Would you like to live in a place where bands play nightly? In your kitchen? What about if you went to work, but in another room in your building there was a Zine library, or a DIY video arcade, or…a band playing?! If this sounds appealing to you, then you might want to consider talking to the folks at the Silent Barn in New York City. The Queens DIY space, which was forced out of its building last summer in a surprise raid from the NYC Department of Buildings and subsequently raised $40,000 in a successful Kickstarter campaign (remember those?), $20,000 of it in the first 24 hours, may have finally found their new dream building.
Of course, there are catches; the building, located in Bushwick, is actually slightly too big for their needs. But they see that as an advantage, and are opening up applications to people who might be interested in living in one of the available apartments or working in one of the studios, which they have yet to build out. Nothing is written in stone or on paper yet with the building, but negotiations have been going well enough that the team decided to start soliciting for tenants. Tenants are encouraged to come up with original ideas for their occupation. For instance, under the heading “Funny Shapes” on the new web site, it says this:
“We are soliciting proposals for any size, shape, or concept of what can be a working artist’s studio. This is a chance to be involved in how the space is built out from scratch. If you’re interested in making art in a transparent cube, or a teepee, or in a tree house, we’re all ears. Silent Barn is about thinking creatively about every aspect of the collective living/working environment and getting the artistic process into the very walls themselves.”
So start picking out fabric for your wackadoo art teepee. You can find out more in this video e-Tour of the space, or on their new web site. Also, I've pasted the very adorable “floor plan” below.
