You can’t think of sustainably being an activist if you don’t have your housing under control. If you pay rent for living, basically all you earn is siphoned off to the somebody’s yacht instead of you. You have to work more and have less time to be active.
This house is not only a home, it’s a working vision of a more humane future. Our apartment building has no apartments, just project space, offices, workshops, a volunteer-run non-profit vegan pizzeria, living areas, a communal kitchen, shared living and dining room and a BnB guestroom. We’re working on a sustainable future and are inspired by the solarpunk approach. Help us fund renovations and projects by sharing a part of our adventure!
The building is an unusual place to live in for several reasons:
In the ground floor, there’s Pizza Lab, which you may already know for its amazing vegan pizza. Pizza Lab is 100% non-profit and run by us as well as other volunteers living in Leipzig.
The Eckladen, also in the ground floor, is used as a space to host events, plenaries, exhibitions, concerts and parties.
And the rest of the building (it’s big!)… well, it’s controlled by us! The only restriction is creating costs or liabilities for the owner, who lives with us. We have two residential floors at the moment, which have a bathroom and a kitchen each, although we all share one kitchen due to practical reasons.
The house is partially renovated, which has both pros and cons.
Pro: Changes are still possible. We’re up for unconventional (but not crazy) renovations.
Con: Some areas haven’t been taken care of since the house was abandoned. The resident rooms are all heated by wood or coal furnaces, unfortunately there’s no way around this for now – but we’re saving up for central heating in the coming years!
Our tiny courtyard (“Hof”) is really miniscule, but is slowly being transformed into a gorgeous, bird welcoming urban garden with high beds, a lot of plant diversity, a rain collector and a solar-powered fountain
Food
We share food (there’s a common food budget of 140€/month/person) and we have shared vegan dinners at a fixed time (almost) every evening. They’re not obligatory, but a great opportunity to get to know each other and to bond over nice food. Non-vegetarian food, alcohol, sweets, fastfood and personal hygiene products are not included in the household budget. By the way, we’re reeeaaally into healthy food. We share the task of cooking for each other, which means cooking once a week – but having dinner every day of the week available.
The Task Auction
House tasks (like cleaning, shopping for food etc.) are distributed after the weekly house plenary, where we also discuss ideas and issues. We use the “task auction” to ensure everyone takes part in taking care of the house and the community. It’s very simple and efficient and we’d be happy to explain it to you when the time comes.
Interests
The household doesn’t have a particular political orientation – we’re intersteed in remaining active, making a difference are super important to us. Here’s a few things we like: Matriarchies, environmentalism/eco-activism including urban gardening and beekeeping, sustainability, alternative economies and currencies, politics in general – we are up to date on what’s going on. We love science, logic and reason, in fact we have a couple of scientists among us!
Together, we also share skills in hosting events (like flea markets, exhibitions, political discussions etc.), computer networks, graphic design, video-making, book-keeping, (German) NGO law and so on. Every once in a while, we make big renovations happen and have thus acquired a lot of competence in building things.
We‘re obviously queer friendly and make sure to keep a harmonious gender balance in the house. In practical terms, this means less Cis-males than other 😉
Together, we speak German, English, French, Spanish and Hungarian, but the languages mostly spoken in the house are German and English. You should at least be comfortable with speaking and writing English, as there are always people in the house who speak no German.
Alternative Influencers
We’re slowly becoming a house of alternative influencers, meaning we’re uploading content on what’s happening in a community like this on social media (insta, tiktok), in order to promote alternative living and alterantive projects as well as background (political) information. Being comfortable behind a camera (cutting/editing video material), knowing social media management or being in front (being filmed) is a big plus – not absolutely necessary if you bring other skills to the community though 😉 at the moment, everyone seems comfortable in front of the camera and we’ve done some really fun video projects.
The Neighborhood
Lindenau, a quarter in western Leipzig, is arguably the pre-coolest part of Leipzig. While some of the alternative quarters have already given way to gentrification, Lindenau is still home to many DIY projects and events. This phenomenon is what gave Leipzig the reputation of being the “Better Berlin.” Our neighborhood is home to more than ten housing projects, some of which host alternative projects.
Café Kaputt – Repair café where you can repair technical devices, clothes and furniture with the help of knowledgeable volunteers and using their extensive amount of tools, books and materials
krimZkrams – Here you can find things to upcycle your furniture or to start DIY and handmade projects. The huge shop is entirely donation based: people donate still usable materials, and people who pick them up donate the amount it’s worth to them. krimZkrams belongs to a bigger NGO that also manages an entire house that offers atelier space to manufacturists.
ADI – The “Auto-Didactic Initiave” is an open study space inititiave with a little library, desk and meeting space where people can organize to form study groups of all kinds. They also organize communal meals from time to time, as well as language classes for refugees.
Haus- und Wagenrat e.V. – This NGO was founded by some of the first people who started self-organized housing projects in Leipzig. Because they were asked so often for advice by new projects, they decided to offer their expert opinions professionally.
Kontaktstelle Wohnen e.V. – This NGO connects people who have space for refugees with refugees who are looking for space. The special aim is to evently distribute refugees within the city instead of forming clusters, in order to foster integration.
Handstand & Moral – This housing project offers the space in their ground floor for various political meeting groups, plenaries and educational events throughout the year.
Pizza Lab – Our own project, a volunteer-run non-profit vegan pizzeria that donates the profits to local projects, is embedded in this vibe.
There are two notable commercial shops that settled in this area that contribute to the alternative atmosphere: A membership based organic supermarket run by a collective which offer lower prices with very little markup to its members (and normal prices to non-members), which makes the transition to an organic diet easier, and a family owned cargo bikes shop that quickly had to expand to a second shop nearby for storage space due to high demand in the city. Every year, shop owners, housing projects and random neighbors organize a big summer street festival together where about 4000 people come each year. Housing projects usually open the doors to their courtyards and gardens, offer food, drinks and workshops and peak into their work and lifestyle.