Happy New Year to you All

Happy Travels in 2007

Flight Relations

Distance becomes, less and less important when traveling these days. Not distance but time is the measurement of a long or a short journey. In the case of air connections even time is not so important any more but the existence of the link in the first place. You do not go to from Amsterdam to Barcelona instead of Chatrapur (city in India) because it is closer but because there is a link between the two embedded between them. This makes it most cases much more relevant and therefor much more efficient to travel between Amsterdam and Barcelona.
In the maps shown here, the direct flight relations between Tokyo, Paris and New York to the world are shown. The more airline companies flying on a certain connection the bigger the spot. In the end all four maps are placed on top of each other. This reveals the best connected spots in the world seen from, Tokyo, Paris and New York. Of course all the geographical close by relations of these three cities profit. But for instance Istanbul, Helsinki, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul and Bangkok are lightened spots on this map. A map of something that can be called the Global City starts to pop out. Of course the rest of the world is reachable within 24 hours just like the spots on this map. But there is a predestined relation between certain places on the globe that is not there for others just because of the fact that there are airline connection between them.

Maps: "The UNseen World"

The former post is the first one in a series of four. A series in which I want to show some predestined links in the world not as visible as any other physical relation. The four are again structured in the themes:

1) Time (timezones)
2) Distance (flight connections)
3) Material (Multinationals)
4) Place

Afterwards I will analyze these 5 themes again on a smaller scale focusing on Europe and eventually on Amsterdam in search for the perfect location for the architectural project. When reaching the scale of Amsterdam some other themes will enter the arena.

Timezone Relations

although we are heading fast forward to a 24-hr economy, we still have to face the fact that at some part of the day we have to sleep. Preferably we do this at night so the 9-5 rhythm is always present. Looking at the 4 most important cities of the Global City as reported by the GaWC (Paris, London, Tokyo and New York) We can distinguish 3 different zones. The red zones represent the area that is always outside the 9-5 work schedule of the centered global city. Outside the red lines an area is entered where less than half of the workday is overlapping. Because of these predestined connections some relations will have more potential than others.

New Poll, Perfect workplace?

What are the essential ingredients of a workplace? Is it a peaceful and quiet atmosphere, your colleagues or is it a nice fresh cup of coffee?

Is it Me?

SUN 8 June 2010:
The beauty of my dreamworld this night made it still a very unpleasant surprise that the reality past the memories of my dreams. Tonight I was back in the house where I grew up. An old house along one of the small canals in Amsterdam. The heavy wooden door, with a small rectangular window on eye height (a few years later it turned out to be the mailbox). On the end of the hall their was a door opening which in my memories was a hole of light. It was the living room behind this door with it’s big windows on the garden side as well on the waterside that formed the light source. The living room I remembered covered with the curly shadows of tree branches and leaves and the twinkling of the diffuse reflection of the water in the canal, I felt at home.

Network a basic need of the DigiNomads life?

SAT 12 June 2010:
Today is like that kind of day that everything seamed to have slowed down. It was a late night yesterday, promised Jake to deliver him the printable pdf this morning so he has enough time to prepare the presentation scheduled for Monday. The film night of Wednesday started to feel less and less appropriate. Although the late hour of yesterday it was an early morning today. I woke up and fall a sleep on the same day and so I felt in all the parts of my body. I got out of my cabin and although I was standing straight up it felt like I was crawling out of bed towards the refreshing room. Some water splashing in my face helped to get my brain worked on acceptable speed. First thing to do was grab a strong coffee at the nearest coffee bar. While walking my legs got straitened out and I was feeling my feet again. Suddenly a slowed down because of the smell of fresh coffee. I entered a satelite GlobSpot named SWITCH, it struck my how crowded it already was. And everyone was al lot more awake than I was, running in and out with his cup of coffee. Time to check my e-mail. On my PDA I already saw there were some documents send to my but I prefer to read them on my laptop. The welcoming ‘pling’ of the WIFI received on my laptop made my somehow finally wake up. And when I checked the time for the first time this morning. I suddenly perfectly understood why it was so crowded already. I forgot to change the time of my old but definitely fashionable watch after my flight of yesterday. I had slept trough my alarm clock. The minutes on my watch made sense but the hours told a different story. The planned meeting would start in about 15 min. Only way to get there in time is to take a cab. The most expensive way to travel but therefore the fastest. My speed went up and I just made it in time. The rest of the day my travel speed only seamed to accelerate in contrary to my brainpower getting slower and slower. At 13:00 it really was powernap time. Speed on zero, brainpower of. Sleep one hour, and get ready for a diner meeting this evening. I woke up at 17:00........
A Spiderweb just next to me. While sitting on a bench in Central Park I saw him busy fixing his new home and source for food gaining. He was a Nomad too. His network of threads kept him alive. Just like me
And again I had to speed up but I still was in a slow mode. Luckily I got saved by a system. A system that ain’t that visible but is always there. I agreed to meet at the central Globspot on Times Square. I took one of the CNT’s (City Network Train) to Time Square. After a few stops I slowly started to fade away in a fluffy dreamland. A beep in my pocket woke me up. Times Square was the next stop my PDA told me. The amazing gadet registered that I fell a sleep and was thoughtful enough to wake me up just in time. Saved by the bell. I walked onto Times Square and suddenly my PDA beeped again. Oh my god Peter had just entered the GlobSpot. If he saw me and Jake together he definitely would get suspicious. And this project should stay out off his reach and Jake didn’t knew that jet and I intended to leave it that way. I send Jake a text massage and made up some stupid excuse, I think it worked, I hope........

How to move?

FRI 11 June 2010:
This morning I went by the headquarters, a huge building in the European Union (EU) quarter. I was again as always surprised by it’s monumentality. Only a few months ago I came in here every day, right now I passed by there like a real Nomad. Collecting new material (to provide myself with information) and leaving some material in exchange for a continuing salary. When I walked outdoors I bumped into a young Indian looking women carrying her suitcase in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee in her other. And of course this cup of coffee landed on her beautiful white blouse. ‘PODVERDOMME, waarom kijkt dat mens dan ook niet uit’ (Duch for: SHIT, why isn’t she paying attention). I immediately apologized in too many sentences. She responded surprisingly short and in perfect Ducth: ‘kan gebeuren’ (can happen). My brain made a anxious jump, never curse in front of a lady. How do you know I’m Dutch I immediately asked her. She answered: ‘for one people from Spain do not say ‘potverdomme’ and otherwise your tag says your name is Niels, not such a Spanish name either. Omad is still a mystery to my but maybe you can explain that to my after you directed my to a dry cleaner. I showed her the dry cleaner in the GlobSpot and took her for a lunch in a small very cosy cafe-restaurant only known by those people whom worked in Bruxelles for a longer period. We had a nice conversation when I suddenly realised that I had to catch my plane to New York this afternoon. I apologized again, again to many sentences. Before I left she asked my where the Berlaymont was. Well that was not such a difficult place to point out the route to. It’s the most iconic building of the EU quarter and visible from almost everywhere, situated along the largest axis (Rue de la Loi 200). I’m sure she found it, I fogot to ask her name............

Don’t I know you from somewhere?

THU 10 June 2010:
It still feels strange to sleep in the Globspot (DigiNomads sleeping and working place) in Amsterdam a city in which my earliest memories are kept I travel like a stranger in my own city. The first years I stayed with my parents but while I’m now traveling and working at the same time this didn’t seem like such a good idea. This morning I visited my dear mother and father, still living in the house where I grew up. And not only it still looked like that time it still was like that time. A computer was nowhere to be found a mobile phone couldn’t be tracked in this house So plans with my parents always had to be made in advance, while a quick text message isn’t possible. But what ever happened to them would always be reachable and that felt comfortable.
Strangely enough the train trip back to Brussels was rather melancholic. Although I come to Amsterdam a few times a year I had big difficulties saying goodbye this time so I kept watching the city from my window while the train drove out of the city. And suddenly I realized. What had started as an experiment to still keep track of something familiar after the last houses of Amsterdam had faded away, had in the next hour turned in to a way of saying good bey. And to say good bey to something, I thought when the train was moving on, you had to create a internal distance. You had to shift the silent- and diffuse officiousness of the thing you were strained with into a clarity that made clear to you what it meant. And this meant that it had to become something with distinct contours. It had been a month since I had been in Amsterdam. I had the feeling that the train that was moving out of the station left a piece of my behind. A little bit it seamed like I was drifting away onto an open, cold see, on an ice rock that had been loosened because of a small earthquake (based on: Nachttrein naar Lissabon, Pascal Mercier).
Back home I immediately checked my flight of next day to New York. And skyped with a contact over there to check if everything was still in order and still expecting me. I phoned my parents that I was home safe and checked my last e-mail messages. I already did some work in the train but to make up with the time I lost yesterday I worked a little more now.
And before I went to bed I wanted to chat a little bit with my girlfriend so I started my MSN-messenger and got lucky she was online. See was in Mexico right now for some weeks doing a project on housing in slumps. She was going back home on Saturday. So we wouldn’t meet for a long time. She had a big surprise for me she had a ticket booked that made a stop in New York. So she decided to stay in New York for some days.
I didn’t sleep that good for a long time and sunday I would sleep with her next to me.......

The Work-rhythme against the Nomads melody?

WED 9 June 2010:
Wednesday, it was already halfway the workweek. The last weekend is still in your memory but you also think about the next already. Although the last couple of months since I do not work on the office anymore my life got a lot more differentiated. I can plan my free time whenever I like. This results in the fact that I spent evenings and sometimes weekends behind my laptop but also quiet gym classes around noon. And while sitting in a nice cafe with a beautiful view on a canal I can state that I like my new life.
This morning for example I used my new freedom on a way that never would have been possible a few months ago. I visited a good friend of me, still living in Amsterdam and played a game of squash with him. His technic had improved a lot since university. I stopped playing afterwards but he continued playing. I had no chance he was dancing on the court and i couldn’t even find a rhythm. Of course we hang out for lunch in a lunchcafe along the Prinsengracht (an Amsterdam Canal) and memories floated in front of my eyes. My appointments followed up in a continues movement. Sometimes changing direction a bit but always based on the basic rhythm of the day and night cycle and the cycle of the workweek. Because although I can schedule my own week from day to day without thinking of the difference about work and weekend days the largest percentage of working people have a sacred weekend. Weekends are therefor the best days to travel. You don't loose valuable time in which you could had have a very important conversation with somebody. But my freedom has enormously enlarged. After a hasty run to make it in time for my appointment this afternoon and a very heavy discussion with one of the artist about his sudden decision not to participate in the project, I was not capable to crawl behind my computer any more. Instead I decided to go to a Dutch new movie with an old friend. It became a late night in which I forgot my worries of the daylight.
The unbreakable rhythmic day of the working man that even can’t be fixed with a cup a soup against the melodious travel of a nomadic worker changes all depending on your mood.

How to move when I am working?

TUE 13 June 2010:
Yesterday it was my last day in the office again. I returned to Brussels two weeks ago after a monthly visit to New York. And this afternoon I left again to Amsterdam for 2 days in order to talk to some artist who participate in a European wide exhibition of famous artists who live or lived along the Thalys route. At the same time I could meet up with my memories again and visit some friends and family. As many employees I also do not have any personal office anymore in Brussels. I do have a guaranteed office-desk and all needed extra infrastructure in the building. I can reserve a certain spot trough the internet in advance or I can just walk into the building and ask for a place there. There is always an empty spot somewhere in the building. It’s always nice to be back in the office and see what everyone is doing.
Since I travel so much, I now work somewhere else everyday. Most important for the perfect work-spot is a WIFI connection. And although almost everywhere it is possible to connect to a WIFI network, there are still some blank spots, unfortunately. But almost all major cities are covered.
This morning I had the ultimate office experience. I forgot to close my curtains last night, a warm beam of sunlight woke me up and I wanted to taste the air outside. For breakfast I skipped my regular café and instead took of to a local Turkish Supermarket and bought some Turkish bread and fresh humus finished with the best take away coffee in town. With this survival package I headed of to Parc de Bruxelles. There I placed myself on a bench and created my own instant office. Ever seen an office surrounded by trees and covered with leaves. I had never worked in a more comforting atmosphere. I even had a WIFI connection.
I had to pull myself out of this comfort zone to catch my train connection to Paris. The Thalys these days really is a DigiNomads haven. There is WIFI on board and good fresh coffee. So my second instant office of the day emerged right in the there in the train. A long train travel from Brussels to Amsterdam now becomes a productive one. The cabin space miraculously turns in to an office for many people, for others it becomes a bedroom and children use it as a very cool playground.

Is the DigiNomad Homeless?

MON 7 June 2010

On Monday the penetrating sound of my alarm clock pulled me back into the real physical world. Where am I is a question you always ask yourself on the moment you open your eyes or maybe even a split second before that. Usually you know the answer before you asked the question, it’s at home. But sometimes, the day after that beautiful holiday to a warm and inspiring country you get confused. Today it took me al least a few seconds to figure out it was my own cosy bed I woke up in. It was the sound of the Saint Micheals (cathedral in Brussels) that tele-ported me back to Brussels.
So now I was back in place again it was time to get up. With a rather smooth movement swung my body in an upright position and touched the floor with my feet for the first time this day. This earthly contact and my self reflecting, not so charming, image in the mirror made my place in the world seem irrelevant. But in the afternoon I had a meeting at the headquarters about some sponsorship for a huge exhibition in New York next year. So I put on my clothes and slipped into my shoes suddenly remembering the running exercise of yesterday represented by a growing blister. I looked around the room, the only room my and my girlfriends place had. After adopting our nomadic lifestyle we decided to move to a smaller apartment while we didn’t need to live in the space that much. But while we loved the city centre of Brussels because it held so many shared memories we looked for a place right in the heart of the city. I moved here 6 years ago after growing up and studying in Amsterdam to work for the EU. I met my girlfriend and moved in with here after one year. So I can tell I feel at home in this city, although my heimat still is Amsterdam. Because of the little space we have I like to start my days in a quiet café. Something I do everywhere also when I am traveling. This morning I ended up in my favorite café ‘Het warm water’ specialized in day welcoming breakfasts. And always some fresh new papers and not unimportant a WIFI connection.
While walking to the EU quarter I saw a homeless man hiding under a big three trying to create some shelter for himself. I wondered if he despite the lacking of a physical home still felt at home in the same city I felt at home. When I was thinking this and therefore watched in his eyes he spit right next to my leather shoes, I had recently polished, saying: ‘How dare you walking through ‘my city’ with those absurdly expensive shoes made of harmless cows’. I smiled and thought, yes he feels at home, but kept my change from breakfast in my pocket.

One week of a DigiNomad

While I have a presentation this week I won't be able to post that much on my blog, instead I will tell a story of Niels Omad every day and include it with one question.

See next post for the first day

What makes a place 'Home'?

There is a new Poll! What makes a place 'Home'?

Last weeks poll results are:

If you could change your 'normal' nationality bounded passport for a NOMADIC PASSPORT would you (5nov 2007)?

NO, I care to much about my cultural identity	1 (8%)
NO, it's to dangerous. I need the basic protection of at least my home country	2 (16%)
NO, other reasons	1 (8%)
YES, I am a global citizen and have my own identity and culture	4 (33%)
YES, but I need somehow to lower my risklevel and secure my basic protection	3 (25%)
YES, other reasons	1 (8%)

Niels Omad

Let me introduce to you Niels Omad. Niels has been invented last year to personify the DigiNomad. What was he like, what did he do and what were the problems and possibilities of his new lifestyle. In the mean time I am busy finding respondents to tell me about their experiences. This way Niels will not only represent my brainwaves but also a group of real-life people

Well this is Niels, or al least these are his personalia

N. OMAD

Surname: Omad

Given Names: Niels

Date of Birth: 29 JUN 1980

Place of Birth: Amsterdam

Residence: Bruxelles

Personal no.: 131725932

Sex: Male

Height: 1,80m

In my thesis there is one whole week of his diary used as leading structure to all the facets of his life. For now I will only tell you the story, how he became a nomad

5 January 2010:

Today was one of those days that kept resonating for a long time inside my head. Not because something very special happened that day but because something happened that gave the opportunity to let special things happen in the future. My girlfriend went to the globe today. Not just for a vacation or a short meeting with some clients over there. No she went there for about 4 months. She had started her own architecture firm 5 years ago and without special effort she got projects all over the world. She already left Bruxelles quite often to discuss with her clients, but always came back after a few days. Now she entered the city she was designing for, the Global City. I couldn’t help it but I was jealous........

28 January 2010:

'I want to live in the same city as my girlfriend'. That's what I told my supervisor this morning hanging over my instant made machine coffee served in a paper cup decorated with 12 stars and the motto " In varietate concordia" (united in diversity). Yes I worked for the EU. ‘But your girlfriend is traveling at the moment, isn’t she’? Two big eyes stared at me. ‘No, she is living in the Global City’ was my response. I already suspected this question and prepared this sentences of course. My task by the EU was to initiate cultural projects. Projects exposing everything that was produced in the habitat of European cultures. For now this were mostly small localized projects about localized artists, organized in localized buildings. My proposal was to make these things mobile, changeable per location and get them outside Europe too. The idea was received with a lot of enthusiasm. I became a Global Citizen today, my Nomadic way of life had started!!!

The Business Class. NET

In Berlin Manu Kumar started a new network of office spaces for temporal office use. His first department is located in Berlin and offers complete office desks for rent, for the minimum staying time of 1 week en a maximum of 12 weeks. Besides a fully equipped workplace it also offers a place where you can meet equally minded people. Because it's locally embedded it knows it's links to local networks and can actively renew these links by new knowledge from new visitors. For the moment the only BusinessClass.net office is situated in Berlin. But by offering a franchise concept it soon should spread around the world. You cab book you temporal office space through a website that in the future connects all the different spaces in the world.

This concept is very inspiring because of the multiple possibilities it offers on a local scale to it's users and makes use of the Internet raising it's global interconnectivity.

For the real thing look at the webpage: http://www.thebusinessclass.net/bcn/

The DigiNomad HEARTBEAT

Every Nomad has a different travel calendar and almost every Nomad still has a base somewhere. Sometimes it's only an emotional base but most of the time it is a physically represented office or home. If we map the time an individual DigiNomad is staying on different places than the negative space underneath the x-ax could represent the time spend in this base space. The positive side is all the time spend away from the base in other spaces. This graph represents the personal heartbeat of an individual DigiNomad

new poll, NOMADIC PASSPORT?

There is a new weekly poll on my blog. Would you be prepared to change your 'normal' nationality bounded passport for a NOMADIC PASSPORT (global passport)? This would gain you instant acces to every country but you have to give away the symbol of your cultural Identity.

And for those who didn't see the movie yet of my wednesday 24th oct post, look at it it's amazing.

These are the results of last week:

Hotel (global)	2 (4%)
Hotel (local)	6 (14%)
Camping	7 (17%)
Local people	6 (14%)
Hostel	9 (21%)
Rented Appartment	11 (26%)

PLANNING the DigiNomad's travel to graduation

The planning of the rest of my graduation track is now placed on this blog, also placed under my documents (right column)

Planning: http://home.digisan.nl/janine/pdf/PLANNING.pdf

Holland Doc: Living in Cyberspace

Upcoming week the dutch digital documentary channel is broadcasting some documentaries about the theme 'living in cyberspace' .

See the following link: http://www.hollanddoc.nl/artikelen/37231588/

Instantly Changing Spaces

Who thinks spaces can't have multiple uses is definitely wrong. See this film made in Bangkok of a train track or is it a market space?
Instantly appearing architecture in a solid city structure, maybe a perfect solution for the DigiNomad????

Found on the neo-nomad blog, made by a German tourist

Yurt, rounded efficiency

Today a little bit on the symbolism of the well known Nomadic piece of architecture used by for example the Mongols.

While private and working life of the Yurt inhabitants is mixed there is a need in finding privacy in a space that is not at all physically subdivided. This subdivision is found in a set of conventions that structures the ground plan of the Yurt. Greatly ordered by symbolism it basically works as follows. The entrance of the Yurt is always situated on the south which allows space on the north side for the altar, the space reserved for religious activities. This north south-north oriented zones also represent the amount of privacy wanted in the tent. The deeper you enter the tent the more you enter the family space. Only honored guests are allowed to go here. The front side is reserved for servants normal visitors and sometimes even animals.
The east-west zones are respectively for women and men. What results in the fact that men always have more space then women because men have more than one wife in the Mongolian culture. The last physical division is in the vertical direction. The dome formed roof makes the division between the earthly and the heavenly (holy) world outside. The hole in the roof represents the light and the sun.
This vertical symbolism makes it possible for the Yurt structure to locate itself and to orientate in it's environment.

In search for DigiNomads.........

Like you probably already noticed I'm searching for some respondents. After exploring my adresslist today I sended some messages to various blogs, fora and communities on the web more or less concerning my theme. Hopefully I can find some people to tell my about their experiences.

Caravans to Tartary

Found a new book called: 'Caravans to Tartary'. It's about a Nomadic group of people who twice a year travel through Central Asia in the worst wetter conditions. They live in Yurts and survive as a group. Trading camels for 45 sheeps and a lighter for a horse because fire is of life importance in the colds on the 'Roof of the World'.

Caravans to Tartary
Roland and Sabrina Michaud
Thames and Hudson 1978

The World is Transparent

The world is transparent is a metaphor for the world perception of DigiNomads. They can be on one spot and at the same time see what is happening on the other side of the world. They can look through it and move over it's surface very fast.

I work on a metaphorical model of the globe, created by 3d laser printers and laser cutters.

The globe is created by the 3d printer
The base and the continents by the laser cutter

A House is not a Home

Ella Fritzgerald, performing 'A house is not a home', Montreux 1969

If you are a Nomad and you do not have a solid home how can you still feel at home?

Thesis

For some time now I have been writing my thesis.
For my P3 (intermediate graduation presentation) on the 6th of november. I try to have a final structure that is mostly filled in. And is finalized afterwards only by some finetuning and little additions.

But for now an in between product: The Office and Home(l)essentials

It still excists of a combination of little parts in Dutch and in English so don't enjoy reading yet

Free-writing

To get myself back on track again I tried some Free-writing At first it seems to be more difficult than I thought. I fall back on the things I already wrote before. So for now try to focus on just answering the question, 'why not a hotel?' in the hope that I find what I do want. The first step is working quite well for the moment. And some ideas for the end result are already forming in my head. For now this is more resulting in some architectural brainimages and not yet urbanistic. But I hope that the moment I find the architectonic image I can work back towards an urban view. Even more important I hope that knowing the result will help me to make choices for my thesis.

Why not a hotel? (pdf, dutch)