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News :: Urban Development |
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SDaS SchoolHouse Razed |
Current rating: 0 |
by Paul Kotheimer
Email: herringb (nospam) prairienet.org (unverified!)
Phone: 217-344-8820
Address: via UCIMC |
23 May 2004
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409 North Race Street in Urbana had for many years been the home of the School for Designing a Society (SDaS), a local activist project which has seeded and nurtured many, many other projects.
The building was demolished this weekend. The School continues... |
All the following sentences come from me. I am the last subletter and Participant-in-Residence of that silly-looking house at the corner of Race and University which has just recently been pushed into a hole in the ground. If you think news should be unbiased (whatever "news" is, and whatever "unbiased" is), then this is not news.
Here, however, to the best of my ability, is "the news": For several years now, local landowner Jim Burch has had a FOR SALE sign up at the corner of Race and University. The plot for sale included the property at 409 North Race, home of the School for Designing a Society (SDaS). Just south of the FOR SALE sign, a food prairie was growing: Sugar snap peas, oninons, strawberries, tomatoes.
Earlier this spring, the neighboring house was razed after a furnace failure rendered that house uninhabitable. That plot is part of the parcel of land which is for sale. Shortly after the bulldozers appeared at the Big Blue House and tore it down, along with the apple tree in the sideyard, the news came:
SDaS received notice of their imminent eviction and of the demolition of the 409 Race Street house. Since receiving that notice, friends and participants in the SDaS project have been working to reclaim the considerable work they have put in to the structure. SDaS and the landowner, according to most reports, part ways on amicable terms.
Since the notice of demolition came, SDaS designers and friends have done their best to find new homes for dozens of strawberry plants. All the plants have found new plots to grow in and are now bearing green fruits which will ripen within the month.
Two weeks ago, SDaS hosted a clearinghouse sale and "Freecyle" event at which everything from furniture to flagstones to firewood were available for the taking, or for a small donation. Many items made their way out of a landfill future and into use and usefulness. The Economy (capital E) may have been, in a small way, redesigned by this event.
I myself (Remember me? I'm the person who is writing this article...) took home a number of souvenirs which I hope will serve as historical place-markers: For a number of years, the north side of the SchoolHouse porch bore a sign, hand-painted in foot-tall green letters. I had the pleasure, last weekend, of pulling the aluminum siding off the side of the house with a screwdriver and walking down Race Street with the reclaimed siding/signage tied up with a length of rope.
Susan Parenti, core organizer and co-founder of SDaS, happened to be driving down Race Street as I was walking home in the sunshine with the panels. She cheered me.
This may or may not be "news."
It may or may not be "news," also, that Race Street is where chance encounters of pedestrians and cyclists and motorists make activism happen in Urbana town. You are invited to chew on this detail.
Regardless of what you think "news" is, I (me, Paul, the author of this...) stood in the backlot behind the flattened house this evening, May 23rd, 2004, 10:33 CST. I thought about what SDaS has seeded or pollenated or entwined its tendrils with in our town, and I tried to figure out how it happened:
A.W.A.R.E., the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort, grew out of Ladies Against War at 409 Race Street. I was making tea at the time and washing someone else's dishes.
On the Job Consulting started consulting eachother at a couple of cheap folding tables in that building which isn't there anymore. Now they are called OJC Tech, and have a lovely, high-ceilinged office on Main Street downtown.
The people who made the Urbana Independent Media Center blossom met eachother because of SDaS, while it lived at 409 North Race.
The Urbana Permaculture Project planted its first tomatoes-in-a-toilet at Race and University.
One of the co-founders of the Radical Cheerleader movement spent some time in classes at SDaS.
Cyberneticist and Tai Chi instructor Steve Sloan talked his demons down while eating Wendy's on the back patio, while the bees buzzed and the trucks rumbled past, the summer before he died.
409 North Race housed, in a single season, a theatre troupe, an economics class, a silk-screening studio, a poets' forum, a drummers' circle, and a refuge for teenagers who were convinced that they could school themselves better than the school system could--not to mention Mickey, who slept on the porch, and Chuck, who parked his van in the lot out back.
Interested community members will no doubt walk or bike or drive past the site where 409 North Race used to be, and they may ask, "What's the School going to do now?"
That is a good question. The more people asking that question, in the opinion of this journalist (a.k.a. "me"), the better.
Be sure to ask one another what you want. And then keep the conversation going by making a design which begins to meet your desires. That much--though I never learned it in school--I learned at the School. |
This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Re: SDaS SchoolHouse Razed |
by Tom Talty
tltalty (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
25 May 2004
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I have heard many good things about the school, though I have never have visited it. I hope I will get a chance when it finds a new home. |
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Re: SDaS SchoolHouse Razed |
by Susan Parenti (via PK)
info (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
28 May 2004
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For those of you who live in Champaign-Urbana, you'll notice that our school building on 409 N. Race street has been bull-dozed. It was a
friendly location for us since 1997, with a ramp made so that Herbert Brun could glide in, doors that were never locked, and elaborate gardens to the
north and south.
At the moment, we're looking for another site to buy, or to share with other serious/playful projects.
Albeit homeless, the school project is continuing! Mark Enslin is planning a school for the fall (enslin (at) prairienet.org).
AND we're going to West Virginia this upcoming June, to give a 4 week School for Designing Society, starting June 1-30, at the Gesundheit
Institute in the Northern Apalachian Mountains, the construction site for Patch Adam's hospital-to-be.
The following describes the school. We have a full enrollment of 23 students, so I'm writing this more to keep people posted of our
activities, than to recruit last minute students.
Susan.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Summer School hosted by the Gesundheit! Institute in Pocahontas County,
West Virginia.
Based in Urbana, Illinois, the School for Designing a Society will travel
this summer to the hills of West Virginia and land, excitedly, at the
Gesundheit!Institute. The Gesundheit! Institute---an experiment in holistic medical
care based on the idea that one cannot separate the health of the
individual from the health of the family, the community and the world---is
situated on 310 acres in the northern Appalachian Mountains and is the
construction site for a free, silly hospital.
The School for Designing a Society, in its 13th year, is an ongoing
experiment where the question How would I design society? is given
serious and playful thinking and discussion, and taken as input to
creative projects and to formulations of one's work in the world.
How would I design a desirable society? is a question crucial to the
answering of other questions: What am I doing with my life? What is the
work I want to do? How can I sustain what I want?
Rather than orienting participants to find a comfy spot in the current
system, the school offers tools, ambience, company and time in which
people can imagine a system they would prefer.
--What distinguishes this school from other schools?
This school is based on the desire for social change, unlike most schools
which act as advertising agencies making us believe we need the society as
it is.
Unusual emphasis is placed on composition, performance, and language---so
that our desires and intentions for change have a chance.
--What happens in the school?
Participants explore the question "How would I design society? making use
of:
Whole system design: what is the it?
Composition and performance (love letters from the future)
Permaculture, and other ways to look a system
What is my current self-description?
How do we design care, and so that we care?
Activism
The realm of implementation ideas
---Who might attend?
We are looking for people who take the undesirability of the current
system as their point of departure---people who do not want the current
system, and wish to go on from there.
The 2004 Summer School is reserved for ages 18 and older.
---What is the tuition?
Tuition is $1,000 for the month, covering room, board, and compensation
for the teachers. Some scholarships are available.
---Who are the teachers?
Full-time teachers:
Mark Enslin (composition)
Jeff Glassman (theater lab and performance)
Susan Parenti (composition)
Rob Scott (systems)
Part-time teachers and guests:
Andrew Faust, permaculturist
Dennis Stienke , deep tissue massage therapist
Patch Adams, founder of Gesundheit, June 6-12
Ralph Bronner, Dr. Bronner soaps, June 6-10
Judy Wicks, White Dog Cafe and Bookstore, Philadelphia, June 8-11
Heidi Read, costume therapist, June 13-20
Danielle Chynoweth, city planner, June 20---
Rick Burkhardt, composer and performer, Prince Myshkins, June 20---
Michael Brun, political economist, June 20----
Catherine Murphy, urban gardener from Cuba --
Carol Huang, educational policies---
Maria Silva, cinematographer---
For more on the Gesundheit! Institute go to www.patchadams.org.
For more on the School For Designing A Society go to
www.designingsociety.com. |
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Re: SDaS SchoolHouse Razed |
by Anna Epelbaum
aepelbaum (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
30 May 2004
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I am Anna V. epelbaum - Pickette, wife of Wayne D. Pickette (read articles on this web site: "The Pst, The Present, The Future", and
"Some More Suggestions To The article 'The Past, The Present, The Future'", go also to web site: www.moscowtochicago.com)
I was trying to contact your society since 9/03 and later in 2004 also. I have been leaving messagesm even visiting your building, but there were NO RESPONSES. Don't you understand that people with the same goals (like your sociey and my family) should stick together to oppose the destruction, which is much easier to apply when the objects or subjects to destroy are isolated? Don't you see that the question of energy resourses is THE MAIN QUESTION FOR USA, and the solution for this problem would determine whether uSA is getting the new colonial shark of the world (until stopped by world's scale disaster, like nucklear WW III, for example), or the friendly country (the first among equal), which is resolving its own problems through ascientific research, and the advantage of technology, what it has been famous with in 19-20th centuries?
So, maybe this lesson, which your society has been taught, would show you how important is for ALL PEOPLE WITH THE SAME GOALS TO STICK TOGETHER. I am not gloting here, and I am really sorry that , pertinent to own extremely harsh financial circumstances, we can't offer you any financial help, and any other help, pertinent to our still status of newcomers in this area. |
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Re: SDaS SchoolHouse Razed |
by chu-uck
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Jun 2004
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Thank you for sharing some of your depth about all this, Paul! Your writing style is particularly inspiring! Keep on writin from your HEART!
The SDaS building/space will be missed by me, as well; but i'm so glad that people took what they could.
If nothing else, maybe costs can be cut back by holding meetings in homes again? Or perhaps rent a room in someone's home for the schOOL!
ciao!
chu-uck
(visiting this site to see what's up) |
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