freespace
Someone handed us a building for a dollar. Ten thousand people came through.
- Role
- Leaseholder and day-to-day operator
- Years
- 2013-06 — 2014-12
- Where
- San Francisco
- Disciplines
- Organizing · Operations
freespace began in June 2013 when a building was gifted to the community for a dollar for the month. The barrier to entry was set deliberately at nothing, and the door stayed open, which is why the people who turned up had almost nothing in common except wanting to make something.
I held the lease on the building and was one of the people running it day to day — the original space in the summer of 2013, and again in a different building the following summer.
An empty, underused space in the middle of San Francisco became a cultural movement in the city, and then twelve other spaces elsewhere built on the same model.
Outcome
Over 300 free events and more than 10,000 visitors in the first three months, thirty murals, and four long-term projects that outlived the space — a free bike share, maker classes run in homeless shelters, and a community garden. Twelve other spaces were created on the same model.