SPCC A Casa Amarela

this is my first post, starting what will be a log of our process of building up SPCC. it doesn't have clear dates, but hopefully the next ones will.

our journey started with yet another urban exploration session prompted by Ash and Lea's desire to star a squat in Lisbon. we ended up going to a place that i usually referred to as "Centro Cultural Baptista Russo", expressing my old desire to have a cultural center in a squat. so once we got there, the place was completely trashed, so we moved on and checked some other places. two places were great: one by the avenue, a big white building, and a big yellow building. the white building had recently squatted stuff in in (hanged clothes, fixed windows, etc), so we decided not to try that one. the big yellow one, however, was a winner and it became a plan.

so once we made the call to squat it, we assembled a group to move in, as we all were interested in doing it. so Ash, Lea, Tatiana, Silverio and me turned on the "let's do it mode". so each one went on to conceive their own perspectives on what it should or shouldn't be. me and Tatiana ended up getting carried away, since we both had it in our plans for a while. in fact, T's move to lisbon had a lot to do with it. so each one started sketching and conceiving things.

at this point, we started sharing the information with people around us. i warned, albeit with no authority, that it would be better to move in slowly, and test it out for a while before moving in. so Glen joined in to work there, as he had just returned from a farm, and T and I made a bunch of designs for it, so we decided to start getting stuff done. unfortunately, miscommunication led to L not feeling included enough, fact that would eventually burst at some point. Ash had been out too, but once she was back, A and L made the first "clean" of some of the areas. soon, me, T, A, L, S were cleaning and G joined too. so the whole floor was moderately clean in 3 days. unfortunately, instead of our plan of squatting the top floor, we decided to squat the third due to water damage and roof leaks. G then moved full on on the place working whole days there. i bought some supplies to get a door done, tools, and helped out. so within one week we had a working door with a lock.

several on the fly decisions were made, obviously with some disagreements. the building has over 80 broken windows on each floor, and despite the proposals of plexiglass, i moved forward in putting cheap plastic. this was a money driven decision, as we had 80 windows with at least 1 square meter to fill up. the cheapest hard plastic we could find was 6€ a .5 square meter, so that would amount to about 900€ of plastic to fill all the windows up. no one has that money. instead, i calculated the total area and bought two rolls of cheap plastic that cost us about 40€. we went on to cover up all the windows, and Dennis helped out too (he showed up one day) and recommended using tiny pieces of plastic or wood to fix the plastic, instead of the nails I had bought. wind seems to be a big issue in that building, so my decision of using plastic and nails was a poor one. despite that, L's tip on covering the glass holes with plastic and tape, and some more window covering, led to what i would call a sub optimal window solution.

my over excitement let to me fixing up one of my gas stoves and getting a new valve, despite S's offer to get me an old one. this was a poor call because the next day i ended up having the two valves, the old and the new one. so now the house had a door and gas.

on 2010.02.25 L let me know that her two friends, Pedro and Maura were moving in because they had just been kicked out. i snapped at her and said the place wasn't ready, but she argued they had nowhere to stay. by now the tension was building up, since we weren't talking to each other much, and me, T and G were going full throttle at the house. speaking for myself, i like to do it and usually don't ask anybody what they think, which usually is a big issue. so now, we had a door, gas, some windows covered, and a fixed date for people moving in: P and M were moving in on the 28th. me and T also went out and bought some fabric for T's design of the rainbow house so we could have a room for us, at least, within some weeks. this because we both had plans to move in early March. the fact that me and T were setting up the design already made a lot of meetings necessary, and a lot of talking, because people weren't feeling included in our plans. A solved that by playing moderator, since she had been out long enough not to be biased by anything.

on 2010.02.27, and with this deadline, me and G decided to move on to the water to get the house livable (at least). this is sub optimal, since i was designing a green roof with a water collection system. instead, we hooked up a big hose to the hydrant and bought pipes. overall, the cost was about 60€ from me and about 19€ from glen. so the house now had water too, but from an illegal source. the fact that the pipe is visible from the outside is also problematic and is currently under correction.

that same day, P and M moved in from the squat they got kicked out of. with them, Omar also joined in that day, so overall, planning on moving in, we had 8 people. so i helped P and M to move their stuff, and helped O move his stuff inside. by now everyone had ideas and plans, so i decided to listen to all of the opinions. following A's decisional model, i proposed a meeting where all people could present their plans for the house.

unfortunately, due to all the noise caused by P and M's 4 dogs and all the people talking, the only neighbor, across the street, started shouting swear words at us to keep it down. so we had our first contact with a neighbor, and it wasn't a good one. P immediately showed interest in meeting the neighbor and making peace with her, since neighbors usually are the main cause of the eventual eviction.

during this whole time, a gentleman was living there on the top floor, Macieira, but in an entirely independent way. we met and arranged for some plans for the house. he got some tools and helped us fix the hydrant. since he had been doing his own thing, we didn't include him much in our plans, but i gave him one key to our floor, soon he was helping out and feeling more involved.

so right now, our main issues are:
- networking the neighbor so we don't get issues;
- fixing up the water and electricity sub optimally (i.e., pulling from the hydrant and electricity posts);
- working out a basic plan for the building including everyone in the decisional process;
- work out the trust issues that started emerging between the participants.

overall, i'm a bit pessimistic about this whole thing, because i wanted to do a sustainable house and not steal anything from the grid. i'm still going to present that plan to everyone, but my plans of taking it slow are gone. the SPCC project might be dead in its infancy, or it might be a test to its resilience. time will tell.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆