Studio or no studio?

The first in a series of conversations about the transiency of FoAM bxl. We asked ourselves what we like and dislike about the current situation and what if we kept the studio in uncertain economic conditions.

Times when we liked having the studio includes situations like aperos, smoke & vapour, splinterfields, froesjels, simply entering the space, admiring light and sound, doing small experiments, designing open sauces (publication), etc.

Times when having the studio is challenging includes managing and maintenance of facilities (including mysterious infrastructure), general entropy of a shared space; the heater saga; due to its openness it’s difficult to withdraw to be quiet and know who is in the space; the overhead is too high for a small organisation (especially when cash-flow is problematic); good things keep disappearing, broken things remain.

Making a decision about whether or not to keep the space has been haunting us since 2014. In 2016, the last year of our structural funding we will be conducting several experiments to help us make a more informed decision.

• it can be quiet, silent, with a sense of spaciousness
• its light (alive, magical, highlighting different aspects of the studio as it changes)
• it feels like home
• it has beautiful acoustics
• it works well when it’s buzzing with activity, as well as quiet and empty
• there is space for nothingness
• it’s mysterious

• it can accommodate different combinations of people
• it invites fluid experiences, allowing freedom and focus
• it is shapeshifting, it can transform to accommodate a range of activities, functions & 'flavours' (from venue, to living room, to workspace)
• it invites flow experiences
• it’s more than a sum of its parts
• it allows an immersion in the work, a reflective and experimental creation (e.g. open sauces book)

• it is nurturing; upon entering a feeling of being in a safe place
• it’s relaxing, having a sense of being taken care of (there is always food on the table)
• it’s a place to live and work (great to have accommodation in it)

• facility management
• infrastructure maintenance and a general battle with entropy
• financial costs
• synchronising different people’s rhythms and activities (quiet and noisy, production and research/reflection activities)
• coordination - the convoluted politics and practice of a shared space
• disappearance of goods, appearance of trash
• pricing space rental

The feeling during and after the conversation was that we like having the space and it would be a pity to lose it, but that it is quite a heavy weight - in terms of maintenance and finances. Giving up the space would still require to rent storage, pay hotel rooms, rent kitchens and meeting rooms, have a co-working desk somewhere, which in the end might not turn out to be much cheaper. Without structural funding and a person responsible for facility management we would have to come up with different models of financing and using the space.

A few suggestions:

• Facility Rental for events, meetings, workshops, and/or accommodation. If we do this we need to invest in the space to make it more robust (and less held up by gaffer tape and shoe strings). We also have to make a promotional/advertising effort. We can explore possibilities of long-term agreements with other organisations who have a recurring need for space - either for events or accommodation.
  • Renting the space for events seems more lucrative and manageable than renting accommodation. It brings more money and it’s usually concentrated on a few days. Accommodation on the other hand is cheaper per day, but still requires a lot of work and causes longer disturbance.
• Shared FoAM members studio If we all keep using the space without structural funding, each of us could contribute to its costs (e.g. a percentage of project funding). In principle this is possible and of interest, but the continuity would be a problem.
• Co-Working Space We could make the studio into a co-working space with other organisations. In order to do that some restructuring of the space would be needed, with a danger that the 'quietness' and privacy would be lost. However, if we would create some more enclosed spaces, the ability to withdraw might increase and solve the current challenge.

The question remains that if we begin making so many changes in the space, will it still be a studio we’d like to have? Furthermore, with all the attention and effort going into these changes, will we still be doing what we actually want to do, and what we wanted the studio for in the first place?

In 2016 we’re planning to test a few of the suggestions in practice, to answer the question: what if we would operate the studio without structural funding? To do that we’ll design three pre-enactments that we’ll run for several months:

• Event rentals: can we cover our overhead costs solely from event rentals for a couple of months? What do we need to do to make this happen? What impact would it have on life and work in the studio?
  • Free & Conscious Contribution Experiment

• Accommodation rentals: can we have long-term agreements with a few organisations, who can guarantee of a certain amount of money (per year)? what if we advertised the studio through Air BnB?

• Co-Working space: can we try what it would be like to have the studio as a co-working space with other organisations (e.g. SPIN, EdgeRyders…)? how much extra co-ordination would that require? how much would the space have to change

The first decision made in January 2016 is that whatever happens with FoAM's plans in the future, FoAM vzw will keep the current contract (ends in 2020). If we can't pay for it ourselves from 2017, we will sublet the whole or a part of the space to one or more organisations. There has been sufficient interest in something like that in the past, so we're confident that we could find a sub-renter without too many problems. In order to give us enough time to find someone, mid October 2016 we will make a decision whether or not to keep the space (or part of it) as a FoAM studio. The decision depends on the finances, management of facilities and FoAM's foreseen activities post 2016. To inform this decision, from February 2016 we will be running (at least) three pre-enactments to find practice-based answers to the following questions:

• Can we earn sufficient amount of money to be able to afford to keep the space and manage its facilities without structural funding?
• How can we not only survive, but also thrive as individuals and as organisation in the changing conditions of the studio?
• What is a good (or optimal) use of the space? (which includes the reverse question: is the space not abused?)

The experiments will have to prove whether through sharing and renting the space we can resolve our difficulties with covering the overhead costs (~40k per year + hosting fee), the weight of facility management of a shared space and the current under-use (and abuse) of the studio.

The three pre-enactments are:

• Space for gatherings: renting (parts) of the space for events, workshops and meetings, if possible to people aligned with FoAM's philosophy (February - September)
• Co-working space: sharing the space with several organisations and individuals on a daily basis (February - May)
• FoAM studio: FoAM people fully inhabiting the space for work and life (June - September)

Renting (parts of) the studio for events and meetings can bring sufficient funds for FoAM to be able to keep the space without structural funding.

The experiment consists of attempting to rent the studio for events and meetings from an hour to several days for groups up to (max) 50 people, ideally not more than 30. In the first three months of the experiment the rentals take precedence over any other activities. In the second three months FoAM activities take precedence over rentals.

The experiment has different tasks:

• Design of the rental package(s), including short description of available spaces and services, photos and floor-plans
• Creating an internal price list with ranges of discounts, to be negotiated with every renter
• Designing a standard letter of agreement
• Communication and promotion: creating an activity on the FoAM site, promotion through social networks and other appropriate channels (e.g. EC and other institutions)
• Negotiation and contracting
• Hosting (and possibly other services, such as catering or facilitation)
• Follow-up
• Keeping track of time spent on each contract, as well as their positive and negative aspects (to help evaluation)
• Evaluation: based on at least three criteria (every 3 months and at the end of the experiment):
  • How much funds did the space rental bring? Is it sufficient to cover the overhead and co-ordination costs?
  • How much co-ordination was needed and is it sustainable in the long term?
  • Are the FoAM people/activities and the space able to 'thrive' during and in-between rentals?

To do in January:

• Rasa: compare prices with other spaces for meetings and events (The Egg, De Markten, etc)
• Rasa: Look through the history of FoAM's space rentals in 2014/2015, list prices, effort, positive and negative aspects…
• Maja & Rasa: design rental offer document, put information online,
• Rasa: find out how best to promote rentals (talk to members/board…)

• Clarity about the cost/benefit ratio of space rentals
• Decision whether space rental sufficiently contributes to the financial sustainability of FoAM, enough to justify keeping the studio
• Decision whether Rasa is keen to continue as facility manager and gathering host and if so, whether she needs additional people to be involved.