Colaboratory is a 23,000 square foot warehouse space. The space is divided into a residential area, which currently houses 6 adults and a child; an event space that consists of a giant single room and several smaller rooms; and an artist/maker space, which as the warehouse is laid out currently, is a long corridor where very soon, artists/makers will permanently house their tools, projects, etc.

The residential space currently consists of two giant rooms, one which is our kitchen and living room area at the moment, and one of which contains three smaller rooms, along with all our personal belongings. We like to say that for right now, we’re living in squalor, because we haven’t yet built out our rooms, and we’re squished into the three pre-existing rooms. Our stuff is all in chaos, but it’s a fun chaos! We will turn our collective attention back to the residential side after our first event is over next weekend.

We have been working our asses off to get the rest of the building ready for doing anything other than just sitting there. 2/3 or more of the building had no power or water when we took possession. It was disgustingly dirty, and full of random crap left behind by the former renter. We have now scrubbed down every room, cleaned out all the detritus, reinstalled plumbing and electrical, and are almost ready to move to the next phase of Co-Lab. The place looks nothing like it did when we moved in. We have spent every waking hour of every weekend, working in here. We spend as much time during the week as we possibly can, working in here. It’s been a LOT of work, and we have had a lot of help from really awesome people who also care about the space, and it’s been a lot of fun.

Colaboratory is going to have two purposes, beyond being where we live. First, it will be a maker space. This means that people will come, bring their tools and supplies, and share any of it that they feel comfortable sharing with the other people at Co-Lab. They will rent spaces from us, and keep things they don’t want to share in those spaces, as well as their personal projects. The idea is that the place is collaboratory. It’s a co-laboratory. It is our hope that people will comment on each other’s projects, get involved together, and make new things or improved things that they might not have had the means or the vision to make on their own. It’s 24 hours.

Where will the money go, that Co-Lab makes from the rent? It will pay our huge electrical bill, our water bill, help to fund things like automating our gate and installing an entry system so people can come and go as they please, safely, any time of day or night. It may reimburse the money we have funded personally to fix the plumbing, rebuild the entire maker space bathroom, rent tools to make the outside usable at all, and reinstall all the electrical on the side of the building that ONLY services artists/makers and events.

The second purpose is to create an event space. We will rent the space based on how much space or how many resources that an event needs in order to be whatever it wants to be. A giant, all night dance party may take up the entire event space, and will use up a lot more resources than would, say, a 2-hour art class, which would take up very few resources and a single room. Therefore, the giant party will pay more to use the event space. The idea is that we hope to facilitate all kinds of different events, classes, etc. We hope to do this as cheaply for event organizers as we possibly can, but obviously we need to take in at least some amount of money to be able to improve this space.

There are two other points. First, we want to eventually own this space. We rent it currently. To buy the space right now would cost us $1.2 MILLION dollars. Clearly, the six of us living here don’t have even the beginning of a down payment for that kind of purchase. We hope that, over time, we may get enough people involved with Co-Lab, through events, maker space, etc. that we will make enough to be able to purchase the warehouse. Yes, that means we will be making some money off our events and our maker spaces. However:

Second, every single person that expends any amount of energy at Co-Lab, helping us make this place run, gets ownership interest in Co-Lab. There will be info very soon on shares, what this means, transparency, and what it means to be involved. It is not a rewards system, it is a system to try to create a maker space for everyone who wants to be involved.

While Co-Lab IS a business, and it WILL (hopefully) make money, we strive to do as much as we can by the Burning Man ethos. We are burners, we try to live by the 10 Principles in everything we do. We consider every single step that we take, and try to align it with these principles. And when we CANNOT align ourselves with the principles, we will TALK about it. Because that’s what this is all about: making something completely from nothing, and doing it the best as we can.

Edited to add: yes, some of us are involved with Alchemy. If you come and help us out because you know someone that lives here because of your experiences with Alchemy, we appreciate it. That’s awesome, and we’re thankful that you think highly enough of us and what we’re doing to want to be involved in other things we do. Co-Lab is associated with Alchemy in so much as we have people in common. Obviously we can’t cut our ties with Alchemy just because we do other projects. However, that’s the extent. Alchemy doesn’t sponsor Co-Lab, and puts absolutely ZERO money into Co-Lab. The only tie is the people, and that’s only because some of us that are involved with Alchemy have some kind of illness that makes us want to take on giant projects like this, over and over. Just so we’re clear.

(With that said, Co-Lab will be donating its space to the Alchemy Art Fundraiser for free this year, so that Alchemy doesn’t have to spend as much sponsoring the Fundraiser.)