in Catalunia. And we recently created uh KMA which is sort of like how the whole like the architecture the collective housing and the technology all come together. Um we'll be explaining more about it but um I've prepared a talk about housing comments.

Um, it's going to be like a section where I bring references from collective housing that could be or strategies that could be interesting for the value of the commons in terms of like how do we set this this potential future project and also references on what could be like the materials where the resources in place and how we sort of like can build more like in the architecture type of um things. Uh it's going to be quite I hope like imagery inspirational um a lot of visuals but I'm going to start with property. So bear with me as we go through the legal stuff um because it's a fun way [laughter] to start this uh conversation but it's very needed and

I'll tell you why. This is type of like the homes that we used to do. Um this one it's like uh on the left housing rehab sort of like maintaining the um historical you know pieces that were there. Um this was a common space actually. And the one on the left it's a earth house sort of like um very cool for regulating the temperature and also like the humidity inside. You can use it from your own blood if you have it available. So um very cool material. I'll tell you more about it. Um let's start. So parms for land and property rights.

We start with um a David Grever's sentence which says property is not a rel it's a rel it's not a relation between a person and a thing. It's an agreement between people. And I think it's relevant to keep that in mind as we walk through how property has evolved in the last 300 years. So um we have private property which uh started with your freedom starts where mine your freedoms ends where my freedom starts right this type of thing. Um this is like a sentence with log. um freedom became private property like the individual isolated from the community.

The tradition, the religion, the nature, we sort of like accepted that we are no longer interconnected and so our eye isolated is what can hold the property, what can hold um things, right? Um and then freedom is reserved for those who earn not for the others. So it's very like ex excluded. Um they talk about like the soul and the spotic dominion which one man claims and advertises over the external things of the world in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. That's this William Blackstone. Um and this soul and this project dominion

turns out that it's very expensive for the people in their environment. We have like more than 50% of the world's land in customary um held by commun communities but only 80% it's formally let's say like legally recognized. Um we have like more than 2.5 billion people living or using managing um communal lands 90% of global deforestation and he's like the link right between private property and environmental loss. Um global deforestation is driven by agriculture expansion in private land.

Um what else? Uh 1.1 billion people feel land insecure feeling that they could lost their home like the right to be living there etc etc. Um so yeah let's move to the second let's say type of um property and it's collective. This comes from like Russo right like when the general will over the private interest is achieving a fair society and this was like the origins of socialism and also like the inspiration for Robert Owen's um cooperative communism and then Robert Owen is the one who says like in the new world the

happiness of individuals will be found to depend upon the social condition and the social condition will depend upon the establishment of communities where property is held in common. And here's the critique, right? It kind of like sounds cool. Um, but the thing is like we can all decide to sell out something that we've created like a cooperative for example and put it back in the market. Um, we can also establish like a nonprofit like open AAI and then one day waking up and realizing, oh, we wanted it for for profit, right? So um careful on the co like the collective property if we want to actually achieve

um commons we have privy um we don't we cannot sort of like confuse it with um common is uh not managed by people is managed by the state for citizens and never by the citizens. Um there could be like ways where we can partner right like with public property actually to achieve affordable housing. Um I could tell you some examples but it's still it's not common. And so the fourth parading paradigm would be a stewarded property and this is like going beyond ownership.

So instead of like claiming this is mine and this is yours, we sort of like agreed to instead of having an access to um right to own, we have a right to use it and manage it and um staying there, right? And there's a structure when hold when held like with the legal let's say rappers and thus become commons and this is like the three let's say characteristics of or the main characteristics of stewarded property right one is like possession custom and inalienability. So possession means

instead of like using a value over like to exchange value we said like we have the right to inhabit in this place not to buy or sell but to use it long term. The custom is that all these rights and sort of like agreements happen between us between the people who are um managing these comments, right? And um that's also a reason why a lot of the comments get dismantled or dispossessed because like the agreements are relationships. And then the inalienability is that the concept of some things are like just too fundamental to put it on a property and say this is mine. is his own and I think it's quite arrogant as well from our end

to just think okay we're here maybe 90 years if we're lucky and but during this 90 years this is going to be mine. Um so we need this part to say like okay um housing shifts from being a speculative asset to a fundamental right. Um the land managers prioritizes long-term ecological health over like the short-term profit. The communities um develop governance systems reflecting these agreements. Then resources remain protected for future generations and then the individual freedom that we were talking at the beginning right with the private property becomes sort of like a reconciled with um collective

responsibility. Um and and so here is a bit of like the process, right? Um the tragedy of the comments that many people talk about is here when we have open access no boundaries no agreements and then the things get messy then go like private public collective and the common um I brought like some historical examples of commons. So the first one is like I think a lot of people know right like the seven generations land governance from the American natives um they got dismantled they got dispossessed by treaty and force the famous enclosing acts of um England where a lot of like um farmers were

forced to be moved into the city um and forcing like yeah a huge wealth transfer that also like triggered and fuel the industrial revolution. Same thing happened actually like in Spain with the um and across Europe actually with the Mados dismantled um law. Luckily we still hold like some land in common. And then in Japan it's also interesting because like they have a process for sort of um distribute benefits from the um crops let's say.

But like new generations don't value that. like they prefer to say like no no this winter or this summer I got more so I'm going to also benefit more without sort of like thinking about the long-term um effect right but good news um here in Europe we still have some legal rappers around holding land in common some of them are in Spain some of them are in Italy some of them are in Austria and this is very interesting for this use guys and some of them are in Switzerland actually holding line since the 1,114.

That's that's really good example. Um but what happened is like we know how to hold land in common but we don't know how to hold housing in common and to take care of the land we need people inhabiting nearby or there actually right so that's like the next step so we need to be creative in the legal spectrum to make housing and land commons actually protected from being dispossessed and protected as as well like internal from internal capture right from things not going wrong. Um this is one example um it's a foundation found and prius is actually like the Catalan word for um common land. Um

they're very cool. So basically um what they do is they created this vehicle it's like a foundation and the key here is like in Spain a foundation cannot sell out. If the board decides let's sell out the land, they can't they can dismantle the foundation but the assets of the foundation. So the land and the housing that they held in this um foundation need to be transferred to another foundation with a similar goal. So we are not super protected but still like we got like a way to crack into the system and I think like here's what like the legal stuff is interesting, right?

It's interesting to see the strategy and sort of like how we can crack into what we have to be able to create what we want. And then underneath this foundation there are like different um projects which are cooperative project that they hold land and housing in common as well as um knowledge. So I think yeah this is a very very good example. And then we also have the meatouser syndicate. Um and their strategy here is different. So basically what they say is like the projects underneath the network. Um they have let's say two types of owners. One is the community that created that project runs this

project and the other is the network itself. So whatever like the community decides there's always like the potential bet of from the network level to avoid this house to you know get back into the um speculative market let's say right so they also find their way to with mechanisms already available um protect the land um and the housing against dispossession. Okay, this is one of the examples. Um, this is in fryorg just yeah um so you can know and then we have like different sort of like good projects but we cannot

actually call them comments. Um, we have Sustra Civic. Maybe some of you know it. It's a network of cooperative housing, very famous in Barcelona and Catalunia because it's a way to partner with the public sector to create affordable housing uh project that are also um social apartments and what happens is like the still like the cooperative I'm journalizing here because like there are many nuances but the cooperative um holds the land. So if the whole assembly let's say if thousand people um decide to sell out the assets they can do it.

Um we then have the surface right on public land. This is very specific example of Spain. So what happens is like the state always has some reserves of um social land like land for social housing and what we do is like we partner with the state to lease that land for 100 years then we build on top and we can have we can have affordable housing for at least 100 years. Heads up here because like Swell Spain has like a very successful historic um uh examples of deciding to put social land or social housing into the speculative market.

Um then we have like community land trust right um then because in the example like we fragment like we differentiate like the land from the house itself but again like there are let's say degrees of categorizing it as a common um yeah I'll leave it here um and then if we want to sort of like touch down earth here and see what is like the potential legislation in the case for um the valley of the commons.

It's not bad news um because we have already like recognized land commons here in Austria and then we have rappers as well uh for holding housing that are actually like quite successful in in Vienna. Um Vienna is very like a very good example of social housing, affordable housing for the whole the entire world I would say. So, we're good. Um, I'm ending like the boring type of uh section of the talk here and want to sort of like walk you through the genology of collective living

through some examples. Um, there are tons of examples in the history of collecting living. I'm sure that we can also like sort of like collectively brief about more about and and even increase the list. But um I chose all these specifically because I think there's some astrology that could be relevant for for the use case of Valley of the Commons. Um the first one um is the Falinist. Um it looked like this sort of like this is like in the age of owners who run factories were attracting talent and the way to attract talent was to provide for housing for schools um for food. So this

is a type of of uh building and what it's very interesting here is sort of like the architectural design because like enhances social relationships and you can see a lot of examples um throughout the history where these type of patios courtyards um are built to increase this coming across a neighbor and sort of like having like this quick catch up conversations. Um this is another good example. So um this one is by God. There's also sort of um a factory an old factory where the owner um yeah ask to build even a chapel. So there's also like the intersection of um

housing work education faith. Then we have sort of like some examples that I think are very relevant because they bring like the care work and the food um organization as well into into the community because like a lot of women were like okay this is a lot of this is um invisible work so we need to find other ways to deal with that. Some experiments um were from Melissa F Pierce she said like let's cooperatize this work. So it becomes feasible. It ended up with just being an example like just being sort of like um

a political thought um but inspired the next one. So in Vienna um a lot of people they say why if we sort of like create like an out a common kitchen and we also outsource that care. It's not the perfect, you know, type of thing, but but I think it's relevant to understand like the different experiments and where they lead. Um, and then these experiments with the kitchen because I think it's a key part of a house and it's also a key part of the community. Um, bring as well the conversation of what about the

children's and elders care, right? And we also have like some examples on um embedding nurseries, embedding schools into the housing communities as well as you know like collectivizing the laundry and all these things. This started um long ago, right? And and probably we haven't evolved that much. I have to say like there's still a lot of invisible work and even in these small communities I bet like or experiment like this one in this works. I bet there's still like a lot of invisible and care work that it's not recognized.

Um yeah, this is how they look. This is like from the beginning of the century. Um again, we have like red bin. FBI is like all the experiments that happened around housing in the very beginning of the century um that actually helped Vienna become what is it today in terms of like housing affordability and rent price. Um in this case they use uh taxes to fund these projects which here is a very interesting mechanism in terms of like how to flow funds from one place to another one. Um they experimented again like with the kitchen and the interesting here as well is sort of like

how we can play out the different degrees of common spaces and private spaces, right? And what happening in the middle because we can sort of like go from the street to courtyard to shared facilities to the my private space. Um yeah, this is how the buildings look like. And we also have examples in the Russian um Soviet uh era with actually it was like the nursery is what attracted people to live together, right? So triggering attracting people with facilities or with common um work.

I think it's also like a very interesting um way for for value of the commons. This is how these buildings look like today and unfortunately have become like luxury apartments. And again on one more example on the kitchen this is from Orurabil. Um quick note on our bill like a city that was planned by spiritual leaders um in India um with a capacity to hold the I mean they want to hold like a city of 50,000 people right now they might be around the 6,000 and there are a lot of like common uh facilities right and one of it is the

solar kitchen which is run by voluntaries and every day you can get your packet lens there and it's also like one of the social spaces. It's run actually by solar energy and that's like make it cooler. But this is also like a project that it could be like very inspirational in the sense of um how providing services to the community, how self-providing services to the community is a way to to attract people and and build towards like a a common goal. I also added one more thing because because of like the the landscape and sort of like um the place of the valley

I foresee community being sort of decentralized or say disperse along the territory and it's very interesting here in Orurville how you know there are like communities within the community so a small clusters within the larger clusters and then common spaces that hold all the people together. So it becomes sort of like the community organization and also the community spaces become even sort of like a fractal let's say um yeah we have like examples uh around um in England as well where you know good intentions of making and holding land in common were actually um

dismantled. So that's why like my intro was heads on uh legal stuff and protecting commons. So this is like the result, right? Um really good neighbors uh neighborhoods in England um with a lot of like greenery spaces but the idea of like the holding this land together was not preserved. Um we only get like the we still get like the physical space but not like the innovation of the mechanism. Um and then I think like you probably know Andel models or um the US type of like co uh co-housing where what's interesting here is the communal house right everyone has like their own place

but then there's like a center of the village that holds um you know all the facilities say uh laundry sewing machines a workshop um the kitchen um meals are not organized like every today. But but you'll have like different communities will set up like different frequencies for these gatherings and and they also come like sort of like a multi-use uh diverse spaces, right? Like you can run markets, whatever like um but that's a foundation that's sort of like the fire place where together for the whole community.

What else? And yeah, again this is one picture of affordable housing in Barcelona. You can again see the strategy of the design around this patio to sort of like trigger social interactions. Um we have examples of cooperative housing as well here in Switzerland. Um and then I also brought this this um example. Um not sure if you might know it but I think it's like very relevant because in this case they they have like the permanent residence right which we can call it like a monastery like nuns and people who live

there long term and then they have like a huge inflow of people that stay maybe three days maybe four days maybe 15 days maybe three months right so I think like this could be like very inspiration on how to organize a community that is permanent and temporary at the same time. Um in this case again it's very interesting because like the mission of this community um it's humanitarian at the personal level is spiritual enlightenment but at the collective level it's humanitarian. So you have like you can sit with people there and one is like lecturing at universities, one is sort of like developing a schools in poorer areas, one is um

teaching women how to see to then be able to um create products that they can sell and have independence uh financial independence. And then what sort of like puts everyone in the same status is that in India um you have this thing called civa which is voluntary um time that you need to give to the community and this is all the care work and sort of like function uh activities that you need um to make in order to the community to sustain itself. Right? So apart from like all your meditation you'll do like two hours and your work you'll do two hours of um

community work that could be folding could be um cooking could be cleaning um and everybody needs to go through that and there's sort of like an accountability to do that and I think that's that's also very interesting um to bring into the western world and especially like in in communities that they flow between permanent and temporary right because like every time someone new comes the whole structure and the whole relationships change. So we need to have mechanisms to balance that otherwise uh we can then get into you know unfair uh types of relationships or or sustaining the community.

Okay. And here's the third section. So what I'm going to do is sort of like explain you um ways to sort of land this imaginary of the valley of the commons into the concrete spaces in in the let's say like the elemental level of the house right and I brought like five principles which are very um important to take into account to when we are deciding a spaces that could be a good potential for a for Valley of the comments. Um, first one is climate and yeah, I'm going to draw here because I want to really explain two things. It it's not only for Valley of

the Commons, but I guess like for anytime you're looking for a place to live, um, this is for me the most important thing. Um, it's sun and how sun sort of like acts upon a certain um, territory. Each territory changes. So what we have here is that um in the peak of summer the inclination of the sun it's 66 degrees and then in winter it goes down to 19. Why this is important?

Um because you can design homes to make sure you'll have um sun inside or you'll be able to protect from sun. Um I'll give you like a summer uh example, right? Uh this is a home. I heard it was like very cold I very hot two days ago, right? You got like 30 degrees or so. Um, which is not bad. I'm from Spain. [laughter] But, um, what we do is that we measure the sun protections to make sure the 66

degrees don't get inside. So, so then we can prevent the inside of the house from heating and then we are more fresh inside without needing to rely on AC and stuff like that. This is also important because then in winter this will go like this, right? And so the same mechanism works good for winter and will allow us to have um sun inside that will heat the floor and then when the temperature inside changes this heating sort of like gets released and you feel nice at home.

The other important thing here is the orientation. Um so every place has a different solar cart and that helps people um or helps us decide how what is like the right orientation for a house. Right? So you have like this number 66 degrees 90 degrees is at the peak of the south bar. So you have north, east, west. And then what happens um is that usually in summer we'll have the sound going from here to here, right? Sort of like from east to west, but then in winter the sun will start

sunrise is going to be like here and we'll go probably until here. We should check it out like the solar car for this place. And so what means is like sorry >> exactly that's a the like the following step. So what it means is like if I buy a house that is sort of like let's say has a courtyard like this orientating up north I'm going to have like a lot of humidity. I'm not going to see the sun ever. That comes with a lot of problems.

And so what I want to have probably is a house that it's oriented in the south. So I'll make sure either like winter and summer I'll have sun inside. That also comes with um being efficient into the extra expenses like heating systems stuff like that. So that's one of the most important things um that I wanted to sort of like give you. And the next steps apart from that is sort of once you have this mapped you need to calculate and especially as Lorenzo was saying in this terrain like what are the shades from the mountains and what are also like the shades from the trees from

your neighbor because the trees on your land you'll be able to cut it um but if it's necessary of course um but not the neighbors so so that's also important um I'll leave it here and then we can work so climate at first that's that's very very important. Um architecture always comes from placebased realities and traditional architecture is like our biggest let's say teacher in this in this field. We then can work with what is the preexistence um because I know that there are a lot of like house like abandoned house here that could be refernished. So that's very interesting to understand like what's already there and how we can choose wisely um considering the sun and then where are

the local materials and again here we have quite good news because we have timber we have earth we have a stone and we have straw so so this is like a great combination I have to say and very lucky in terms of resources um yes um design that could be um that could take into account the health firm of of of people living there, right? And that's why I brought some examples here of what is could what could future living look like physically. This is like 3D printed um building in Italy. Uh, it's made with

earth and again I I'm a huge earth construction fan. I used to work in that. Um, it's quite cheap if you have clay. Also works well in earthquake areas because it vibrates at the same frequency as the earth. So then the construction becomes more resistant. um and also has like the hyroscopic like um characteristics, right? It regulates humidity internally. And this is something like we can measure and we can feel as well when we are for example sleeping in a um earth house. And these are like some examples that are currently happening. This one is from Barcelona

um university sort of like doing different floors. Usually we can have historical examples of one two floors of earth um housing construction in the ETR. They also have like robots that these are also like an old technique of construction. They sort of like launch earth um to make the the walls. It's crazy. Um and then we have also prefabricated earth. This like 10 years ago it didn't exist and it's really good news. Um again another example um here from Martin Rous we have also like some of the most famous architects in

housing construction in earth are nearby so that's also good news for for the valley. Um this is one example of a house made by by earth in an alpine area. Um what else? We have a straw and a straw is like the cheapest material to build and what's good as well is like the isolation properties which also here in this case for winter I think it's very interesting to to consider and it look like any other house right like the three pigs uh story really um hearts the sector of straw uh but you'll see like u they look just like

any another building you can prefabricate the models as well sort of um you can cut costs on the construction um site this is another building it's in lower Austria so I tried to bring as much examples from housing in the in the same area here we are changing this is horrible but but just to show you what we can do what we can do with dune construction right so the structure of this skyscraper is full boot and then they sort of like put the facade um like this ugly but the interior it's great.

This is also sort of like a building made with timber structure in the nearby area. Another one like the timber structure examples are ter are terrible but are good in terms of like the technical innovation. And this is this is a really nice building. And here like the innovation is that they use timber construction for the structures of the house but then the facade is earth. Uh so they combine you can also combine the other examples that I was telling you with earth is like when earth becomes a structural. So earth can hold weight. In this case earth is not holding weight the timber structure is holding the

weight of the house. Um, this is from Anna Herringer. Um, she lives not really far from here. And what else? And then finally, just to wrap up, uh, some references that could be, you know, interesting to know about the Bali. This is one of the, you know, most famous architects in when we are like at the university. Peter Thundor is always like the up there, right? Like like a great inspiration. He lives he lives in Switzerland. So he also works in a similar climate similar conditions as Bali of the of the commons. Um he also has like really good examples. I'm

not sure if I was I added them here. Really good examples on refernishing old house old boot houses but I can show you later. Um yeah, I brought this one but again more like for the social interaction rather than the same here. And then because housing construction is very expensive. I also think like we need to sort of like look at the tiny houses, tiny cabins, pre-fabricated stuff. Um that could be also like a way to to rapidly implement um a bal of the comments in terms of the physical spaces

here. That's it. Thank you. [applause] I'll pass the mic. Oh, we have another one. Okay. Do you have like any questions? Any thoughts? Go ahead. Don't be shy. >> Okay. >> I have some question but I give maybe only one. Uh maybe you know something about because I was in this gathering.

It's a commodian spaces gathering. uh they make uh in different place but previously it's as a Peter of coordinator in Germany in a uh they make some gatherings in Berlin and uh this communion spaces makes a syndicate that you syndicate with a map of location of these spaces is from different countries uh of Europe. uh and uh idea is that people gathering for living in these houses and sometimes they building these houses uh as economics and I can connect you

with with Peter and uh because I I see that it's you should be in this gathering you know. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. That's a first comment but maybe later I thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for bringing Earth. Um when we were discussing of what would be needed when to move in here, there was a lot of like many hands up and for private spaces and architecture do shape the behavior of people for sure. So what would you

like what are your thoughts about this h level of how much we share and how much we do have our our empowerments so having a kitchen yeah you can make your coffee at the morning but then interactions are decreasing in these moments of sharing the morning so I'm curious about this relationship it really comes to the personal level I mean to the personal and then community level right And what I see here is that probably we have that's why I was talking about like Orville and the fractal type of community, right?

Because I feel like maybe there could be some spaces where people live in let's say an envir like a setup like this one where like the private space is very reduced but some people will need more private spaces, right? So maybe they'll have like small apartments with a common kitchen, but then in their apartment we have like a small let's say um kitchen to heat up some stuff, do the coffee early in the morning and then have the like the chance to get to the um common kitchen space. Others might have like full apartment and then a common um house where they gather. So yeah, I feel like it's something like as architects

we cannot decide we can sort of like help or facilitate taking the decisions but it comes it comes very deeply at the personal level and I think it also changes through the years right like you don't decide right now this and then this setup will stay for your whole life right because like probably like young adults will be more prone to sharing everything then when families appear they will have other needs. Um and then in the elder years again they will have more sharable needs right and for example like in care homes there's like a I wouldn't call it new but uh it's quite new as well ways of taking care of elders in

institutionalized buildings where they create like units of 10 people and these 10 people always are the same. So they they have like a small community and they have like their own small kitchen. So they can heat their tea and so they the dependence on others also gets reduced because they have more active because they have a kitchen again. So kitchen being one of the the key decisions and then the privacy right like this grading of how do I transition from the more private space into the public and until when I also welcome the neighbors right because like there are also places where you have like the fab labs but you also have like um in

Catalunia there's like a few rural carbives where they have um bread making spaces right So the whole community, the whole village goes there to make themselves the bread and that becomes like a commonal and social act as well. >> Yeah. [laughter] The gossiping space. Um so there are a lot of decisions around Yeah. I don't have an answer. Sorry. [laughter] >> No, we need Um going back to the

materials or structure that you proposed or you showed and since you already know the valley a bit um is there something that you would recommend? >> Yeah. Well, just when I showed >> Yeah, I'm Yeah, I'm just already like trying to push for this. Um, yeah, it will really depend on the place and if there are like preistances or not, if it's like a house that needs to be refernished. I recall like going scouting with Dan on a house. Um, yeah, maybe last summer. So, so it really depends on what's there and then what other materials that can be

better for that specifically set up. But in terms of generally I have like I think that we have all resources um available uh so they can be implemented >> yeah without issues. >> This is about uh thank you. This is about um building you and now thinking about what's out there. What I saw is partially structure that are partially stone or wood uh half and half and some of them might be rotten or something. So I'm not sure about how worth is that to recover all this structure or should we

start from scratch considering also cultural >> okay that's a key question um and it gets down into the economics and the uncertainty sort of like what is like the risk opportunity right I just wanted to show again like this picture um to say like the pre-existent is there. Would you decide to build on top or not? Or the material is um just a design and economic um decision, right? But but you can do this could be built probably with oops with straw or stones or in this case was tiles like ceramic blocks. Ah,

sorry. And then the decision of okay um do I build from scratch? Do I refernish? There's the ethical side of saying if there's a persistence there why we wouldn't use it and sort of like new from like build from scratch. Um there's a lot of uncertainty when you are building with preistence because like you cannot ensure the cost 100%. You can estimate it but once you open the building and start discovering what's there uh there could be unexpected costs and that's an financial decision.

uh we can sort of like estimate say okay this could go wrong and then put it down but I need to be also transparent that there are surprises usually and then with new construction especially like with new construction and prefabrication is where the cost are more um defined exactly but I think the construction sector is really bad at predicting how much something is going to cost regardless of the state, regardless of yeah it's not something like it's not only Spain like it's Austria it's Germany as well like all these structured um countries they also have issues

>> another very relevant aspect is legal many things that for example in these two buildings the open fire in the living room you cannot get a permit for that anymore more and for many other things. Yes, in Austria you cannot have an open fire pit inside at all. It has it has to be with glass or or somehow covered not fully open. Uh it's just one of the many many many examples of things that will not be possible that are already built for this building. even more. A commercial building uh started a new has quite severe uh restrictions to follow whereas an old one that has already been built

before these con uh restrictions came in place as long as you continue it you can stay in the old frameworks. >> Yeah. >> Is there any way to search for these constructions? >> Yes. Like the the jurisdiction is there out there. So you can create agents that are you know they they have already embedded all this knowledge. >> We will have to comply with lower Austrian that there's two legal books and you have to use both of them to get to understand what you're allowed to do in lower Austria and what not. There's also a an Austrian level of that and sometimes you have to also look there.

We've done that for here quite extensively. My brother is a civil engineer and uh he took that uh it's a lot. >> Yeah. [laughter] No, actually like the frustration of a lot of architects like it's it's 80% paperwork of just justifying and reviewing through the laws. Do you have also like local regulations on how the buildings should look like here? I bet they are. So, it's like three, four levels of different, you know, compliance on how the building should look like and have inside usually. Yeah,

it's horri. It's horrible. >> Uh, I have one more comments. Maybe um maybe I stay in line after Latin America, but I want to invite you to Ukraine. Uh because now uh I can show you one of the other part of picture in Ukraine. We as uh as a trend uh to rebuild a lot of uh old houses uh in countryides and uh people about 30 uh 30 plus uh move to countryside and rebuild houses

and make as a commodian spaces. It's uh it's because we move to more safety places and uh and we have as a network of villages and we built at that time about 10 common spaces uh it's not so luxury [laughter and gasps] uh like but we will do that and I I have a lot I yeah maybe after I speak and show what we Uh because uh it interesting how to uh yeah it's your vision is real expertise.

We need this expertise. Yeah it is. Thank you. Thanks for your presentation. Uh it was in amazing like legal part the climate context part uh the architecture and the human side of it right and um my question will be like for you if we can start from zero what would be the most important thing that I have to choose between those different things you you just explained >> really good question um I think it gets down to the mission what the community wants to create, what is like the mission and vision that we

commonly hold and define it specifically because also there like a lot of nuances of for example I've been in communities where they were like um I want this house to be sustainable and for me sustainable was I want solar panels and recycle the bin and then for you was to store water um have different seage systems um solar panels of course, but like a wind um electricity generator. And so defining what exactly the words mean because then otherwise like there could be like a lot of like differences even if we agree on sort of like the vision sort of like being very specific in the

vision and and then from there I think like it can also attract the people right when the vision is clear because then people say like oh this resonates with me want to learn more Um and that's why also I was bringing the example of Amritita Buri like the ashram in India because I feel like it's the most clear mission that I can sort of like share with you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. That was super interesting. And most of the project you

show are like very big facilities for a lot of people. Is there also a pathway for individuals who have their own house that want maybe to join this movement of common? And I'm also thinking about the fact that countryside village are losing their population then it might be easier one by one to buy these house that are getting empty and that people individually decide to join this common trend. Yeah, of course. It goes back to the question of privacy, right? Like how do we want to live and then I could see definitely like a community where there are different subcommunities where you know part of it is just living in their home separately and they use the common

space. Like imagine this house being the common space and um living two streets from here in a typical Austrian house, right? This this could work. And then there could be like another house where um I don't know it's a three two stores house. So there are like two two apartments and then they share I don't know a small orchard or like they share the solar panel facility or like the electricity generation. Um yeah and it doesn't only come to the physical spaces right like you can share the facilities as well.

So yeah, it's definitely possible and I think like should be this way because like not everybody has the same needs. So there should be space for everyone to I mean that's my personal take really. [laughter] >> Uh I realized that several of the people here have not been to uh the property we're mostly uh looking at and thinking about. Uh so I'm happy to give a little tour uh tomorrow.

Tomorrow yes tomorrow uh let's say directly after the keynote I don't know got look somewhere Yep. 2:30 after lunch. I'm giving that tour outside here. Will you still be here? >> No. >> And >> that's it.

>> Cool. Because I saw the time and um yeah, thank you very like for your attention. I just want to leave with a provocation, right? Because like Oh, go ahead, >> Clara. uh how how long we've known each other like I mean I've seen you present for many years um but I'm curious you're keeping like you had so many samples so you're keeping uh criteria like an open map of these things maybe in a repo somewhere in your own website because it's very interesting like the the amount of curation and mapping that you've been doing through the years um so I'm very curious >> we can think about it [laughter] >> to put you on on the spot.

>> Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um she was Yeah, you guys were also there, the two of you. Um yeah, just wrapping up this. Um I want to leave a provocation, right? Because we are think we are we're thinking about like the legal part, the collective strategies of how we sort of like get down into how do we want to live and then the architecture and earth like materials, right? Um we didn't talk about like the economical part which uh I left it for next week but I think it's very interesting to to sort of like start thinking about with the current let's say uh systemic crisis right like inflation um wages that uh don't keep up with

inflation uh cost on construction going incredibly up. what other ways and to sort of like fund these projects, right? What are the mechanisms that we can envision for for doing that? Um, some of you know like the tourism fund thing um comes from trying to give answers to this question. But yeah, just as a provocation for next week and maybe just triggering more conversations on on that end and also like the you know the place for community currencies uh value care work um blockchain mechanisms as well here

[laughter] if needed. If needed if needed not necessarily um but yeah let's leave it here. Thank you so much. [applause] >> And thank you. Thank you, Cara. Uh on another note, you might have noticed a banner here. Uh right uh we have entered a partnership with uh Defcon India and as part of that partnership and we're very uh happy and thankful for uh Defcon inviting our team to uh to

attend uh uh Defcon. We are going to go likely na me maybe some others and it's more important we have discount codes of 50% and then 10% we could maybe even have more of the 50%. We would like to go there as a big group. We are so far likely three maybe four maybe a bit more. Um Dan >> cause you will be there right?

>> I'll be there. I'll be there like months. So >> right there is you will be there. There's also uh in in Thailand in Chiang Mai uh after that after Mumbai be there, >> right? I'm gonna go there after Orion likely is also joining and going there after Michelle is there. A bunch of others likely. So yeah, it would be cool if you have intention of going there.

Talk to us. Uh maybe shared apartments and whatnot. we can give you discount codes and uh yeah it is really a different uh experience to to show up at at these events in bigger numbers and as a as a crew. Uh and also I mean we have we have an agenda to bring there. We have uh talking points developed here in in the context of this event. Uh we have an ask lately. we will need funding and uh also well contribution I I think uh like intellectual contribution to how to spin this up not just into a co-l livingiving but also something with a bigger vision

and speaking to a bigger story uh and that needs people to communicate that uh yeah if you want to join the defcon uh uh experience with us or the cosmoloc road to defcon uh we are one step of it Uh please do reach out. >> Thanks.