Attendees: Brendan, Lukas, Sam, Zach, Melanie
- Structure in a similar way to the Pattern Language book
- Cream paper: cosmic latte ;]
- Christopher Alexander's works
- Book was dragged on Goodreads by an objectivist who took umbrage with a person telling people what to do and how to design
- Solution from book: playground in each neighborhood of raw materials encouraging self-creation from the kids
- Lady Allen of Hurtwood, “Planning for Play”, 1968
- AnjiPlay
- Problem from book: looking after kids a deeper issue than "babysitting"
- Solution from book: in each neighborhood, second large rambling home available to kids of all ages, open 24/7
- Summerhill school
- Problem from book: the nuclear family is not by itself a viable social form
- Solution from book: empower 8-10 people to come together and set up a communal/multi-family household
- Checkered past w/ commune and cults, but found:
- Oneida community: all the parents took care of all the children; coined the term "free love"; came under fire from wider community for some sexual and parenting practices
- cohousing.org: offer legal guides on how to make this possible, directory of cohousing
- Other lifestyles sort of mirroring collective families:
- Mormon polygamy/sister wives
- Artist collectives
- Cultures w/ multi-generational households
- Could co-parenting be on a spectrum? Do you need to go full-on commune or could there be a setup where a few houses have a common space between that creates these ad hoc relationships
- A cultural pattern w/ spacial ramifications
- Book doesn't go all in on decentralizing or centralizing: it's a little bit of both
- Several other patterns intertwined (#81: services w/o red tape, for example)
- Problem from book: employees don't enjoy work when they're stripped of agency and community
- Solution from book: worker-owned units of 15-20 people
- Co-op, syndicate
- Herbert Spencer, economist (and man of good and bad ideas) saw syndicate as evolution of a union
- Family businesses are an example of this
- King Arthur Flour: over 350 employees and worker owned
- Anarchistic free school
- Problem from book: modern high school fails to provide appropriate rites of passage
- Solution from book: set up model of adult society where students have adult responsibilities
- Spokane, WA: City School
- Students take on the roles of adult members of community, like police, lawyers, accountants, radio DJs
- Problem from book: students need to learn by doing outside the home, build basic skills and learning habits
- Solution from book: tiny, independent schools with 1:10 student ratio, in public areas of community, with a shopfront
- Riverpoint Academy, Spokane WA: exploratory learning high school
- 150 students, located in a strip mall
- Manufacturing space, entrepreneur space
- Monarch School, Houston TX
- Outdoor gardens and learning studios
- Living building challenge: zero-impact buildings
- At this studio, children w/ neurological differences take care of different functions of this building
- A school designed by the people who are there. Example: Deep Springs