Two great examples of CAN power - the building of London's Nubia Way, and anarchist funtime at SF's Noisebridge

This week brings something of a cascade of community-oriented creativity and initiatives - building spaces and places out of a tough corner, and making something historic, beautiful and useful from the process.

At AG, we bring these under the category of forms of CAN - and we’re excited to see how they provide real services for people, in residence and production.

Embedded above is a short film about Nubia Way, an example of black-led community house building in the 90s - still up and vibrant today. As Aeon puts it:

Occupying a quiet cul-de-sac in the London borough of Lewisham, Nubia Way stands out for its row of nearly identical, free-standing, grass-topped houses. The short documentary Nubia Way (2022) tells the story of this historic small neighbourhood, which was built from scratch by Black Londoners, mostly from Caribbean backgrounds, in the 1990s as part of an innovative housing initiative that offered prospective residents economic incentives to build their own homes.

Nubia Way, from Open House Festival

Through interviews with residents, architects and historians, the London-based filmmaker and photographer Timi Akindele-Ajani explores how the project evolved as a response to racism and housing discrimination, as well as the combination of community organising and architectural innovation that made the project possible. In doing so, he crafts an engaging portrait of a unique London community built from the ground up.

Here’s Nubia Way on the map. Also see this Guardian report

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Guiding the cursor all the way to San Francisco… we also found out about Noisebridge this week (see their Wikipedia entry and Twitter account). First, a short tour of the building:

As they say on their “Intro Poster”:

Noisebridge is a physical space open and welcoming to everyone, providing infrastructure and collaboration opportunities for any of the above interested in programming, hardware, crafts, science, robotics, art, and technology. We teach, we learn, we share. With no leaders, we have typically promoted a single overriding rule: "Be excellent to each other".

Our Name: A "noise bridge" is a piece of electronic test equipment that injects noise into a system to see how it responds, so you can fix or improve it. Such a device is often used in RF electronics.

What can I do here? Meet techie, arty, and crafty folks, take a class, teach a class, use the power tools and electronic labs, build something out of stuff on the hack shelves, use our library, surf the web, cook up something in the kitchen, and so on.

Events, workshops, classes! Every week there are lots of activities at Noisebridge, planned and otherwise. Check the wiki for upcoming events, workshops, and classes. And feel free to add your own!

Noisebridge is a open space and the equipment (unless otherwise marked) is generally free to use. Safety first! Feel free to come to Noisebridge to work and play on your project, or help others with theirs.

Noisebridge has significant space available as a community resource for properly validated individuals and organizations to use -- please use it!

Where can I find out more? The wiki is at https://www.noisebridge.net. The “Noisebridge-discuss” email list (and other lists) at https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo

Getting Here: Noisebridge is close to the 16th & Mission BART station, and the 14 Mission, 33 Stanyan, and 49 Van Ness-Mission Muni buses. The 22 Fillmore and 12 Folsom Muni buses are within a couple blocks.

See also this 2020 piece from the SF Chronicle:

Founded in 2009, Noisebridge is a creative hub run entirely by volunteers and funded by donations. About 1,000 people visit every week, and it’s open to anyone who rings the doorbell on a deceptively nondescript metal gate.

“It’s an iconic part of S.F. tech culture. It’s something that I think inspired a trend all around the world that this is how to cultivate a culture where people can be creative and do things just for the fun of it,” said John Backus, a regular user. “I’ve now visited a bunch of hackerspaces, but I haven’t seen any that are better than Noisebridge.”

Up two flights of rainbow-painted stairs, the space is stocked with toys and tools: a mini recording studio complete with guitars and keyboards, gaming set-ups with VR goggles, industrial sewing machines, 3D printers, metal mills, a book-scanning device donated by the Internet Archive, a CNC cutting machine, a laser cutter and a ceramic kiln. All have been free for the public to use.

More at Noisebridge