Jeanne van Heeswijk in collaboration with Dennis Kaspori and Hervé Paraponaris.
Project manager
Irene den Hartoog
Duration
May 2005-December 2009
Location
Villa in housing block thirty-five, IJburg, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
House owner
de Alliantie Housing Corporation
Architect
Atelier Dutch (previously Teun Koolhaas Associates)
Blue House members
Ninety-one (all members & students)
Visitors / Participants
46,000 (over four years)
Number of events
Membership of The Blue House Housing
Association of the Mind
The Blue House Housing Association of the Mind was an ever- changing group of local and international practitioners that was established at the start of the project. Van Heeswijk and other members of the project invited practitioners to take up residence as associates, researchers and producers.1
Range of projects
There were three main strands to the projects – undertaken- histories, instant urbanism and hospitality
2005
2005 – Everyone is a citizen baby!
Filia den Hollander
Writing our own People’s EU Constitution
«Well, how shall we continue with the EU Constitution? Do you feel the debate is in good hands now? A Constitution contains the basic rules with wich we live together and that regulate how we take decisions. If a Constitution arranges these things of and for the citizens, wouldn’t it be sensible (and democratic) when the same citizens are involved in its writing? Are we capable to do just that?
The project EVERYONE’S A CITIZEN, BABY organises a movement of engaged people who write a People’s EU Constitution. The purpose is to create together a Constitution in 2,5 year, based on democracy. A Constitution to which many people have contributed (from the EU and abroad), and that will be referendable. At the moment we are developing a ‘method kit’ containing different kinds of methods to organize this engagement with. The EU Café is one of those methods.»
2005 – m7red – SciFiPolitics
Architecture for a strategic public conversation:
M7 is transferring to “Everyone is a Citizen Baby” the “Conversational technology” developed at SciFIPolitics. SciFIPolitics, the politics lab that is managing the Cosmotools program. Cosmotools is the program through which m7red is offering “Everyone is a Citizen Baby” Cosmotools, a program that allows for an alternative rewriting of the European Union Constitutional Treaty. “Everyone is a Citizen Baby” is hosted at the Blue House Project. SciFIPolitics lab developed the former version of Autogov, the democratic meeting facilitator software which m7 tested prior to its use. «Cosmotools» is a custom program proposed by m7red to produce symmetrical and cosmopolitan interactions on the discussion on transnational norms. The program is currently used for the development of «Strategic Public Conversation».
2006 – Chatheatre
«Mauricio Corbalán and Pio Torroja, of architecture collective m7red, developed Chat Theatre as a series of conversations on public spaces on subjects ranging from citizenship, immigration and integrative politics to the role of new media in public space; the discus sions, held at the Blue House and involving participants from all over the world, were linked to conversations at the Biennial of Porto Alegre through a blog using specifically developed communicational software».
2007 – Post resilience
Research and article part of “Guest not welcome» by Jeanne van Heeswijk and Dennis Kaspori.
«Hospitality for it what to comes» Program at Het Blauwe Huis
“This article sets out to demonstrate and conceive political situations and configurations that appeared in Argentina before, during and after the crisis of 2001. The field of social and political experimentation to take place during this period led to operations that questioned the traditional idea of public space. Certain thinkers deemed the term “catastrophic” the best way to describe the argentinean crisis as an example of “an environment where change prevails over permanence, where shifting conditions is the rule rather than the exception.”
2006 – Teatro do Chat, VI Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brasil
«O Teatro do chat é um jogo para promover a discussão política a respeito de problemas urbanos. É um jogo de representação de papéis em que, como no teatro, os participantes atuam como protagonistas de um conflito urbano real em um chat ou espaço de conversação pela Internet.
O Teatro do chat pode ser usado para abordar qualquer assunto. O importante é que envolva atores sociais com distintos posicionamentos sobre um tema, a fim de que os participantes do jogo assumam diferentes posturas políticas para atuar na discussão por chat.
Nesta oportunidade, os integrantes de m7red trabalharam com um grupo de pessoas de Porto Alegre. Juntos, escolheram o problema econômico e social do centro da cidade como cenário-modelo. Os participantes investigaram os diversos conflitos e interesses que confluem no problema do Centro e escolheram personagens (reais ou não), que foram encarnados pelos participantes em um intenso debate sobre soluções para a problemática de abandono, segurança e circulação no Centro de Porto Alegre.»
March 20-30
«…Este governo nao conversa com o povo, seus tecnicos so discutiram con os tecnicos»
Workshops with artists and journalists. Memorial do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre.
Setember 1 – November 18
«Teatro do Chat» pavilion at the 6ta Bienal do Mercosul. Armazém 6 – Cais do Porto.
Scenario: Revitalization of the downtown of the city of Porto Alegre.
Chat sessions with citizens and students of architecture from the UFRGS.
November 17
Closing discussion and final remarks with Tiago Holzmann da Silva (Arquiteto IAB-RS), Eber Pires Marzullo (Sociologo Grupo de Pesquisa Identidade e Território UFRGS) and Raul Pont (co-fundador do PT, ex prefeito Porto Alegre)
2007/07 – OfCon/Office of connectivity
Technology for mapping actors
with Florencia Alvarez/Leonardo Solaas (IT)
Presented on July 4 2007 at «Socially Yours» , Alternative Design Networking Seminar, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
«Today the internet draws uncountable senseless connections between different people. Through “OfCon”, m7red explores this connectivity process, and elevates this into an opportunity for exchanging ideas and mapping ideas in a more global scale. “OfCon” is a connectivity office, as well as an experiment in networking device that registers and empowers connections between public actors through hypothesizing situation. Through analyzing and intervening them, and at the end, the office produces maps, blogs to facilitate the public conversations and participation in the internet.»
2008 – Staging Cities
«Staging cities» assembles conversations between experts and non experts by adressing the most exciting urban issues by a collective building process of characters and scenarios called “chatheater.”
Presented on March 19, 2008 at the IAB RS, Porto Alegre, Brasil.
How to do politics about what is non predictable…?
Connectivity is what fuels staging cities to gather groups interested to participate in potentially hazardous conversations “staging cities” specializes in exploring conflictive situations and detecting hot spots in cities using the “chatheater” device to research for potential scenarios.
Obra apresentada na 6ª Bienal do Mercosul volta a Porto Alegre
2009 – Out of the Blue
August 9-13 , Ijburg , Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
«Out of The Blue was an international symposium, which focused on three navigational strands — instant urbanism, hospitality and accelerated histories — as a means of evaluating ex- perimental notions of communities. The symposium delineated the research work of numerous inhabitants of Het Blauwe Huis over the four years and contemplated future directions for dissemination of research. 
