Guest – A space to arm yourself against all crises

“Let us think together, awaken our imaginations, seek solutions, weave connections, and set ourselves in motion for economic, environmental and social transformation.” This is the motto of L’Espace – the new headquarters of Après, the Geneva Social and Solidarity Economy Network, and Lake Geneva, the complementary local currency of the Lake Geneva Basin.

L’Espace* is located in the building of the Codha housing cooperative, in the ecological district of Jonction. It is bookable and open to all, and has hosted trainings, business meetings, collaboration sessions, general assemblies, small-scale concerts, corporate parties, days in the country, forums, festivals and films. pop-ups and cultural events; Experimental spaces.

A place for work, meetings, exchanges and events to promote local and sustainable activities: an experimental model that can be replicated in other neighbourhoods. Espace ensures in its programs a balance between the following three main themes: entrepreneurship, economics and trade; issues of transition, environment, neighborhood dynamics and citizenship; Culture and art as guides for reflection and change.

The space is a flexible and immersive place: it adjusts and changes shape to accommodate activities in eclectic forms, and accommodates up to 120 people; It is equipped with digital projection and “sophisticated” work tools, and therefore is shared by all involved in the transition.

The space is based on a sustainable architectural concept: biomaterials (wood for the structure, raw earth for the walls, clay and natural paints as paint, marmalium for the floor) or reused (windows, sinks, furniture).

Space provides, as an extension of its physical site, a digital platform (lespacedapres.ch) designed with open source logic and ensuring user sovereignty over their personal data.

The space is based on a comprehensive and unified business model. It offers prices adapted to various means in order to be accessible to all actors of the transition, highlighting innovative projects that benefit from few economic resources.

The Agora event was organized on November 26 and 27 on the occasion of its opening, which included two days of conferences, meetings and round tables on the topic “Financing Environmental and Social Transformation”. In particular, we hosted a conference for writer Hans Widmer, from Zurich, reflecting on the most ecological and pleasant cities and neighborhoods to live in (read Neighborhoods and the Commons, 2016); But also the umbrella of employers, the FER and the trade union, and the SIT to anticipate the inevitable “labor transition” resulting from the environmental transition, and academics to study the effects of “supplementary local currencies,” the intakes and pans of “unconditional income or living allowance,” and the links between “cognitive biases” Changing fantasies and sharing.”

The awesome exchanges for this first Agora have been recorded, and will lead to special episodes of the Commons podcast, the second season of which is currently streaming**.

So we are waiting for you at L’Espace, to build collective responses to the climatic, economic and social crises we are experiencing.

Posted today at 22:33

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