Thriving too

Social Objects and Triangulators - a quick reply

This blog is more a reply to Tessy's blog from earlier today. But because I didn't want to leave out the pictures I post it seperately.

Today a social object emerged justed opposite from where I live. A small open wound in the street - where there used to be a three - was turned into a beautiful garden by my neighbor. Using plants from his own garden, and stone which have been laying around for more then 6 months on the other side of the road, he created a beautiful garden.

And the three things Tessy talk about, using the blog post by Project for public Spaces played out:

1. While creating the garden at least 20 people came up to Willem to ask him about the garden, praising him, bringing him more plants, sand, drinks and thanking him he took care of two places which where bothering a lot of people
2. It was a very mixed group of people - from students to housewives with veils and my other neighbor with her two year old daughter.
3. My daughter and the girl of my neighbor where immediately circling around the garden and another man from across the street volunteered to take care of the garden in the future.

I even had a very long conversation with my neighbor - whose name is Willem by the way - and we learned a great deal about each other which we didn't know before. While reading Tessy post, this story immediately sprung to mind and I just had to share. There are more fascinating things to tell about this conversation, but I will keep those for another time.

Spontaneous Interventions - A celebration of the power of individuals to change society

Really excited to see the first images from the US Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Architechure Biennale which started a couple of days ago.  They have produced such a stunning exhibit that they have won an award ..." This interactive installation impressed the Jury with its celebration of the power of individuals to change society in small but effective ways. The unpretentiously simple presentation was a delight."

The exhibition and beautiful website highlights100 projects

 "In recent years, there has been a nascent movement of designers acting on their own initiative to solve problematic urban situations, creating new opportunities and amenities for the public. Provisional, improvisational, guerrilla, unsolicited, tactical, temporary, informal, DIY, unplanned, participatory, opensource—these are just a few of the words that have been used to describe this growing body of work."

 "Spontaneous Interventions will frame an archive of compelling, actionable strategies, ranging from urban farms to guerilla bike lanes, temporary architecture to poster campaigns, urban navigation apps to crowdsourced city planning. These efforts cut across boundaries, addressing architecture, landscape, infrastructure, and the digital universe, and run the gamut from symbolic to practical, physical to virtual, whimsical to serious. But they share an optimistic willingness to venture outside conventional practice and to deploy fresh tactics to make cities more sustainable, accessible, and inclusive."

The collection includes some of our favourite projects - many overdue for wider recognition - and the website will be a wonderful source of inspiration!

Helsinki Beyond Dreams

A delightful new book just arrived from Hella Hernberg.  Her collection of perspectives on projects and ideas in and around Helsinki is subtitled 'Actions towards a creative and sustainable hometown'.  She introduces the book:

 

"You are witness to a documentary of a new Helskinki, a city where grassroots culture is flourishing.  In the past few years our previously quiet and reserved Nordic hometown has been a source of constant surprise.  Thanks to a new we-spirit and the enthusiasm of its people, Helsinki is breaking free and becoming a more intreguing and enjoyable place - a city where you can feel at home.

 

The Finnish traditions of "sisu" and "everyman's rights" are merging into a new urban attitude that has the potential to take Helskini beyond our dreams. Sisu is our word for fortitude - the special Finnish kind of perseverance and guts.

 

... When you want to make something unusual happen in Helsinki it still takes a great deal of perserverance to wade your way throgh the jungle of the city's strong bureaucracy. Knowing this we cannot but admire the people who take the initiative."

 

Such inspiring stuff!  Thanks Hella!

 

Social Dining: Big tables + New Behaviours

I had the pleasure of have having lunch at Hub Islington last week. Laura and I popped over there to meet Amy Smith the new editor for The Community Lover's Guide to Islington and to talk to the Hub team about their clever use of The Civic Crowd website to map and connect with projects in the local community.  I really enjoyed the friendly and fun lunch – and the delicious food which magically appeared through everyone bringing and making a range of salads, soups etc. 

Food sharing in a community setting is much more than sharing big tables. There is a whole range of new ideas and behaviours springing up  - but overall from our work and study there are lots of signs that people want to spend time together in a way that goes beyond arranged social lunches and dinners – and moves towards a more inclusive, community feel, using food as a way for getting to know people in an informal setting.

And people are so clever - especially with a small amount of inspiration from what other communities are doing. In two of the workshops we did with Neighbourhood Challenge groups, one in Lower Green and the other in Boothtown, people came up with some fantastically imaginative ideas on how they could possibly use food and cooking to build relationships and using their existing resources, without waiting for big events, lots of funding... or permissions.

The Lower Green group had the idea that although they didn’t have a big enough kitchen for shared cooking on the scale they would like, they did have a big hall.  So their idea was to come together, prepare the food together, and then take it home to their own kitchens to cook it…. And then come back together to eat it.  The Boothtown group thought that rather than trying to engage everyone in a big street party straight away, that they would hold weekly suppers in the street, moving from one house to the other, growing the number of people taking part each week.

Sharing food is as old as the hills. But below are some examples of how social dining looks and feels different to a regular restaurant’s consumer-based offering (as lovely as that is too)... or indeed a lunch or dinner at a friends house.

Update: If you are interested in encouraging more social dining, where you live, or work for a local authority, here's the brilliantly easy way that the Hackney Chief Exec and team have decided to do it.

Bring Your Own Restaurant

Do it yourself fine dining on the streets of Holyoke. A plein air potluck held every other Friday.

Outdoor Community Kitchen - Copenhagen

I visited this last summer.  Every week up to 80 people in the local neighbourhood bring dishes and share a meal together.

School Kitchen in Rotterdam

Maurice Specht (right) in the kitchen of a [very inspiring] school in Rotterdam - made completely available for the community to use.

Kitchain 

Modular furniture designed for social dining in a public space.

Collaboration O 

Communal dining area at their collaborative workspace.

Sunday Soup - Meal-based micro-granting events (below pics from Bologne and New York's FEAST)

Streetfeast  A day of local lunches across Ireland - as an excuse to share good food, meet new people who live near you, celebrate our streets and show what is possible when a group of people come together to do something special. Organised by Community Lover's Guide to Dublin editor Sam Bishop, and crew. 

Social Collaborative Platforms: Scalable, Sustainable ... and Fundable!

If you’ve had a very imaginative idea but are struggling to scale up or duplicate through regular enterprise models and methods there is a chance you have created a Social Collaborative Platform without realising it. I have only recently come up with these observations, as always I am keen to know what you think.

Here's what SCPs could possibly look like

-       They are imaginative social ideas that a group of people were compelled to try out under their own steam.

-        Sometime over the last 5 years the idea was adopted by other groups of people from around the world. 

-       These ideas are replicated largely on a voluntary basis and are not social franchises.

-       The idea founders often encourge new groups to create their own logos, plan their own events, while creating some supportive infrastructure through websites, guides and advice.

-       These ideas are often strategic and have multiple effects in the communities where they are implemented.

- These ideas spread in a sustainable way by the founder groups adopting a high autonomy/high trust model of collaboration.

I have at least 6 or 7 examples that I think fit this description, by how they have been developed and how well they have scaled, but below are 4 that I know sufficiently well to describe.

Example 1 Social Media Surgeries

Started by Nick Booth & co in Birmingham.  An idea to set up free social media sessions for local community groups with a group of professionals working voluntarily. There are now 90 groups registered on their site which support the organisation of local events. 

Example 2 Sunday Soup

Started by InCUBATE, an arts based research in Chicago in 2007.  Sunday Soup is a ‘meal-based micro-granting' model.  The basic formula is that a group of people come together to share a meal and all the income from that meal is given as a grant to support a creative project. Everyone who purchases the meal gets one vote to determine who receives the grant. There are currently 66 groups across the world – the majority have been started in the last 2 years.  They have different names and logos.

Eample 3 Trade School

Started by Caroline Woolard & co in 2009 in New York. Trade School is a project that where people barter for instruction and offers everyone the chance to learn something new in exchange for skills, spaces or objects.  Laura Billings has just completed the first run of Trade School London, and there are Trade Schools being started in Cardiff, Milan, Singapore, Paris …. Trade Schools often have different logos and supported by the team in New York who are setting up the network as a co-operative.

Example 4 Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe

I put the book Hand Made together collaboratively in 2010.  The series has become the Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe – with nearly 50 local voluntary editors across the world collecting stories about new types of community projects to publish. Rotterdam was published last month and May will see the publication of Amsterdam, Birmingham and Hackney.  Editors are using the process of putting the books together to create supportive knowledge sharing networks. 

These projects are working to a different model and because they are a bit confusing and the funders are not recognising them sufficiently yet. 

-       They are largely voluntary – but they aren’t charitable.  They are about groups of people wanting to do something good in their communities and see something valuable in these ideas.  The groups recognise that the projects either help spread knowledge, bring people together sociably but productively and can be used strategically to connect people and build trust at local level.

 -       A group of people would likely be unable to pay some sort of franchise fee to the project originator because the group would be unlikely to see any sort of business model in the idea – but there is a social model.  The idea would therefore be limited in its spread by the ability of people to turn them into businesses or charities of some kind.

- Their value is often a secondary benefit and often difficult to measured (Social Media Surgeries are doing a brilliant job of capturing effects) e.g. connection and relationships potentially reduces unemployment or depression, or even crime.

These projects challenge the idea of scalability in that they are spreading because they don’t involve money. For example with Community Lover’s Guides if we had budgets we would have to limit the number of issues we created by the amount of budget we had.  The core of these projects is money free…. But people need to survive so how are they doing that? In a number of different ways:

1. Founders are achieving funding to develop the infrastructure around the project to support the networks of groups e.g. websites
2. Value and content is being created around the project from the learning and network – giving people an opportunity to help others with technical support or consultancy.
3. Local groups are supporting their projects by simply chipping in for refreshments or are using empty spaces … and generally gathering existing resources.
4. Sometimes people have other paid jobs and do this on the side. It may not feel the same as volunteering for a charity, but people still don't feel they have to be paid for everything they do - particularly if it does some good in the world.

But overall, despite the difficulties, I wonder if there is sufficient evidence for funders to start to recognise this as a new model, that could start to sit more comfortably in their understanding of what works and why.  Sometimes it’s a social enterprise model, sometimes it’s a charity model and sometimes it’s a Social Collaborative Platform – that needs funding at the top – but not through every transaction.

If we want to see more of these very practical, very strategic and imaginative projects (which can be views as 'social tools') being developed we need to rely on more than the love that some of these projects are currently sustained on ... The model calls for funding at the top end for development and support - and smaller scale funding at community level to help with logistics.

Big Lunch is one of the few Social Collaborative Platforms which started on a fully funded footing, knowing from the start where the funding was needed - but it would be great to see a lot more funded in this way. 

In the social innovation sector we worry about the difficulties of scaling a lot. I wonder if a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of when to use which scaling and funding models wouldn't help us all achieve a lot more?

If you wanted to you could argue that The RSA and The Hub share many of the characteristics of a Social Collaborative Platform, but they achieve funding through mixtures of membership, co-operatives, enterprise etc. But these two examples also create brands, ideas, tools, methods, start up funding etc, and foster networks and collaboration which enable others to start something (network, enterprse,etc) at local level - very successfully indeed.

I can think of 3 projects that are struggling to be social enterprises at the moment who should be thinking about becoming a valuable Social Collaborative Platform, but through lack of funding/sponsorship are unable to make what feels like an enormous leap…. To give it away (strategically) to grow.

 

Somewhereto_ … Can we have one for everyone?

I was invited to an Action Group last Tuesday on Giving Spaces at the Cabinet Office, set up by the people at Somewhereto_, led by Sam Conniff of Livity.  If you aren’t familiar with Somewhereto_, it is an amazing project which has been unlocking empty spaces for young people to experiment and use. 

somewhereto_ aims to:

• unlock space to help young people
• create a movement which will enable young people to engage with their creative and cultural passions
• transform use of space throughout local communities

To date, somewhereto_ has…

• unlocked 308,000 sq ft of space,
• negotiated 1732 somewhereto_ space matches, between young people and space holders
• worked with youth partners to engage with young people and space partners who have access to the space which young people need
• highlighted we have potentially leveraged £1.6m in premises costs^.

 I have been a fan of the project since it was in planning and have been astonished at how well the project has been implemented.  On Tuesday we heard from two young people who had used the spaces that were made available to them, not only to fulfil their own aspirations and showcase their own talents and ideas… but also to support other young people do the same.  It was pretty inspiring.

Also inspiring was the dedication  and enthusiasm shown by the local project organisers who have been taking on the tougher side – speaking to local councils and businesses to release the spaces and to cut through red tape … of which there is a lot.

The frustrations won’t surprise you. How do they get more spaces unlocked quicker? How can we change some of the systems which mean the local authorities act with extreme caution, rather that with realism and imagination?

There is certainly willing… but a long way to go …

The meeting was under Chatham House rules, but I do feel at liberty to quote the Minister that was present who called for local authorities ‘to be bolder’ and to use the ‘General Power of Competence’ to find reasons for saying yes to more of these initiatives.

I came away inspired by a brilliantly conceived project, being brilliantly executed … and wishing that we could have a bigger Somewhereto_ that unlocked spaces for everyone’s use,  as well as young people … and also with renewed conviction that these sorts of projects only work this well when there is expert facilitation.

Thanks to Sam for the invitation and to Miranda Sawyer for such animated faciliation and Oli Barrett for bringing his whistle ... and in particlar to the young people who came and shared their inspiring stories! 

Social Brain Lab: Introduction to trust building

{Image above from the S1NGLETOWN installation)

For nearly two weeks I have had writing this post on trust on my list.  However every day I do or say something stupid myself... and if I wait until I am better at this stuff myself this will never get written... so here it is.  

Why is trust so important?

We all know its important, particularly when we want to work with others.  The more complex the situation or collaboration, the more trust plays a part in achieving success.  Studies have shown that relational trust, or more particularly lack of trust between people, has a direct cost to organisations – everything costs more money because it slows everything down and without trust you also have to create much more elaborate processes to compensate…

Studies have shown that relational trust also has indirect effects and collectively this can have some powerful results.

A large and influential study that focused on the importance of relationships within school communities was conducted by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider and was published as Trust in Schools, in 2002.  This important work studied the effects of high and low relational trust in schools and they concluded that there was a direct correlation between the levels of relational trust in the whole school community: students, parents and teachers, and the academic results of the students.  Additionally they concluded that:

Relationship trust is forged in daily social exchanges. . .Relational trust constitutes the connective tissue that binds these individuals together around advancing the education and welfare of children. (Bryk &  Schneider, 2002, p 137 + 144)

 So high levels of relational trust makes things faster, cheaper and better….

Trust and the Social Brain

Chances are that without understanding in detail how trust works, we may be trustworthy in some ways and not others. The problem is that parts of the human brain sort of aggregate all the data about us, and then print out a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the trust question without saying how it got this answer.  Trust is a very finely tuned biological safety feature.  We all know about our 'fight or flight', an automated system, which is constantly and instantaneously on the look out for signs of danger. On a more subtle scale this system is quietly gathering data on everything going on around us – then it synthesizes all that information and jumps to a conclusion. On the one hand very useful and on the other sometimes rather annoying.

What this means is that there is no way around the system. Although our brains might be more or less finely tuned (we can for example become 'hyper-vigilant' to trust issues after a few negative experiences) …  no amount of acting classes are going get you past the everyday ability of a human to detect a lack a trustworthiness in another person.

We are so biologically tuned into one another that we effect each other's heart rate and blood pressure within minutes of entering the same space.  The blood-pressure of a sick person reduces when another person sits with them - even if they are unconscious or asleep.  This subtle back and forth between us leads us to share moods quickly and easily, and it also gives us very strong instincts about trust... sometimes instantly and sometimes based on a lot of data gathered by our brains over time.

Trust behaviours 

At the highest level trust is about being honest and maintaining a high degree of integrity.  The word ‘integrity’ means ‘being whole’… integrated.  So what you show on the outside should reflect what’s on the inside.If it isn't... if we pick up some inconguity, however sublte or hard to define, between what people might being presenting to us, and what we think their real intentions might be, we start to distrust.  Being a person with a good reputation for integrity also involves a person demonstrating their integrity outwardly.  If you are a hermit it would be difficult for people to know if you were trustworthy or not.  

You might not wish to think that you are being highly judgmental about people around you – but you will find that your brain likely has been working on your behalf.

Trust in a community context

We said that our focus in the Social Brain Lab was to look at these issues in the community context.  I mentioned above that in the Trust in Schools research they showed that relational trust correlated to student’s grades. How many other effects might come from a high trust community?

I have blogged a lot against approaches to getting communities active that use conflict as a deliberate tool.  Agitating groups of people around grievances I believe is very manipulative and very ineffectual long term.  If you believe, as I do, that we are going to develop better social outcomes through collaboration, between local authorities, schools, community groups, councilors etc ... then building relational trust has to be an integral part of building ‘collaborative capacity’.

In my experience conflict in local communities divides and fractures existing social networks … and people can behave in shocking ways.  The most common narrative is that the object, person, organization takes on some very unpleasant characteristics.  This ‘demonising’ gives the campaigning group permission to do or say pretty much anything in order to win.  

If you want to collaborate on community projects trust is also essential.  When you work in organizations there are processes, which to some extent compensates (poorly) for lack of trust. 

We have for years tried to do this in communities by working through stifling committee structures, often attracting only the most determined and skilled… but repelling the majority.   Thankfully we see signs of change... and in all the new examples of communities working creatively and collaboratively that we have studied,  you will find trust at the core of their success.

My favourite quote on trust:

"Having spent many years trying to define the essential of trust, I have arrived at the position that if two people could say two things to each other and mean them, then there was the basis for trust.  The two things are “I mean you no harm” and “I seek your greatest good”

Jim Meehan, British Psychologist and Poet 

Surfacing the good stuff - and then showing it to everyone ...

Some conversations this week have reminded me of some projects that I thought I would share with you,  All of the projects below  have used photography to highlight people and activities in communities.  Photography is used a lot for this purpose - and you may have done something similiar yourself - these projects just stand out a little in terms of showing different ways of doing it.

Hello Neighbour

"Students from ten middle schools across Portland and Central Oregon are participating in Caldera's Hello Neighbor project. Along with photographer Julie Keefe, the students have begun to identify, interview and photograph diverse people of all ages in their neighborhoods. 

From their work, the Caldera students will create photo-and-word portraits to be displayed on large, 7 foot by 5 foot banners throughout their communities."

Rotterdam de Zuiderlingen

In 2008, 155 portraits with between 4,000 and 5,000 residents of Southern Rotterdam were shown through a book and an (outside) exhibition. They also mapped all the groups.

Birmingham Community Tea Room - I am Stirchley

I did a workshop/surgery in Birmingham last year in a pop-up community cafe arranged by Inhabit. In the cafe was an amazing exhibition of photos by Jane Baker - featuring local people working - really beautiful and inspiring work.

JR

And of course all the amazing work of photographer JR.

 

Do these sorts of projects make a difference to a community?  I think that they do. Work around 'social norms marketing' would suggest that by revealing actual activities in a community you can alter a community's perception of where they live.  Social norms marketing (different from 'social marketing') came out of research that showed that young people at colleges in the US perceived that other people drank more alcohol than they really did... and this exagerated perception of what others were drinking made them drink more.  So they went into a community, did quantative research into the real drinking patterns and then promoted those real figures, instead of the inflated ones that students were imagining.  This reduced alcohol consumption.  Rather than broadcasting, revealing the reality has powerful effects.

There is a common perception that people are disinterested in getting involved in their communities, that they 'don't care anymore'. Another is that there 'isn't that much going on around here'.  This is where these sorts of projects become invaluable.  They don't broadcast a false 'this place is great'.... but instead they show good stuff that is just a bit hidden from view.

It is one the great things about the Collaborative 3D Asset Mapping activity we do in workshops - people are pretty thrilled when they discover that when all their collective knowledge is pooled to make the map their neighbourhood is full of activities and opportunities that they didn't know about.  The act of revealing these people, ideas, spaces and other opportunities means there is much more chance they will be connected and built on.

Community Lover's Guide to Rotterdam

This revealing process is what we are doing with the Community Lover's Guide to the Universe project.  Yesteday I had the thrill of seeing the hard copy of the first of the series to be published.  Edited by Maurice Specht, the Community Lover's Guide to Rotterdam is launching with a 3 day event on the 8/9/10 March - in an old laundomat in Rotterdam.

 

How many radicals do you know?

It was very exciting to see the new list of 50 Radicals published by NESTA and the Observer on Sunday as I think that radical thinking can create important social change. The published list is of course brilliant – full of incredibly clever people, original thinkers and a real inspiration to everyone in the sector. Congratulations to everyone that made the list!

I am also very appreciate of the list on a conceptual level as it gives people doing important work a platform that challenge in some part superficial celebrity culture and also served to highlight the growth and importance of this sort of work.  So overall the idea is great, the people listed are great, the projects are great.  What’s also great is that, as Yvonne Roberts has said, it’s a starting point and way to begin a new conversation about this topic.

It occurred to me that not all radical people are strongly in the public eye (perhaps they never will be), nor do all racial efforts have a strong supporting project that can be evaluated in this light … and unfortunately even those in the public eye can often have their most radical efforts unnoticed or forgotten - we have very short memories - particularly in remembering the context that new things started in.  I have often noticed that you have to get to know someone personally to fully appreciate their thinking and work.

This list is of people I know ...living the UK only .... I hope that it will encourage other people to talk about the radical thinkers that they know personally so that can collectively build on the very good platform for this discussion that the Observer and NESTA have kindly started.

My definition of radical

Radical thinking has to challenge the status quo of an organisation, society or common wisdom in some substantial, imaginative or collaborative way. Radical thinking often starts small, and isn’t always recognisable immediately.

A radical person, or group of people, has to be bold enough to challenge the current situation with confidence about of an idea or vision,without any certainty of the outcome. Its generall an intellectually high risk endevour.

And of course collaboration is very radical - if you try it you will know what I mean ....

This isn’t an exhaustive list – so please forgive me if you aren’t mentioned here.  If you aren’t listed, and you think you should be, the most likely thing is that we haven’t seen each other for a while, or I don’t know about your radical actions. Let me know ...

Richard Gerver and Co - for radical imagination at Grangeton.  Richard transformed his Primary School in Long Eaton into a working virtual town – Grangeton – with working businesses, councils,  a mayor, a radio station etc. The curriculum was changed to work in 4 streams culture, enterprise, communications and wellbeing.  

Anthony Seldon, Ian Morris and Co - For radical boldness at Wellington College. When Anthony announced in 2007 that he was introducing happiness classes at Wellington College, it was pretty radical.  

Michael Coughlin and Co - for radical collaboration at Reading Council.  Consistently finding ways to promote a new collaborative conversation with local citizens.  

Carrie Bishop and Dominic Campbell and Co - for radical innovation at FutureGov.  Designing imaginative digital tools in some of the tightest systems spaces in local government e.g. Patchwork .. and for creating remarkably effective collaborative thinking events to tackle difficult problems.

Matthew Taylor and all of the RSA - for radical persistence.  Transforming the RSA into a lively exciting membership institution in the face of natural difficulties inherent in changing organisational culture.

Indy Johar, Alice Fung, Joost Beunderman, Tim Ahrensbach and Co -  for Hub Westminster and The Compendium for the Civic Economy

Cassie Robinson- for Our Intimate Lives

Anab Jain and Co -  for Superflux

Tim Smit and Co  - for The Big Lunch

Deborah Szebeko – for Think Public

Melanie Bryan - for work with women and enterprise 

Louise Macdonald – for Young Scot

Lesley James and Co – for RSA Opening Minds curriculum

Lloyd Davis – for Tuttle Club and for being the first ever Artist in Residence!

Mike Chitty – for Elsie

Heather Ring – for Union Street Orchard

Kristina Glushkova and Karen Martin – for Makerhood

Anthony McCann - for Hedgeschool21

Sarah Drummond and Lauren Currie and Co - for My Police

Jocelyn Cunningham, Sam McLean and Co - RSA Citizen Power Peterborough

Lucie Akerman and Co – for The Motorcycle Showroom

Julian Dobson – for Living with Rats

Stephen Frankel, Harry Wild, Shayne House and Co – For Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network

Dan Thompson – For @riotclearup and Artists and Makers

Scilla Elworthy – For Peace Direct

Anne-Marie Culhane – for Grow Sheffield

Ty Goddard and Co  - for The Education Foundation

Karl James and Co – for The Dialogue Project

Anthony Zacharzewski - for Demoncracy Society 

Daniel Snell and Co – for Arrival Education

Tracey Todhunter and Co – For Low Carbon Communities

Henry Playfoot - Stealth Education

Jonathan Rowson and Co – for RSA Social Brain Project

Caspar Lampkin – for work at Aberdeen University

Richard Tyrie – for Good People

Clare White – for her work in Burslem

Amisha Ghadiali – for Think Act Vote

Nick Booth, John Popham and Co  – for Social Media Surgeries 

Dougald Hine - for The University Project

Casper ter Kuile – for UK Youth Climate Coalition

David Gauntlett – for Making is Connecting 

Jonathan Robinson – for The Hub and for helping make The Mountain of Hope happen in Soweto in 2002 

David Barrie and Co – for Middlesbrough Urban Farming and The People’s Supermarket

Paul Smyth, Andy Merritt, Sam Henderson, Kristen Cheng, Laura Billings, Lucinda Gosling, Courtney Erwin, Laura Ellison, Lindsay Noble and Co – for FARM:shop

Ivo Gormley, Mark Herbert and Co – for The Good Gym

Nick Gardner and Co - Project Dirt 

Tracy Currer and Meriel Lenfestey – for Ecomodo

Russell Collins - for Community Lover's Guide to Jewish Community

Roland Harwood and Co – for 100% Open

David Robinson and Co – for Community Links

Keith Kahn-Harris - For Conversations and Dinners

Dan McQuillan, Paul Miller, Anna Maybank and Co - for Social Innovation Camp

Anna Pearson and Co – for Spots of Time

Lambeth Council - for the Co-operative Council

Vinay Gupta – for Hexayurt Project and the 500 of them that popped up at Burning Man last year....

Noel Hatch – for We Do What We See

Simon Berry - for Colalife

Alice Osborne - for The Nan Project

Toby Blume and Co – for Groundswell and Urban Forum

David Wilcox – for creating the practice of Social Reporting

Trudy Thompson – for Bricks and Bread

Eileen Conn – for Community Engagement and the Social Eco-system Dance

Sophie Howarth – for School of Life

Jane Mason and Co – for Virtuous Bread

How many do you know? And what do you think makes for 'radical'?

 (Image from Stichting NAC - Rotterdam)

Social Spaces: In Praise of our Skills Game

A few weeks ago I blogged In Praise of Lego Serious Play about how we use this methodology in our community workshops as a visioning and co-design tool.

We wanted now to also share a little about the Social Spaces Skills Game that we developed originally for the Travelling Pantry workshops, but now that it is tested and fully developed, wish to give away for communities to use.

What it is

The Social Spaces Skills Game is a very simple game indeed.  I collection of skills are printed on 100 cards, which are read out by a workshop participant, and with the help of the group are sorted into:

-       skills that the group can do

-       skills that their friends can do

-       skills that to their knowledge neither they nor their friends can do

How and why we designed the game

When the initial Travelling Pantry workshops were designed, they specifically wanted to avoid traditional problem-solving methodologies.  Instead, the intention of the workshops was to test the idea of shifting mindsets in the following ways:

-       direct problem solving --> secondary effects

-       single projects --> strategic transforming vision for the community

-       needs --> assets

-       first step funding --> first step revealing and connecting ideas, resources etc

On the day before the first workshop I wrote:

"There are a number of really very inspiring community projects which focus on maintaining (or even better refurbishing) the community  - and making your environment beautiful for the community is a wonderful and creative thing in itself.  The difficulty with the problem-solving format in a workshop situation in my experience, particularly if you start with grass cutting, is that typically, at community level at least, all these roads lead to ‘maintenance thinking’.  Once you have started, it becomes a list of pot-holes and dog mess, road works and graffiti and litter … and half an hour later you are talking about ‘hoodies’ being loud and rude and how lonely elderly people are and how bad the NHS is, and why aren’t trains on time, or the leaves collected quicker … and before you know it you are a sad heap of exhaustion and frustration just thinking about the terribleness of it all.

So we didn’t think we would do that."

The other activities that we designed for the workshops were all included to create a sense of possibility – for people to leave the workshops feeling excited and capable. All the activities were also designed specifically to ‘reveal’ aspects that are often invisible, such as ideas (via the LEGO), resources and talents. We were also aware that many projects never get off the ground because ‘projects’ are seen to require difficult skills such as writing constitutions, opening bank accounts or writing funding bids and we knew that in most new-style community projects that these particular items that put people off getting involved, represent a fraction of what is needed.

Like all simple and successful things, the thinking and inspiration behind the game came from multiple sources.  We were at the time immersed in design thinking, prototyping … particularly trying to make visible and tangible concepts and ideas as well as inspired by the work of Albert Bandura on self-efficacy and beliefs.  Having worked with Lauren Currie on Mindapples ideas, I was very inspired by her awesome ability to make things physically real.  Crystal Campell and Saskia Van Oosterhout had described how they incorporated cards into their Narrative Ecology and this had worked well.  David Gauntlett and I could see how all this added together could help workshop participants ‘reveal’ their talents and skills in a light and enjoyable way, which did not embarrass them by making them feel boastful.

We were also very inspired by the work of John McKnight and John Kretmann at the ABCD Institute, who had in 1993 developed a Capacity Inventory that community development workers make use of in interviews with residents in the community to create a database of skills in the community.  Although we were not using this idea in the same way, but rather trying to increase a sense of resourcefulness in a workshop setting, we found this inventory very inspiring.  We borrowed about 50 of the Inventory’s 200 skills, added 50 new ones of our own, including some humorous ones such as ‘sit in the lotus position’, ‘chatting over coffee’… and ‘making people laugh’.

We printed them up through marvelous Moo… and took them on the road…

What we discovered

Through workshopping with over 1800 people in the last 14 months we have discovered that this activity, but some miracle, did exactly what we hoped it would.

-       Without exception everyone enjoys this game – people always laugh and joke their way through the game which takes about 10-15 minutes – we have even had frequent demonstrations of ‘sitting in the lotus’ position.

-       It is informal and people interact in light ways that help them get to know one another better.

-       Of the 100 activities a group of 4 or more will be able to do, or have a friend do, over 90% of the skills.  The percentage between how much an individual group can do themselves varies on size of group, but generally speaking most skills can be done in the community.

-       It does make people feel capable – we have frequently had groups spontaneously applaud themselves at their collective cleverness.

-       It genuinely surprises them how much can be done around the table – and through this are also blown away considering how much skill is lying dormant in the community.

We have found that the Skills Game is great to end a workshop - but others who have experienced it, including Nick Bird, have thought it would work well also at the beginning as an ice breaker and to set the tone of the workshop right from the beginning.

If you think you might like to try the skills game you can buy a set on the Social Spaces Shop – BUT before you do, please be aware that you will be able to request a free PDF of the Social Spaces Skills Game in the new year, which we are making available free for community's use via a Creative Commons [Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs] licence.

Pic above from the workshop held in Torwood on the 22 October 2010

 

Social Spaces: In Praise of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY

David Gauntlett, professor of Media at Westminster University, and co-founder of Social Spaces, introduced me to LEGO SERIOUS PLAY as a tool for helping people share their ideas through making. David has been working professionally with LEGO for some time, using LEGO for research and engagement and in helping to think around many of the concepts he wrote about in his important book Making is Connecting published earlier this year.

Thanks to David a year ago LEGO SERIOUS PLAY donated several boxes of LEGO to the Travelling Pantry.   The Travelling Pantry worked for 6 months giving free workshops to people in communities around the country…. Travelling 20,000 miles and working with well over a 1,000 people.  Since the Travelling Pantry project has been completed we have continued to use LEGO in a variety of contexts and settings to a further 800 people (approx) and wanted to feed back some of our experiences.

What is LEGO SERIOUSPLAY?

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is a methodology that LEGO have developed to use ‘making’ as a way of co-developing business strategies.  From their website:

“The underlying values of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY include the belief in the potential of people, and also the belief that everyone within an organization can contribute to the discussion, solutions, and outcomes…. It is a language, a communication tool and a problem solving methodology”

How we use it at Social Spaces

The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY methodology is well developed in business settings and they have made their work and ideas open source (you can download their paper here). However, with the Travelling Pantry we wanted to take the simplest version of this methodology into communities to see how it would work in this new setting, to share ideas and create a collective vision for communities.  We wanted to see if it worked as part of a set of new activities we had designed which used tangible objects to collaborate and co-design.

We usually do the lego activity early in the workshops. Participants are asked to make a small model of ‘something they would like to see more of in the community’.  This usually takes about 10 minutes.  Participants are asked to share their idea with the group in turn.

What we have noticed during these workshops

• Often people are surprised by the request to make something with what they think of as toys. This usually leads quickly to delight and conversations and joking follows while people make their models.  This isn’t just about being offered LEGO, but about being offered any sort of materials to make something with.  Most communities are usually offered only verbal and written tools to communicate their ideas.

• Community meetings often favour boldness – sometimes leaving shyer people at the edges – which is both unhelpful and a waste of creativity and ideas. With the LEGO activity all members have an opportunity to share their ideas, with a visual prop to help them communicate what they mean.

• While people share their ideas, other participants are often surprised at the warmth and optimism of these ideas, which frequently ask for more neighbourliness and beauty in their neighbourhood. People get to know each other at quite a deep level through this sharing process.

• Once the models have been shared participants are asked to place their model on a single table in order to start to build up a collective vision of what they would like to see more of in their communities. This is a very important and positive step.

• Taking photos of individual models with their description cards and loading them onto a spaces on the internet gives the opportunity to share with others not at the workshop some of the ideas in a very visual way.

• Making a model really does reach parts of the brain that other activities don’t. We have also found that doing the LEGO after a short talk on inspiring case studies stimulates the creative process and helps people think about their communities in a different way.

• We have researched and  thought long and hard but haven’t been able to find any other materials which offer such quick access to 3D model making as LEGO, particularly in this community setting.

Most common themes....

So many original, unusual and interesting ideas.... And also tons of wonderful gardens, bridges and community created new spaces! 

You can see all the Travelling Pantry models here.

Points to note 

Respect

Respectful framing of this activity if very important. Communities are often dealing with difficult, complex or emotional situations so it is vitally important that this activity be framed to ensure that the fun ‘methodology’ not be confused with not taking people and their concerns seriously, in effect be seen to be taking them too lightly....

Taping into people’s imaginations

While being respectful of difficulties and concerns we are normally very clear also about the purpose of the activity being to tap into their imaginations and build a positive collaborative vision of the future, rather than cataloguing issues.

Different contexts need different framing

If you are using the activity as a rich research tool  in a consultation, in a focus group … or using it to stimulate ideas and problem solving, we have found that some careful framing is needed in these different contexts.

One example of different context is that following a workshop I did for Forever Manchester, they have been using the activity in their Focus Groups with good effect!  More pictures of their focus groups can be seen here.

If you are a community that thinks they might like to use LEGO to develop their ideas I would suggest coming to one of our workshops to see how it works in practice.  If you haven’t been to one of our workshops but are keen to try it straight away please contact me and I can send you some notes that might be useful. If you are introducing this activity into an an existing group where you are a member yourself, can require some confidence, and having a sound understanding of why you want to introduce it, possible reactions and planned outcomes can be helpful.

And if you are using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY thinking and methods please do give them credit in your activities – it has taken them years to develop this important methodology, they have generously made it open source … and I am sure that they will be delighted to see it used for social good … as well as see it continue to be tested so widely and thoroughly in communities through Social Spaces.

BIG THANK YOU! 

I would like to offer a huge thank you to LEGO and David Gauntlett on behalf of Social Spaces for supporting us and for helping us and the communities we have been working with to get inspired and active in making our communities better places to live!

Social Spaces: Why Pie?

When the lovely people over at Westminster Hub asked us to hold some sort of event for their Changemakers’ Fayre on the 27/28^th October we thought long and hard about what sort of event we could do that would fit with the Hub’s ambitions to seed thousands of new conversations during the Fayre … and also our own ideas and work.

Our first thought was to shape an event that brought together some of the amazing people we know to share some of the research, strategies, and other transdisciplinary emergent community stuff our heads are currently immersed in.  Which of course would have been lovely… and we hope to be doing a lot of that sort of event in the coming months.

But instead we decided to do a PieLab event for the whole day on the 28^th  – thanks to some bright thinking from Laura Billings.  This means that we will just to be hanging out at the Hub, sharing free pie and chatting to everyone that wants to pop by.

In all our workshops we talk about PieLab in Greensboro Alabama – one of our most inspiring projects.  The Changemakers’ Fayre gives us an opportunity not only to talk about PieLab, publish books about PieLab … but to actually ‘do’ PieLab.

We talk about PieLab for two very important reasons:

There are no short cuts

PieLab is a brilliant example of how a project can (and should) start from the smallest point of contact between people.  When we look at the Theory of Change and assumptions that people are working to on many existing community projects we often see that a common ‘failure to engage’ is often caused by a ‘failure to start small enough’.

And with so much talk around at the moment about taking over community buildings and services, and even social enterprise, it is easy to see how in our haste we could forget that absolutely nothing happens in communities without the relationships that drive any ideas and projects forward. 

PieLab started by holding free pie events, with the simple proposition that ‘life can be bad, free pie isn’t’ …. And now have permanent premises in the high street out of which they still produce pies, but also have created an amazing community space through which all sorts of enterprising initiatives have emerged – from BikeLab to apprenticeships …

Below is the PieLab piece that they wrote for  the Hand Made so you can read their story for yourself.

Social is Social Change

So while we might see that building on relationships can be a great strategy for developing bigger more transformative projects, for many people the social can be the social change they really need.  We spent some wonderful time last week in Oldham, Manchester with a group called the Friends of Stoneleigh Park, that had started by focusing on their local park (which is beautiful), but now hold a lot of events for the community more widely.  We found that the level of care that this group are showing as they plan their events really inspiring – right down to picking elderly people up from their homes to attend a coffee morning or book swap… and even making sure they had someone they knew to sit next to.  Bringing people that might otherwise be isolated or lonely into enjoyable and comfortable contact is vital and valuable social change in itself.

Noel Hatch mentions the PieLab in his post here, quoting Toby Blume's post 'Food is Love' "If the ultimate act of love is to nurture another human being, then how can providing nutritious and delicious food be anything other than a hugely caring and generous deed?

My friend in the US, Jack Ricciuto in this interview extract  talks about exactly this point – saying that when you have a lot of money you can be preoccupied with scaling up as fast as possible, but when you want to engage people in the community it is the ‘small acts’ which really make a difference.

Invitation to PieLab

On Friday myself and Laura Billings will be bringing lots of pies (some we will even have made ourselves) to the Westminster Hub and we hope that many people will stop by and talk to us about their ideas and plans for social change – what they think community is all about and how we can all ‘do’ community in our own places and spaces.

A Big Thank You

We also wanted to give a big thank you to Tim, Alice and Indy at the Hub for letting us loose on their formally pristine greenhouse meeting room to bring in our This is Community installation - pics here and here.  Thanks for the confidence and trust… and above all the sense of creativity and fun you’ve allowed us… and of course to make something beautiful, visual and tangible out of our ideas and work.

And thank you also to all the lovely folk over in the US who created PieLab from the beginning – especially Megan Deal and Amanda Buck  who have wished us a lovely day on Friday and have always been so supportive of the Social Spaces project!

 

Update: Nice commentary piece by David Wilcox reporting the event

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More community

Social Spaces: Urban Farming Tools

"Urban farming tools is a set consisting out of five tools and a backpack. The tools can be stored inside, while the handle of the bigger tools can be taken off and mounted on the side of the backpack. Like this you can transport everything nicely on the way to your plot. Urban farming makes sense in so many ways: It is good for your health, fitness, the environment and since you grow your own food locally even for your budget."

Social Spaces: First Community Kitchen in Lambeth Tomorrow Night

Lambeth Council, better known as the first Co-operative Council, is hosting a 'Volunteering Speed Dating' event tomorrow night 17th August between 6pm - 8pm.  The idea of the event has come out of the many offers of support the council has received over the last week following the civic disturbances.

As Lambeth have described, the evening will be an opportunity to:

• Meet people like you from across the borough
• Talk to community organisations and groups needing further support
• Get advice on how your skills can be used in Lambeth
• Commit to volunteer or just talk to experts about the sort of thing you want to do
• Get involved or be a wallflower, you can just listen to what's being discussed
• Celebrate what they have here in Lambeth.

Social Spaces will be running a Community Kitchen workshop in the Canteen between 7pm - 8pm for all residents who would like to start conversations about how the community can build further in the wonderful spirit in the area.

In planning for months now, the Community Kitchen is a new project planned to launch in the next few weeks, but we are bringing the project out early for this event.  Community Kitchen has evolved out of the Travelling Pantry project, and aims to give communities a new tool around which to hold positive conversations for stronger communities.  Community Kitchen will take on different guises and formats, but we hope that they will become, with the help of some accessible tools, regular self-arranged get-togethers for communities.  

Unlike traditional committee meetings and forums, Community Kitchens will encourage informal and creative conversations around developing new community projects with an asset-based focus rather than a problem solving or deficit-focused one.  The full launch of Community Kitchen will officially begin in September, and will see a large number of workshops being rolled out by a Local Authority as part of their innovative Community Engagement Strategy. 

Please join us on Wednesday 17th August between 7pm - 8pm in the Canteen (appropriately) at the Assembly Hall, Lambeth Town Hall, Town Hall, London SW2 1RW

We will be re-opening the free Travelling Pantry project in the next few weeks  - offering workshops to community groups in response to requests following the riots -  in Lambeth and Peckham... and other areas .... so please register your interest here.

Social Spaces: Solar Powered Pops

Isn't this beautifully done... Solar powered van selling ice pops....

Social Spaces: The Wrinkles of the City

We have blogged a lot about the work of photographer JR.  Many of his works address issues of gender and culture as he pastes giant sized images of people on buildings (and the top of trains also) around the world.  

I can't choose a favourite - but I really do love "The Wrinkles of the City' work he did in Los Angeles (Pic above) We can shout  or grumble about ageism - but doesn't this image do such a better job of adjusting attitudes to beauty?

Below one of my favourite photographs of all time.  I am not surprised JR got the Ted Prize last year - are you?

 

Social Spaces: Real Time Farms

There are many social media driven platforms out there which are are going to waste... but Real Time Farms has enormous potential to drive proper change around food production - both perceptions and behaviours ... and works with the whole chain - from grower, to markets, restaurants, cooks, to consumers.  Look forward to this one spreading!

Social Spaces: Loving Everything in Rotterdam

I have been off the blog for the last few weeks - mostly enjoying a break and working on Hand Made 2 (much excitement once again!)

But before all that I had 3 heavenly days in Rotterdam plotting and planning with Maurice Specht.  We spent a lot of time in his shared office space (pic above)... but also a fair amount visiting projects and talking to people working on local projects.

One of the unusual and beautiful observations in Rotterdam are the hollyhocks growing between the halls of the houses and pavements... and not by accident either.  It is a project called Stokroostegel and has been created by Patrick Kruithof (pic below) who describes himself as a designer, writer and explorer.  Patrick has designed and manufactured special bricks which replay normal paving stones - the new ones designed to all the plant to gorw through and the rain water to reach the roots.  Brilliant!

He told us all about the project and their hopes to continue making Rotterdam a more beautiful place to live.  It was interesting to Maurice and I that during the conversation it was clear that social engagement hadn't yet become a priority yet for the project - but we discussed quite a lot about how local schools in particular could become showcases for the idea. 

More on Rotterdam projects to come!

Social Spaces: Parklets --- A San Francisco Wonder

In San Francisco they have a new type of urban re-occupation called Parklets.  Basicially a restaurant or shop extends from the pavement area to occupy the parking spaces in front as well! They are getting pretty popular - being described as 'parking for people' .... even appearing outside residential homes recently.

"Livable City director Tom Radulovich also spoke at the event, talking about how the streets were traditionally the gathering and social spaces in cities, until transportation planners started to value the efficient movement and storage of automobiles over a more inclusive view of streets. But the parklets – along with temporary street seizures like the Sunday Streets events – are part of a movement back to a more holistic view of city spaces."

 

Social Spaces: Liberating new Forms of Conversation

A near perfect publication!  This booklet, the NY Guide to Liberating New Forms of Conversation, which you can read below, contains all the my favourite key elements: social geekery and design geekery all in one!

Above is a pic showing how to layout a room for different social events ... and below is a pic showing the beautiful icons they have designed to represent different types of social gathering...

Open publication

Posted by Tessy at 09:55 AM in Communication, Community, Design, Geeky Stuff, Inspiration, Lovely things, Social Spaces | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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I love a good manifesto.  They are often spirited and insightful, and at their finest also inspiring.  Non more so than Benjamin Ramm's  'Citizens: A Manifesto'.

Not to distract from the ideas expressed, I have found this work beautifully written.  Ramm begins:

"Democracy lies dormant, yet even in slumber the term ‘citizen’ retains a sense of wonder. To act as a citizen is to give expression to an egalitarian ideal; to be civic-minded is to be conscious of the influence of individual action."

and goes on to articulate very many thoughts and ideals that really resonated for me.  Below are a sample of some of the points from the Manifesto that I particularly liked.

• A citizen has power. He exercises it every day, actively by choice and passively by neglect. A citizen considers how this power affects others, and does not abuse it: he respects his power and that of his fellow citizens.

• A citizen evolves, and in the process enriches his society. His citizenship is never static but is realised in each action and interaction. A citizen renews his citizenship every day.

• A citizen is not a cynic. Cynicism is the refuge of the powerless.

• A citizen promotes democracy in the workplace, advancing collaborative models such as cooperatives and mutuals. Citizens support mechanisms that place them at the heart of decision-making, such as participatory budgeting and citizens’ juries, and champion sortition as a means of developing an engaged and knowledgeable citizenry.

• A citizen is present, not represented; and in attendance by consent.

• A citizen challenges a culture of low expectations. Citizens are ambitious – for their personal growth, for the welfare of their community, and for the development of their society.

• A citizen does not treat all activity as a transaction. He knows that what is valuable cannot always be understood in terms of what is useful, and that many profitable pursuits render no material gain.

There is a great deal in this manifesto which speaks to citizens taking back what is theirs in terms not only of their rights... but also their responsibilities and creative capacities.  One of the things that Ramm does so well is to describe the citizen with the most thoughtful and positive human characteristics.  The potential of the citizen lies in individuals exercising their capacities - but Ramm also cleared points to the fact that these skills are learned through practice and engagement. 

• A citizen nurtures the spirit of citizenship. He understands that the exercise of civic virtue is habitual, and that fluency comes with practice.

The manifesto makes a huge contribution to the emergent school of thought about assets, human strengths and the desired switch from consumer to citizen, and from David Gauntlett's Making is Connecting, where he reflects:

"Rather, the point is that doing things for yourself, and making things with others - making the world your own, and making your mark on the world, rather than merely receiving a manufactured environment assembled by external others - is absolutely central to our health and wellbeing, as individuals, as families, and as a society."

As Ramm himself describes:

"The evolution of a civic consciousness calls for a transition from consumer democracy to civic democracy, from an approach that mimics the market to one that places choice in an ethical framework. At present, individuals are consumers of public policy, not participants in shaping it..."

Well done to Benjamin Ramm for a beautiful piece of work!

And if you are in the mood for manifestos here are a couple of my favourites from very simple and another from the DAAC 

Last October Sheffield was the first Travelling Pantry workshop and I was delighted to hear that some of the particpants connected to St Mary's church had been so inspired by Pie Lab in Alabama that they have opened The Sharrow Pie Experiment, which will run until September.  The point of the first PieLab was that it was designed to create a space for conversation, with no commercial ambitions at all.  You can read their full story in the Chapter of Hand Made below.

What they are doing in Sheffield is equally marvellous... as Supervisor Amanda Ganley said to the BBC a couple of days ago:

"Hopefully people will get a bit of inspiration to think about what they would like to change or see in their community and maybe make connections with other people who want the same thing. And then could set a spark going and it could spread."

A couple of weeks ago The Star described the project

"Locals are encouraged to come to this small shop/cafe/grandma’s front room for free pie and tea. Once there, they are invited to sit down with their slice and chat to the person next to them. Through talking, networks are established, ideas are generated, projects are born and people are inspired to improve the area in which they live. Through that empowerment and relationship-building, social cohesion is increased, vibrancy created and local knowledge boosted, thus creating the perfect conditions for happiness, health and safety." 

They even got onto Radio Sheffield yesterday! 

It isn't just about pie, these projects are examples of new creative activism... something which is emerging around the world.  And it is certainly part of the bigger discussion about how to effect positive change - through power dynamics or creative human-centred means?

 Congratulations to all the team from St Mary's involved in the project - I hope that some great ideas and relationships emerge!

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More community

 

Hurray!  Beautiful new posters from Anthony Burrill 

Building on my earlier post on the in-between I want to share a project which I learned about over the weekend: Kus-en-sloop. Situated in de Afrikaanderwijk in the South of Rotterdam this temporary hotel is situated in an area which is very at the starting point of a big transition. Many houses will be refurbished or demolished, new green spaces will be developed and an overall enhancement of this troubled area. Together with Vestia, the housing corporation owning a large percentage of all the houses in this area Bureau M.E.S.T. has created the concept of KUS-housing:

An empty house which, right before being demolished or undergoing an intense transition, is made use of in a different manner. Normally these houses are the basis of the loneliness and emptiness which haunts these neighbourhoods, they are now transformed into places which form the basis for the transition of the neighbourhood. (…) The rooms are designed by local artists and built using local materials which come from houses demolished earlier. This makes the project 100% local.

The name kus-en-sloop is well picked because it combines several meanings in one: kussensloop (pillowcase); kiss-and-demolish; but also kiss and ride.

 

 

Maurice posted here about For the love of public space.  I found another great example of taking ownerships... and responsibility for public space.  Rainer Spehl produced this 'Accidental Seats project - Seating outside a cafe in Berlin - joint project with Martino Gamper. A selection of Timber and found Objects from the streets, 2004.  Beautiful!

Social Spaces: Citizens: A Manifesto

I love a good manifesto.  They are often spirited and insightful, and at their finest also inspiring.  Non more so than Benjamin Ramm's  'Citizens: A Manifesto'.

Not to distract from the ideas expressed, I have found this work beautifully written.  Ramm begins:

"Democracy lies dormant, yet even in slumber the term ‘citizen’ retains a sense of wonder. To act as a citizen is to give expression to an egalitarian ideal; to be civic-minded is to be conscious of the influence of individual action."

and goes on to articulate very many thoughts and ideals that really resonated for me.  Below are a sample of some of the points from the Manifesto that I particularly liked.

• A citizen has power. He exercises it every day, actively by choice and passively by neglect. A citizen considers how this power affects others, and does not abuse it: he respects his power and that of his fellow citizens.

• A citizen evolves, and in the process enriches his society. His citizenship is never static but is realised in each action and interaction. A citizen renews his citizenship every day.

• A citizen is not a cynic. Cynicism is the refuge of the powerless.

• A citizen promotes democracy in the workplace, advancing collaborative models such as cooperatives and mutuals. Citizens support mechanisms that place them at the heart of decision-making, such as participatory budgeting and citizens’ juries, and champion sortition as a means of developing an engaged and knowledgeable citizenry.

• A citizen is present, not represented; and in attendance by consent.

• A citizen challenges a culture of low expectations. Citizens are ambitious – for their personal growth, for the welfare of their community, and for the development of their society.

• A citizen does not treat all activity as a transaction. He knows that what is valuable cannot always be understood in terms of what is useful, and that many profitable pursuits render no material gain.

There is a great deal in this manifesto which speaks to citizens taking back what is theirs in terms not only of their rights... but also their responsibilities and creative capacities.  One of the things that Ramm does so well is to describe the citizen with the most thoughtful and positive human characteristics.  The potential of the citizen lies in individuals exercising their capacities - but Ramm also cleared points to the fact that these skills are learned through practice and engagement. 

• A citizen nurtures the spirit of citizenship. He understands that the exercise of civic virtue is habitual, and that fluency comes with practice.

The manifesto makes a huge contribution to the emergent school of thought about assets, human strengths and the desired switch from consumer to citizen, and from David Gauntlett's Making is Connecting, where he reflects:

"Rather, the point is that doing things for yourself, and making things with others - making the world your own, and making your mark on the world, rather than merely receiving a manufactured environment assembled by external others - is absolutely central to our health and wellbeing, as individuals, as families, and as a society."

As Ramm himself describes:

"The evolution of a civic consciousness calls for a transition from consumer democracy to civic democracy, from an approach that mimics the market to one that places choice in an ethical framework. At present, individuals are consumers of public policy, not participants in shaping it..."

Well done to Benjamin Ramm for a beautiful piece of work!

And if you are in the mood for manifestos here are a couple of my favourites from very simple and another from the DAAC 

Social Spaces: The Sharrow Pie Experiment

Last October Sheffield was the first Travelling Pantry workshop and I was delighted to hear that some of the particpants connected to St Mary's church had been so inspired by Pie Lab in Alabama that they have opened The Sharrow Pie Experiment, which will run until September.  The point of the first PieLab was that it was designed to create a space for conversation, with no commercial ambitions at all.  You can read their full story in the Chapter of Hand Made below.

What they are doing in Sheffield is equally marvellous... as Supervisor Amanda Ganley said to the BBC a couple of days ago:

"Hopefully people will get a bit of inspiration to think about what they would like to change or see in their community and maybe make connections with other people who want the same thing. And then could set a spark going and it could spread."

A couple of weeks ago The Star described the project

"Locals are encouraged to come to this small shop/cafe/grandma’s front room for free pie and tea. Once there, they are invited to sit down with their slice and chat to the person next to them. Through talking, networks are established, ideas are generated, projects are born and people are inspired to improve the area in which they live. Through that empowerment and relationship-building, social cohesion is increased, vibrancy created and local knowledge boosted, thus creating the perfect conditions for happiness, health and safety." 

They even got onto Radio Sheffield yesterday! 

It isn't just about pie, these projects are examples of new creative activism... something which is emerging around the world.  And it is certainly part of the bigger discussion about how to effect positive change - through power dynamics or creative human-centred means?

 Congratulations to all the team from St Mary's involved in the project - I hope that some great ideas and relationships emerge!

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More community

 

It all makes sense

Hurray!  Beautiful new posters from Anthony Burrill 

In between: kus-en-sloop

Building on my earlier post on the in-between I want to share a project which I learned about over the weekend: Kus-en-sloop. Situated in de Afrikaanderwijk in the South of Rotterdam this temporary hotel is situated in an area which is very at the starting point of a big transition. Many houses will be refurbished or demolished, new green spaces will be developed and an overall enhancement of this troubled area. Together with Vestia, the housing corporation owning a large percentage of all the houses in this area Bureau M.E.S.T. has created the concept of KUS-housing:

An empty house which, right before being demolished or undergoing an intense transition, is made use of in a different manner. Normally these houses are the basis of the loneliness and emptiness which haunts these neighbourhoods, they are now transformed into places which form the basis for the transition of the neighbourhood. (…) The rooms are designed by local artists and built using local materials which come from houses demolished earlier. This makes the project 100% local.

The name kus-en-sloop is well picked because it combines several meanings in one: kussensloop (pillowcase); kiss-and-demolish; but also kiss and ride.

 

 

For The Love Of Public Space: Accidental Seats

Maurice posted here about For the love of public space.  I found another great example of taking ownerships... and responsibility for public space.  Rainer Spehl produced this 'Accidental Seats project - Seating outside a cafe in Berlin - joint project with Martino Gamper. A selection of Timber and found Objects from the streets, 2004.  Beautiful!