So, we've once again had to have a chat about my narrative, but this time I think the talk was a lot more interesting. What were the motivations behind this random act of building, who are these people, and why are they building the way they are and where they are? All excellent questions, of course, and in order to answer them, I've written up a little story.
I will update this tomorrow morning when I can upload some images, I'm not sure what's wrong, but I'll work it out then, I think.
In order to write the story, I had to make up names, so I used names from a now defunct TV show that I really like, bonus points if you can guess which one! Anyway, enough blathering, on to the story.
My project’s life begins five years in the future. The Canadian economy is in a recession due to the North America’s recent housing crash, and industry is at its lowest point since pre-war times.
Andy French was a contractor whose business in Winnipeg finally succumbed to the plummeting economy. Not being able to afford his mortgage anymore, he wasn’t resigned to his fate just yet. He went to talk about his situation with his friend Jim Kubek, a Winnipeg artist in a collective that worked (and sometimes lived) in the Watkins building on 90 Annabella in Point Douglas.
While Andy and Jim talked, they came up with the idea that Andy could just live on one of the two floors the artists had rented out for the past few months. Andy was excited about the idea because he still had a lot of leftover materials and tools from his work, so he wouldn’t have t pay anything at all for the initial setup.
The other artists, however, weren’t thrilled about Andy living completely for free while he used their power and water, which has to be paid for on top of the rent. So, in order to get the project off the ground, Andy agrees to become the janitor for the artists in exchange for the permission to start his building.
The first building goes together pretty easily, but Andy and Jim decide that there is one more mutually beneficial thing that can be done on the floor. A bathroom was needed for a long time, and so one is built near enough to Jim’s new place so that he could use it when necessary, but it was also accessible to the artists.
Andy’s new place is good enough for now, but the artists aren’t doing any better than him, and he worries about the stability of his new situation. If the artists somehow can’t make the payments on their floors, then Andy is also out of a home, so he decides to call on an old friend to help him out.
Bill Oakley was also a contractor, but his specialty was solar panels and passive solar energy. His company went under almost a year before Andy’s did, and Andy had given him a few jobs here and there to help keep him afloat. Since people felt that solar energy was too expensive to implement at the time, Bill had loads of solar panels and pre-built solar heaters lying around. Andy knew that Bill had fallen on hard times as well, and was also looking for a cheaper place to live. Bill agreed to help Andy out, and Andy was one step closer to being independent from the Watkins building.
When Bill came to the building, he wanted a spot nearer to the southern elevation, but close enough to Andy’s shelter, so that Bill could use the bathroom, and the two of them could confer on what to build and how. As Bill got set up, he took three windows and covered them with solar panels, enough according to him, to power both of their shelters.
However, there was a major problem with Bill’s plan, and the office workers on the floor that he put his panels on were not pleased with the light being blocked out for them. They complained to the landlord, who, until now, was unaware of Jim, Andy and Bill’s project. The landlord, Ron Wiedlin, was quite angry about what they had done, but Bill rationalized it to him by saying that they could also generate some power for the building and lower the building’s power bills.
Bill still had to move his solar panels to a better spot, and so he moved them to the left side of the south elevation of the building, and he also added a fourth panel to supply power to go back into the grid for the building.
Meanwhile, Jim’s girlfriend Posey Tyler kicked him out for spending so much time with Andy and Bill. Without Posey, Jim had no place to live, either, and so he had no choice but to move in to the outside of the Watkins building like his friends. Andy, Bill and Jim quickly whipped up a new space for Jim to live in, but it was decided that Jim also needed to contribute to the group somehow. Jim had apprenticed with a plumber before he went to university, and so he knew a little about how to cobble together a plumbing system for the group. This plumbing system would incorporate mostly collected rain water.
This poses a lot of problems, but the group worked through it and created a gravity-fed system to give rainwater to the inhabitants. No matter what, though, the group will have to tie into the building’s water supply every now and again.
Now that the three of them have their spaces, the building slows down to a crawl. There isn’t much new construction for a while, but word starts to spread around the area about the three crazy guys who have taken over the edge of a building and are living there for free. As quickly as the word spreads, interest starts to grow, and people start to ask both Ron the landlord and Andy about the possibility of living on the outside of the building with them.
Andy, Jim, Bill, and Ron have a meeting and they all come up with a plan. In order for Ron to allow extra people living on the outside of the building, they have to start paying rent as if they are another floor. Ron needs the extra cash because two of the floors are as yet unoccupied, and an extra possibility of income would be very useful. Andy, Bill, and Jim also come up with some terms for the new tenants of the building:
Each tenant must contribute to the overall operation and building of the exterior space. If a new person comes, that person must be able to contribute in terms of finance, materials, or expertise. Each person is expected to help build other units for other people to move into, as well as providing some of the money, materials, or connections to do so.
Once the agreement is drawn up, everyone shakes on it, and the project moves into phase II.
What is phase II, exactly? Good question, and one that I'll be thinking about as I'm building phase I. I plan to have it thought out and written up by Monday at the latest, so stay tuned.
