Embassy Guidebook 2024

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This Embassy document may need to be reformatted, sanitized, or otherwise enhanced to meet HSA archival standards.

embassy sf - the handbook

The flagship location in the Embassy Network, the Embassy San Francisco is an experiment in creating a home built around purpose, intention, and exploration, in creating a community dedicated to maintaining and diversifying the commons.

The Embassy Network is designing new, and reinventing ancient ways to manage resources and govern space together. Our member spaces are embassies of a future that is abundant, collaborative, and transparent.

Here we share our documentation, process and guidelines for the creation, maintenance, and diversification of our community.

Our mantra is that we all try to leave each space better than how we found it. This is our anonymous gift to each other.

core values of the embassy

Experimentation

The Embassy Network values experimenting with culture, commons and more. We live this value by openly conducting experiments on almost every scale, by trying out new systems of living, and by encouraging radical thinking and action.

Openness

The Embassy Network values openness of heart, mind, and structure. We live this value through financial transparency, open communication, critical analysis, and constructive feedback. We also live this value by encouraging people, places, and projects that fall within our network to build upon our values and policies in ways that they see fit for their own purposes.

Consensual Engagement

The Embassy Network values in equal parts consent and engagement. We actively encourage engagement with all aspects of the Embassy Network, while supporting and growing a culture of consent at every level. We live these values by supporting participation, agency, and autonomy for people in the housing network and the individual houses and by encouraging and supporting, but not forcing, a growing set of commons within and across Embassy Network projects, places, and contributors.

Learning and Unlearning

We value both learning new things and unlearning harmful or oppressive, or generally less useful things. We ask you to bring intention to you interactions in our communities, and to give and receive with compassion. We live the values of learning and unlearning, by openly sharing results of our experimentation, by hearing other viewpoints with compassion, by engaging with each other and the community with intention.

community norms

See a full doc here

our accountable space

As an intentional community, we are dedicated to building a supportive and self-reflective culture around respect and clear communication. We make this declaration of our values not only to communicate this culture but also in public recognition that we actively reject rape culture and other forms of oppression. By entering into our community, you agree to heed these cultural norms. If you have any questions, please ask! This is also an iterative process and if you have any suggestions or feedback on our process or culture, we’d love to hear from you.

yes means yes

Our house has adopted the state of California’s Affirmative Consent as a policy. This policy says ‘yes means yes’, as opposed to the old model of ‘no means no’. In practice, this means that if you want to touch someone, you need to get an explicit ‘yes’ from them. For example, “Hey, I’d like to give you a massage. Would that be okay with you?,” or, “Can I have a hug?” A ‘maybe’ or silence, or even a yes under persuasion does not count as consent and will be treated as a consent violation in our community. Remember that consent can be withdrawn at any time. This means checking in regularly! ** We understand that this can be a tricky thing to do in practice. If you’d like to talk to anyone of us about how to do this, we’d love to have that conversation so do please ask!

we are a sex positive community

What does this mean? Sex positivity allows for and celebrates sexual diversity, different desires and relationship structures, and individual choices, based on consent. This does not mean that anything goes. This is an attitude that respects whatever choices an individual makes about their sexual and romantic behaviour, which may include asexuality or abstinence. Sex positivity is not about having as much sex as you can, it is about respect. The key is consent. This is to ensure that people are not unnecessarily hurt in the process.

restorative & transformative justice

Despite our best efforts, people get hurt in communities and violations do take place. We are committed to maintaining the safety of people in our spaces. This means that anyone accused of wrongdoing will be asked to leave the space. In certain circumstances we will help rehouse them in the short term. We uphold the principles of restorative justice both as a way of meeting the communication and dialogue needs of victims/targets/survivors of abuse of all forms, and as a way of attempting to create space for perpetrators/accused to reflect on their behaviour.

• A culture that is part of a broader culture of violence rooted in broader systems of oppression, whereby individuals are socialised to certain forms of hierarchy, to commodify their fellow humans and to relate through violence and coercion.

** In fact, “Yes” is not enough. Consent is about preventing going against someone’s will. Because of this, yes under duress or psychological persuasion or dominance may not count. If in doubt, ask! If you are unsure at any point about how your partner is feeling, ASK. This may feel a little awkward, but remember that traumatizing someone or sexually assaulting them is an entire other world of awkward.

attitude toward the police

Why we believe that it is important to be thoughtful about when to, and when not to call the police: 

“It’s imperative to account for whether police may endanger marginalized people further before involving law enforcement in conflicts. If the perpetrator or victim of harm is Black, disabled, in mental health crisis, a sex worker, or an undocumented immigrant, involving law enforcement could further escalate a situation.” [from here]

“Involving cops has been shown to escalate mental health crises because police contact with people experiencing mental illness is statistically more likely to be fatal, especially if the person experiencing the mental health crisis is Black, transgender, or both” [from here]. 

Mental Health First

A project of Anti Police-Terror Project, is a cutting-edge new model for non-police response to mental health crisis. The goal of MH First is to respond to mental health crises including, but not limited to, psychiatric emergencies, substance use support, and domestic violence situations that require victim extraction. 

Call/text: (916) 670-4062

A longer set of resources are here:

https://bit.ly/ALTJ_alternatives_to_the_police

The 5 “D’s”-  techniques for de-escalating without calling the police

“5 D’s” of de-escalation: direct, distract, delegate, delay, and document.

(adapted from the Green Dot method of de-escalation, which tasks community members as interventionists in order to prevent violence)

1. Direct. Direct intervention means stepping in and addressing the conflict outright to demonstrate that you are witness to what is taking place and that the perpetrator is wrong.

2. Distract. If you think direct intervention could cause a situation to escalate and further endanger anyone involved (including you), distraction may be a better approach.

3. Delegate. If possible, ask for help with an intervention if you think you need it.

4. Delay. When you or others aren’t able to intervene in the moment for safety reasons (or even just because it passed quickly), you can offer support after the situation has ended.

5. Document. If someone is already helping a person who is in crisis, you can document the situation by recording on your phone.

Taken from this Vice article which has far more details and context! 

embassy comms

We use slack for embassy network day to day communication. This slack account has channels dedicated to this house - these all start with “esf” - and others that are network wide. We ask everyone to check these regularly. The only required channels esf_input_required &esf_private, if you can we ask that you don’t mute these channels.

slack for day to day comms

default channels

‘#announcements - only admins can post. ‘#help - when you don’t know where else to go ‘#watercooler - general network-wide chit chat.

recommended channels:

‘#location_today - guest and events happening today at a given location, eg.redvic_today, oresf_food.

collaborative channels

These are kind of like guilds, and form the core of the advice process (see below) on a network and house level. Feel free to create house-specific versions of these channels as needed. ‘#marketing - shared approaches to and development of marketing material, coordinating to offer group , ‘#onboarding - approaches and shared documents around onboarding new residents, guests and members, orienting people to their experience in our spaces and facilitating participation where desired. ‘#finances - finance discussions and cobudgeting ‘#events - event support/hosting/coordination ‘(see notes/descriptions for read only access to google calendar) ‘#hosting - guest support and operations, group bookings ‘#modernomad - announcements and discussion related to the website

other network wide collaborations that might be of interest:

‘#alt_justices - network wide project to ensure training in domestic matters, and to provide support and mediation for those experiencing physical, sexual, or emotional damage in our community ‘#social-observatory ‘#quotesofnotelisten_here is great for podcasts. 

house-specific

Go ahead and create a general channel for your house! Please make sure to create private channel(s) for discussing sensitive items like roommate selection. Create as many house-specific channels as you want or need. If you find yourself feeling like you’re spamming a network-wide channel with a lot of house-specific stuff, you might want to do this. That said, it’s nice to share and cross fertilize, so don’t worry about a little bit of house-specific stuff.

Governance

We make decisions in a weekly house meeting that takes place on sundays. These are decision making meetings, so housemates are expected to attend. If they don’t come they should understand that decisions will be made without them, but everyone is given 48 hours notice to give digital input or object :)  

We have a multi tiered form of governance, there are more details here: 

Constitutional decisions (consensus)

• Who: changing the participants in collective-choice decisions (new residents, or inviting citizens to some categories of decision-making). 

• How: changing the structure of collective choice decision making (who gets to have a say, how we defer, how long we are expected to wait for input). For example, the creation or dissolution of teams. 

When we change the rules of governance, these become “constitutional choice” actions. A guide on how to get to consensus is here

Collective Choice Level (doocracy)

When people at the collective choice level make decisions together about areas like spending, citizenship, or furniture arrangements, these are collective choice actions, also known as our decision making process. Our primary decision making process for collective-choice actions is rooted in the practice of do-ocracy. To recap the high level here for reference, this means:

1. Take action

2. With transparency and communication

3. Commensurate with a spectrum of reversibility. 

4. Aligned with your best understanding of the values of stakeholders

Operational Level

When people come to the Embassy for a salon or for dinner, they are making use of access rights, the scope of which are defined by operational level rules designed by the residents when they engage in collective choice actions, ie, decision making together, to determine when and how “users” can access and extract resources from the house. The number of nights a citizen can use, the pricing for citizenship, the approval of events, these are all decisions that shape operational level rights. 

5. 

6. 

decisions and taking action: the doocracy

Based in our do-ocracy process Basic pattern: join a channel to be consulted, speak up to be heard. Silence is implicit consent (only in this case - otherwise yes means yes!). Things that are not easily reversible (as per doocracy) or too complex to be easily addressed with a bit of back and forth on slack should be put on Loomio (see below).

etiquette and norms

If you create a channel where decisions are going to be made, announce it to others who might care, so that they can opt in.

Channel naming: Many channels will have the pattern location_topic. Eg. redvic_food. Please put the location first, and then the topic. This makes it easier to browse the channel list because all the redvic_XXX channels will be next to each other (of course, we could do this the other way too— we’re just picking one and sticking to it).

Network-wide channels should have no prefix. Eg.food, notnetwork_food. Add pinned items with relevant websites and documentation for each channel as appropriate to give context.

loomio for collaborative decisions

We use loomio for participatory decision making. We tend to use this for decisions that are irreversible, or that require some discussion and input from the group! For example, you might doocratise something like rearranging the layout of the living room, simply by letting people know on slack and giving them a chance to give you feedback or get involved. But if you wanted to buy a bunch of new furniture and throw out some old furniture, you might want to have a bit of discussion around that!

email

Umm we don’t have a house email list but Zarinah keeps one so ask if you want one! 

hello@embassynetwork.com - goes to Jessy and Zarinah :)

embassy network check ins

We used to have open call to all EN members to join a call. We skype/zoom/ghangout from places all over the world to update each other on our local projects and on EN projects :) We don’t do these anymore but if you want to start them up again that would be fun!

Here we have EN contributors calling in from the Red Victorian, Berlin, Monte Rio, and the Embassy SF!

embassy doocracy

Do-ocracy is our loose operating philosophy. We have adopted it because we’re excited about the contributions that you will make to our community, and we want to do our best to facilitate them.

To us, do-ocracy means that if you’d like to see something happen, you are encouraged to take action with transparency and communication.

Transparency means letting people know what’s happening, in a way that allows them to get involved if they want, and allows you to proceed knowing they are informed. Communication means inviting feedback before taking action.

The threshold of taking do-ocratic action is reversibility; that is, only take unilateral action if your action is reversible, and you are happy for others to iterate on or disagree with your decision.

Examples of reversibility might be rearranging the living room (easily reversible), or buying a kettle for the house that you can return if people decide it’s too expensive. Examples of non-reversibility might be organizing a party, throwing something away, or inviting a new roommate to move into the house.

If your action is not reversible then we use participatory decision making to come to get consent or if possible consensus. We use Loomio for this process.

first time do-ocrateers

Start small | Find a buddy | Do it anyway!

We really value action and for us almost everything is about experimentation. Make sure you communicate what you’re up to, and then go ahead and do it!

practical steps to a healthy do-ocracy

Clearly communicate What is the issue that needs addressing: ‘Our bins are terrible!’ What do you propose to do about it: ‘I’m going to buy more bins and replace the old ones. It will cost $75 and we’ll have to dispose of the old ones ourselves which I volunteer to do.’ Invite constructive feedback: ‘If there’s anything I haven’t thought about, I’d be happy to hear from you.’ When you plan to take action: ‘I’ll order them on Thursday if I don’t hear from anyone.” That you welcome help: ‘If anyone wants to help, let’s meet at x time and place!’ Engage with anyone who would like to help. Get the job done, finish it and leave no trace :) Check in with people to see if they welcome the change that you have made. If not, be open and prepared to reverse it.

being a good do-ocratic citizen

Leave no trace If you take on a task, take on the whole thing, and finish what you start. If it’s going to be a big task (cleaning out the black hole of storage) and you are worried you can’t finish it by yourself, wait until you have a collaborator. Leaving things unfinished increases the chance of negative feedback and reversal, and decreases people’s willingness to support your future do-ocratic actions. Support and incentivise action It’s vital to provide positive feedback of good deeds as well as constructive negative feedback of actions taken. Offer to take action yourself if you disagree with something.

storage norms

Rituals: 

1. Slack alert set to the final Sunday of every month. We will do a monthly check in of communal storage spaces, post any new things that have been added and if needed ‘purge’ things that don’t belong. 

2. We will post pictures of unlabelled items to make sure everything begins to get a label and phone number attached to it. 

3. Twice a year we should spring clean and get rid of things. 

4. When adding something ask yourself these questions:

5. Do I need this? Am I avoiding the discomfort of tossing something and delaying a difficult decision by adding this here? 

6. Am I sure this item works- ie I’m not adding broken things to storage. 

7. Could this have a better home, perhaps gifted with someone who can find more use in it? Am I storing something that I can’t use? 

8. Am I about to go on long AF travel and potentially move out and last minute cramming shit into the black hole in hopes I can get a resident to ship it to me later ← Danger zone! Stawp. 

9. New housemates are onboarded to this document.

Norms: 

1. Storage is only for people who are paying rent at the Embassy. Past residents, friends of residents, former guests, and current guests should not store things in communal areas. They will be tossed with 48 hour notice. We are not responsible for things tossed when non-consensually stored here. 

2. If adding your item into storage blocks someone else’s easy access to their storage, it means it doesn’t fit. Ie the hallway in the black hole needs to be kept clear, the space in front of the cabinets in the garage need to be clear for the storage to be functional. 

3. Requests to purge something will be placed in esf_input_required for 2 weeks before purging. 

4. Label items that you are adding to communal storage areas with your name and phone number. 

5. If you are comfortable with an item being borrowed by others please label it as ‘Available for Borrowing’ with your name and email.

6. If you borrow something you are responsible for borrowing it and returning it or replacing it if damaged.

7. The garage and black hole is not a ‘donation drop off site’. If you are getting rid of personal belongings take them to goodwill or do a curb alert. Putting it in a communal area forces someone else to do this labor for you. 

8. Try to store your belongings in the bedroom you rent if possible. Consider under bed storage, or decreasing your number of belongings.

benefits of this approach

Low overhead to getting things done Less decision-by-committee often leads to more creative solutions Communicating and enrolling people increases their likelihood of celebrating you

failure modes

Do-ocracy without communication becomes “Tyranny of the Proactive.” It can concentrate power in the form of circumstantial institutional knowledge and alienate potential other doers, creating a reinforcing feedback loop of “doers that do” and others who don’t. Do-ocracy without reciprocity can also lead to power imbalance.

solutions

Possible solutions to do-ocratic pain points:

Imbalance in the Do-ocracy - when it feels like some people are doing all the ‘doing’ Solution - Provide clear communication of what you need from people to facilitate getting help from others (people often want to help but don’t know what to do). Consider providing lists of jobs/projects to contribute to should they want to.

Do-ocratic Thrashing - when two people are do-ocratically doing and undoing each others’ idea in too short a time frame. Solution - ensure that any changes are left for a week, then as the dooer, check in with people to see if they like it. Don’t leave it to others to give feedback, be proactive in attempting to genuinely enquire whether your actions have made peoples’ lives better!

Belated Feedback - what to do when feedback comes so late that you have already invested lots of time Solution - set a timeframe during which feedback is welcome and a specific time when the action will be taken in the absence of feedback e.g. ‘I’m going to put this thing in place in a week, please let me know if you have thoughts. If i hear nothing back I will do-ocratise it!’ Find out what each person’s minimum time frame is - some people only check their emails once a week!

Absence of Feedback - sometimes the action and accuracy of proactive do-ers is taken for granted. Doers can feel alienated when their contributions are not critically engaged with. Remaining driven to ‘do’ in the face of critical feedback without constructive action is difficult. Solution - Ask for feedback directly and in person.

Hurdlers - How to deal with people who don’t ‘do’ but tend to create hurdles to ‘doing.’ Active ‘do-ers’ risk greater and more frequent criticism than those who are more passive. Solution - Ask people with strong opinions to be involved

references

Similar approaches, critiques, etc. https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Do-ocracy http://www.communitywiki.org/cw/DoOcracy The Tyranny of Structurelessness

coworking

This is the shared onboarding and coworking agreements for members of the Embassy SF.

The Embassy SF is a unique combination of residents, guests and events, experimenting with the creation of the commons. We are excited to officially offer up some of our extensive space as a coworking platform for members of our dynamic and developing community. At the embassy, our coworkers make up much of the daytime hive activity and as such, are active members of the community. The goal of this agreement is to instruct, invite, and set expectations around communication, shared spaces, contributions, and community norms.

things you should know

The house is busy, and use of space is dynamic and affects all of us. In addition to the coworking community, many of the residents work from home during the day. We have room for up to 5-8 guests at any one time, so there are a lot of new faces coming through both during the day and in the evenings. Its our role as community members to take a moment to help new visitors get acquainted with the house and the culture here. There are lots of different types of people using the spaces for different things, but is first and foremost a home and community, so keeping this space clean, clear, and open is essential.

Participation & Community Contributions We encourage all community members to contribute what they can, help run the house, share the projects that you are working on, support others, host events, and get involved in the bigger picture projects around the embassy network as a facilitator of the commons. Its worth thinking about what your participation level in the community might be, how present you intend to be in the short-, medium-, and long-term, and how you might like to contribute. Some of the things that we’ve been asking current and future members to think on and articulate are:

• What would you like your time in the community to look like?

• What projects are you working on right now and how can the community support you in those?

• What is one thing that the community can count on you for?

• What things might you like to contribute to the commons, either within the house or for the wider community?

• What is your self appointed role in the house? Think of something that you’d love to do for the house and give yourself a title. Please share this on the community Loomio so that people know who you are and what you are offering.

the culture

shared agreements

We ask all members and residents to read and sign our shared agreements documents. This is primarily to ensure that all actors in this community subscribe to these basic shared values.

Comedy of the Embassy commons The embassy SF is attempting to optimize the use of its spaces, which means there are a lot of actors coming through. As a community we must be extra careful not to fall prey to the tragedy of the commons, and to ensure that the Embassy SF is a shining testimony to the comedy of the commons!

How can we ensure this? Please make sure, for example…

• to leave each space that you enter, in a better state than when you found it;

• when you wash your cup, please wash at least one other cup that you see;

• as you walk up the stairs, please collect glasses;

• as you wait for the kettle to boil, please wipe down the surfaces;
  and more!

These tiny additions make a huge difference to our community and will support us being able to have more people here!

home & community first

Please remember that this space is first and foremost a home for many people, and a community hub for many others.

communication

Day to day We use Slack for day to day communication and have a lively set of channels. You will get an invite from us soon; take a look and see what channels are of interest to you.

Group decision making We use Loomio for larger scale communication and group decision making. You will be invited to join our community Loomio groups. Have a look around and see what kinds of discussions are taking place. Feel free to comment on any that are interesting to you, or just sit and watch for a bit!

use of space & logistics

Hours Formal coworking hours are from 8AM to 6PM. Beyond these hours, coworking outside of any formally assigned workstations is at the discretion and courtesy of other residents and guests, who will always take precedence in using common areas outside of coworking hours.

Meeting spaces The garden level of the house is set up to accommodate individual work. Workers are welcome to work quietly in different rooms of the house, but please remember that meetings and phone calls can be a intrusive for the home environment, and often prevent anyone else from using that space. With this in mind, guests can book the carriage house for larger groups and private meetings. You can do this by messaging the Embassy slack ‘esf-coworking’.

Phone Calls Please NEVER use the main area of the house. The private bedrooms upstairs are available for this - just use rooms where the door is left open. Please always use headphones. Please ensure that all bedrooms are left immaculate after your call - no coffee cups left out. :)

Food & Drink Please help yourselves to food, but do clean up afterwards. This includes:

• wiping down counters;

• washing, drying, and putting away plates and silverware;

• loading and unloading the dishwasher (if used);

• removing trash and refilling the liners.

Please try to never leave the kitchen or coffee station in a less than perfect state for the next person :)

Norms After using any common spaces, please check back and make sure it is ready for the next people to use. This includes removing plates and cups from coworking and other common areas, and leaving tables clear, even if it isn’t your mess!

tragedy of the commons

The Embassy Network is about building a commons (common resources to be used by all). With this, we have to be mindful not to fall prey to the tragedy of the commons*. *This is when people act according to their own interests in a way that is sub-optimal for the group, by depleting or degrading some common resource. (Of course, that usually ends up being bad for the individual in the long run!) E.g. leaving your cup in the sink means that you don’t have to wash it (yay!) but it degrades the common resource of a common space. The tragedy is that if we all act like this, we end up losing our lovely kitchen space to the detriment of the group.

**“Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest”

• Hardin, Science, 1986

The comedy of the commons

There was much backlash from Hardin’s original suggestion that the tragedy of the commons was inevitable, as many commons have been successful throughout history. Before he died, Hardin admitted he should have called his article “The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons.” At the Embassy we don’t wish to manage each other or impose rules, so we implore our community to familiarise themselves with these ideas and to take these lessons on voluntarily 😃 There are many examples of the counter to the tragedy of the commons, whereby the value of a common resource is increased by the number of people using it. This is known as the ‘comedy of the commons’ (Carol Rose, University of Chicago Law Review, 1987).

Examples of comedy of the commons are things like Wikipedia - individuals contribute knowledge and content for the good of the community rather than extracting resources for their own personal gain. In doing so together, we generate an incredible, rich informational commons.

What does this mean for us as people attempting to build a flourishing residential commons? We must be aware of our tendency to deplete when we act for ourselves, and actively seek to contribute to the commons. This can take place in many ways, but to take the analogy of the cups in the kitchen, this means that we leave the kitchen not just in the same state that we found it, but in a better state than which we found it. We don’t simply wash our cup, we also wash the other cups that may be about, or wipe a surface down while we are there.

We’ve found that once we switch our mentality around these issues, it’s easy to make this part of your daily routine. While you wait for the kettle to boil, take a second to put the tea boxes back in the drawer, or wipe a surface down. Leave the space better than you found it, or how you wish you had found it!

If we can manifest these values in our minute to minute interactions, perhaps it will feed into other parts of our lives.

easy ways to help out with the house!

Being generous with our culture

Familiarize yourself with the basics of our guest program and learn how to check in arriving guests! Give them a tour, say something about the house culture, show them to their room, remind them they are always welcome to instigate or participate. We love it when guests welcome in other guests!

Give a talk, host an event, a cooking night, a group muse, something for the wider community :)

Cook for a crowd - make more than you’ll eat and share with others

Help us maintain a comedy of the Commons

Our mantra is that we all try to leave each space better than how we found it. This is our anonymous gift to leave other.

• You can do a quick sweep of the ground floor or Lovelace for dishes before bed (Don’t leave them in the sink - wash, dry, put away!)

• Sort and put away the mail

• Water the plants <3 Our house is a jungle and the plants are usually a little thirsty

ways to contribute to the commons

Communal wardrobe

Foodshare

Cobudgeting

Carshare

Cross community sharing

• Grab a partner and take out the trash or compost bins

• Give the kitchen surfaces a once over

• Put furniture back if you see it has been moved

• Help to put away food or put out Amazon bags

• Keep refrigerator clean by purging old, smelly, even questionable items

• Flatten cardboard boxes

• Replace light bulbs or order new ones

• Collect items left out and about and place them in lost property at the bottom of the main stairs

• Plump cushions in the reading areas

how to run an event

One of the benefits that we have in living together, is that we gain access to all this extra common space. We love to use it and to share it.

Steps to running an event:

Run it past the house

You can do this on slack or email residents@ Let people know:

• what space you will be using e.g. living room and reading nook

• Start time and end time

• How many people will be invited

• Who is responsible for clear up

• Whether residents and guests are invited

• Whether you are charging for tickets/ making a profit, or whether this is donation based/ free

Create an event page on the embassy site

​https://embassynetwork.com/locations/embassysf/events/create/​

Remember to make sure that you choose the correct option at the bottom of the page, for whether you wish it to be private, community only, or publicly listed.

This will inform everyone on our events team about the event. They will approve it or ask you some questions before making the event live.

Please only use images that are not copyrighted - use unsplash if you are not sure. 

Add it to the google calendar

There is a link on the modern nomad page that say add to gcal. You can only do this if you are admin on our site, so don’t worry if you don’t have access to do this, a resident will do it for you!

commons based projects

Spontaneum

An urban hacking group dedicated to the creative (and free) misuse of urban space. Hosting events such as public readings, alleyway dinner parties, projecting movies onto buildings, urban kayaking, renegade dance parties, etc.

Decoding Labs

​A spatial think tank and design collective, looking at how to make unique and enticing spaces, and serving as a public repository of this information.

Embassy salon series (on hold during covid)

A salon series every Thursday at the Embassy that is open to the public and free, designed to create a space to think through some of the harder questions that are out there. Topics have included “What would a post racial society look like?”, “Is cultural appropriation ever ok?, ‘Does it matter that you were born this way?’, “Do poor lives matter?”

Red Victorian Lecture Series (no longer) 

Weekly lectures open to the public hosted at the Red Victorian commune and hotel. Together with the salons we aspire for these to form a sort of free school in the coming year.

Embassy Network

A global network of communal houses stitched together with modern nomad software

DRFT

DRFT is a intracommunity credit system. DRFT are earnt in a number of ways but one DRFT is equal to a one night stay in any EN location, thereby simultaneously flattening the asymmetry in rent prices across locations and facilitating movement through our common spaces._

Haight Street Commons

​Federation of local communes working on mutual aid, sharing, and resource sharing

Red Vic Workshop

A space for learning basic shop skills and hacking on projects. Provides access to the tools for people looking for shop space in the neighborhood and offers classes for new makers

Embassy & John Muir School collaboration

We work with the local school to teach a class a month! We love you to take on one of these, it can be talking about your career, what you learned, reading a story, hosting an art class, whatever you want :) email zarinahagnew@gmail.com for more info.

Commune Research Commune

A reading group dedicated to thinking critically, historically and theoretically about the meanings of residential commons, and working through of issues such as the wider impact, political/economic engagement of communes, and strategic thinking around these issues. Ask for an invite to our online reading group.

Social Science Observatory

At the intersection between social psychology, sociology, primatology and behavioral economics lies social physics. The social observatory is a project studying social behavior in the wild - we study humans in our communes and in other experimental societies such as Ephemerisle. You can read about about our governance experiments here. These data will all be made open for anyone to analyze for themselves.

explorations with space

One of the things that we are excited about at the embassy sf is how we use space. How can space can be used to encourage new behaviours, and how can new behaviors modify space?

Room names

You will notices that each of our rooms has a name. We decided to give the rooms names in order to experiment with using less possessional speech, so instead of ‘my room’, we say ‘the Penrose’, or ‘the Ada Lovelace’.

open doors encouraged

We took all the locks off the doors, and we encouraged people to leave bedroom doors open during the day. Guests and residents are welcome to use these spaces for quiet time. This radically increases the amount of common space during the day, even if by evening, these spaces become private once again.

indoor outdoor

Biosphere III is a little slice of the indoors, in our back yard. A green house designed by Nookzy with a vintage style study, plants and lighting inside :) This is one of the few spaces in the house that are small enough that they preclude company, and hence it is an ideal space for those introvert moments.

Projects looking for a steward

Communal wardrobe

Inspired by The Dispossessed, we once had two communal wardrobes comprised of items that we care about but want to share. This was not a free box, this is an exploration of sharing valued items. “Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it.” - Ursula la Guin

our non human friends

We have one non-human friend.

Pico

Pico is very discerning, they love what they love and they abhor what they don’t. Things they love: pets and scratches from people they want those things from, exactly when they want them. Brooke. String. Things they do not love: everything else. 

Former non-human residents

Megapixel the feline contingent:

Friday the canine addition:

Friday’s adventurous spirit makes her want to see every corner of the world - starting with the inside of our pillows. If you see her eating something (plants or hanging from the chandeliers please feel empowered to vocally discipline her or remove her from a situation. Much like you and me; physically disciplining traumatizes dogs, does not work, and I am not ok with it. We are training her to be in love with humanity - not afraid of. If you raise your voice she knows she’s doing something wrong. Try to enforce good behavior. If she’s eating something please take it away from her and elevate it.

Friday currently gets walked an average of 5 times a day. Olaf and Zhenya often leave the house at 06:30, before this is when she gets walked first. We have a dog walker come over around 12;00 and 16:00, I get home at 18:30 and take her to the park - most of the time for an hour. Then Olaf walks her somewhere just before midnight before we go to bed.

Please feel free to take her for a walk (she LOVES being unleashed at Duboce Park) but maybe coordinate with Zhenya or one of us if neither one of us is home since a dog walker might be on the way.

We’re trying to teach her barking and jumping is not ok - please do not respond enthusiastically to these things.

in the media

New Yorker (2021) // In a divided country communal living redefines togetherness

The Financial Times )?)

Over the rainbow: // Communal living is back in vogue, especially among Silicon Valley’s young technology workers and their fellow thinkers

NPR // ​Bay Area’s Steep Housing Costs Spark Return To Communal Living​

New York Times // No Tie-Dye Required: Bay Area Millennials Are Flocking to Communes

Life Edited Magazine

​Open Source Housing: The idea of sharing is palatable enough for things like power tools and even cars, but our homes? Like underwear and teeth retainers, homes are the kind of things that are best when they have clear lines of possessions. Not so says Embassy Networks in San Francisco.

SF Gate // ​Tech entrepreneurs revive communal living​

Bloomberg City Lab // ​One Answer to San Francisco’s Overpriced Housing: ‘Co-Living’​

Christian Science Monitor // ​Shared housing: The sharing economy gives roommates a new image

The Embassy featured in French National Geographic:

National Geographic France - 18 pages on San Francisco, written by Thibault Petit 6/9/2017.

National Geographic at the Embassy in 2017

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Peninsula Press // Communes in San Francisco: Returning to the roots of communal living​

Sharable Blog // Six coliving networks reinventing home​

The Embassy Medium Publication // ​https://medium.com/embassy-network​

Flume - Bon Iver (cover)

​James McGuffie @ The Embassy Network, San Francisco, CA​

Not featuring the Embassy but commune related media

The millennial commune movement: Networking in real life

Second Life

​https://www.facebook.com/MoreInCommon/videos/2125163087798450/

shared critiques

(EN advance 2017, Russian River)

It is extremely challenging to agree on a set of shared, affirmative principles without being prescriptive, alienating, shutting down the diversity of perspectives represented in our numbers, or foreclosing certain modes of experimentation. For these reasons, we have decided instead to agree on a shared set of critiques of the status quo, the perpetuation of which we categorically reject. By sharing a common critique, and a general rejection of our society’s present trajectory, we hope to benefit from a shared basis for our projects, or experiments and our efforts in general.

1. Systemic inequities resulting in the poor distribution of resources, services, access, mobility, status, pleasure and care.

2. Zero-sum games—systems and patterns of production and distribution that require some to lose in order for others to win.

3. Concentration and enclosure for private benefit.

4. Economic growth as a unilateral metric of success.

5. Squandering the future, whether through short-sighted and risky economic investments, polluting/depleting production processes, or other unsustainable practices that shift the burden of the present onto future generations.

6. Hierarchies of social stature rooted in—and reinforcing—regimes of status, identity, position, attractiveness, etc.

7. Standardized regimes of desirability, aspirational goals, mono-cultural attitudes and aesthetics, and normative prescriptions designed to maintain hierarchies.

our financial model

This is our rough financial model, but we area always working and iterating!

nested commons

emotional ecology

I wanted to share this list of power traps as I found them really helpful in checking my own behaviour and struggles with being given/using power

1. Using power before earning it (authority alone doesn’t make you a leader <3)

2. Sidestepping authority (avoiding taking a stand)

3. Using too much ammo (you identify as the weaker party and to compensate or be heard, your first move is always an attack)

4. Using power to boost low self worth (self explanatory)

5. Buying your own pitch (as the leader you create a culture where your ideas aren’t challenged)

6. Satisfying self interest (your high ranking role serves your needs and life style, includes nepotism/favors/special treatment)

7. Overdoing it (drinking the power kool aid)

8. Not holding yourself accountable (you allow your language to drop/shout/don’t curb bad behavior as no one else checks you)

**