[OSList] placemaking, City Repair, and the Village Building Convergence

[Raffi Aftandelian]

friends, spaceholdniks,

The 5th Principle conversation is taking place just when i've wanted to post on 
something connected to it.

first a little bit of background...

at the WOSonOS in San Francisco in 2008 a session was convened on "Coffeehouses 
that Matter," the premise being if ost is a nonstop coffeebreak, what if we 
could just forget about the facilitator and just have coffeehouses which were 
ost 24/7...a number of us who attended those sessions some three years ago since 
have been continuing the conversation informally.

A few months ago almost accidentally I learned of an organization which- 
surprise, surprise!- has been doing this work for some 15 years now, City 
Repair. And the practice is called placemaking (spaceholding? placemaking??). 

I think all of this is relevant and related to the whole conversation of, well, 
what does open space two point o look like, or what does wave riding look like. 
perhaps this is one of the answers?

every year, City Repair (Portland, Oregon, USA) organizes a Village Building 
Convergence (VBC number 11 is happening as we speak)-- different neighborhood 
sites organize workparties to build "places" within their neighborhood that 
would support and sustain the interactions necessary to make meaningful 
connections possible. To translate into ost language-- the grid system of 
organizing neighborhood has closed space, and this work is to reclaim and 
develop the space (working with nature, often with permaculture principles) to 
make it something that on its own will support the meaningful engagement we 
might experience in ost...all the time!

 For example, that might be to build a cob bench, or a solar powered "cat 
palace", or a self-service outdoor tea house, or make some subtle improvement to 
a community garden, or build a neighborhood outdoor kitchen...people show up 
wherever they wish, take part in the workparty, and in the evening there are 
presentations on all aspects of placemaking, with food and music.

It isn't (largely) an OST event, but the whole thing has much of the energy of 
one. Call it an un-unconference.

Learn more about City Repair at:

http://cityrepair.org

the event guide lists the all the activities for this year's convergence:
http://vbc.cityrepair.org/assets/files/VillageBuilder2011v03.pdf

this year's VBC video invite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skG-_2RlsXo&feature=player_embedded

Transforming Space into Place intro video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVq0exoGySc

This year is the second year they are offering a Village Building Design Course, 
the purpose of which is to teach people placemaking. I took part in the first 
few days of the VBDC (and first night of VBC) and had to cut things short for 
personal reasons (family emergency). What I found, though, is unsurprisingly 
teaching village building as they call it - or "hyperlocal placemaking"- is an 
emerging practice. It probably is something best remembered and not taught...

The co-founder of City Repair, architect Mark Lakeman, has had a life trajectory 
which echoes that of the Man in the Hat. For Mark who travelled the world in 
search of great (human) places, the point of (greatest) inspiration was being in 
a Mayan village...and i haven't heard that story yet...but apparently it had 
something to do with the butterfly.

There's a great chronology and context setting video (14 part video on youtube) 
about all of this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DGE9BtSK4Q

Perhaps VBC is a open space on physical space??? 

i look forward to visiting there again. what i saw was just jawdroppingly 
amazing and inspiring.

much warmth,
raffi

p.s. curiously, the central venue for this year's vbc was a very friendly, 
relaxed, flexible Episcopal Church on, erm, Harrison St. And just a few blocks 
away there is a roundabout (think the letter "O"). And it's 2800 Harrison. If i 
have my math right, harrison, you were 28 when you were in liberia with the 
peace corps...

p.p.s. on wed evening they are having a "Village Skillshare" in "open space 
format"

p.p.p.s. if any of you would like to attend for any part of this event (it runs 
till june 5th) at short notice, i'm pretty sure you can...it's rather affordable 
and just pay at the door...
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