Work Community

for Fractally Generative Pattern Language

Other possible names: Workshop School, Studio School, Workshop Cluster

Context

• Want to support children and adults in the Network Economy with shared Infrastructure (Sharing Goods) and expertise.

Forces

• Educating Kids and Educating Adults is more effective (GoalOfEducating Kids) when structured around building things that the person finds Meaningful: Constructionism, Project Based Learning.
• Students will increasingly control their own projects/schedules.
• Having a "real customer" for a product/project often helps generate the best FeedBack: D And D.
• People often learn/achieve best when working in groups at least some of the time: Connectivism, Master And Apprentices.
• Combinations/interactions of software and hardware often create more interesting (and profitable) products/services than either would alone.
• Desktop Fab is increasingly affordable. But there are a variety of tools that are rather expensive for, and would be under-utilized by, a single person: Hacker Space.
• New technology is often learned earlier by youth than by adults. So teachers can be younger than their students: University As A Marketplace.

Solution

• Have a cluster of workshops (Workshop Cluster, Work Community) where Free Agent-s and small teams/classes can build things (Maker, Hacker Space).
• Provide a management software system to handle permissions (certification), reservations and charging of time, equipment, materials, and people (teachers, managers, ApprenticeShip). Allow any resource in town to plug into this system: Resilient Community.
  • see Sudbury School for low-tech model
  • at first I was thinking of each machine having a Debit Card reader, etc. but now I think each should just have a Web API.
    • hmm, can a machine/resource be managed in 2 separate markets?
  • this can be Loosely Coupled with a Project Based Learning management system, and any Personal Learning Environment system.
• Have nearby individual-and-team relatively-clean workspace: CoWorking.
• Have small number of small-auditorium spaces for presentations/lectures/Peer Review by members and visitors: Studio School.
• Make sure there's a Coffee House and Street Cafe!

from Alexander Patterns:

... there is no reason why your workplace should be any less of a community than your home... For workplaces to function as communities, 5 relationships are critical:

• workplaces should be in clusters of ~15
• any given cluster should contain a mix of work types - manual, creative, retail, financial, etc.
• there should be a common piece of land within the cluster, tying the individual places together
• not isolated from surrounding larger community
• have 2 levels of clustering, so that commons that best support just ~6 workplaces have that-size mini-cluster around them, while those mini-clusters form a bigger cluster to support things that need that Critical Mass (e.g. Beer Hall).

See related: Scattered Work, Small Public Square-s, Self Governing Workshops And Offices, Street Cafe, Food Stand-s, Communal Eating...