currently: in Tunis

This newsletter marks the first year of my journey.

I have used the past few months to better understand how I do my work. A lot has happened, and it’s not just my projects that have evolved. Pleasure in Scarcity remains at the heart of my work. I try to keep my projects varied and continue to learn new things, try new formats. More about that in upcoming newsletters.

This year I would like to find my own atelier !

Status report:
Kilometre reading (4. April 2022) : 241 033 km
since the beginning (18. March 2021): 10 054 km
since last newsletter (5. December 2021): 1286 km

Most listened music last month:

La Deviation / Marseille

November 2021 – February 2022

My time in Marseille is over for now, but a reunion is already in sight. When I left with my van a year ago, my expressed goal was to find a “reason to stay”. At the Deviation I found just this reason. What I will remember most are my new friends, the evenings in front of the fireplace, the warming winter sun and the slight smell of fuel oil when the sun turns the white rocks yellow in the morning.

A roof for the pizza oven

March 2022, Paris

Clay construction must be protected against moisture to make it durable in the long term. Finishing the roof is the last step in the construction of a kiln. 

This made the kiln of Vive Les Groues in Paris ready for use. The roof structure was made with materials on site and added to an existing roof structure by Corentin Massaux. The kiln was then officially inaugurated on April 2.

Passage to Tunis

26 hours by ferry, storm and tempest, an exciting experience. I was expected by bad-tempered border officials and Ben from El Warcha.

Ciné-vague / Cinima Foug El Me

Swimming cinema on the beach of Tunis/Khereddine, März 2022, Tunis

I was invited by the Tunisian collaborative design studio El Warcha to support them conceptually and technically in a “floating cinema” project. The project came about in collaboration with the youth organization Mobdiun and the cultural organization Sentiers, and was funded by the Goethe-Institut Tunis and the Swiss Embassy in Tunisia. 

The project was realized together with about 20 young people from the neighborhood Le Kram. Through short exercises and experiments, the necessary steps were completed, both conceptual/performative and technical/craftsmanship. Most of the actual construction was eventually done by the youth. Only logistics, administrative organization, and safety details were handled by the project team.

In one week I will be back in Europe. After that I’m heading north again, towards Clairmarais, where I’ll be spending the summer starting from May. If you want to know more, write a mail or call me.

Until next time,
Dani

+4915238478321
log.danielparnitzke.de
Instagram: danipar__

since October: Marseille

The year is coming to an end and the days have become short. I’m especially aware of this since I spend most of the day outdoors. Long underwear and a hot water bottle get me through the day. The headlamp is my best friend and there is soup and tea. 

Almost nine months ago I started this new way of life, this has done a lot. 2021 I was able to realize some exciting projects, at some point one job followed the next.

In the beginning, I still wanted to prove to myself (and others) that this lifestyle was a good idea – financially and personally. In the meantime, however, I feel the need to look at the last few months with a little distance to understand what was good and what I would like to do differently in the future. To do this, from December I’m consciously taking time to process experiences and encounters, to document projects and plan new ones, to revisit old work.

Status report:
Kilometre reading (5. December) : 239 747 km
since the beginning (18. March): 8 768 km
since last newsletter (22. October): 158 km

Most listened music last month:

A windmill – totem for ‘Le Talus

A year ago (during the second lockdown) I built my first prototype of a simple wind generator. I was able to test it in Paris (Newsletter 3), before it fell victim to a thunderstorm.
Based on this initial experience, I proposed the construction of a wind turbine in Marseille – as always in the format of a chantier participatif (= collaborative construction). The place – an open area, connected to the community garden ‘Le Talus’ in Marseille. I not only worked there, but also ‘parked’ and lived there for a month.

The wind turbine consists of a wooden mast, a solid metal axle with simple braking mechanism for strong wind, a hoverboard wheel and three hand-carved rotor blades. 
It is important to be accurate to the millimeter, the three rotor blades must be exactly identical in shape and weight. We accomplished this challenge within 4 days. The wind turbine is mounted at a height of 9 meters, where it charges a car battery with up to 200W. The stored energy is used for outdoor lighting and a charging station.

Pizza oven – made entirely of clay

Following the construction of the wind turbine, we started the construction of a pizza oven together with the workshop supervisors Julia and Simon, as well as with many volunteers. As a basis for this, I used the dimensions of the oven built in Paris, with the difference that this time no bricks were used. For this we made more than 500 small clay bricks. We worked exclusively with the earth on site. The clay bricks remain visible to the inside for an interesting visual effect. For the construction of the metal base and the roof we worked only with waste materials.

Bicycle trailer WOW – ConstructLab

After one month of residency in Marseille I didn’t want to leave yet. So it came in handy that my friend Alex called and asked if I could stay a little longer to work on a bicycle trailer together with the collective ContructLab. For this, ConstructLab was hosted for a month at the collaboratively managed space ‘La Déviation’ (= ‘The Detour’), in l’Estaque, Marseile’s 16th arrondissement. La Deviation offers spaces for multidisciplinary artistic works, residencies for artists, and functions according to an open door policy. Here, diverse people live together in collectively shared spaces plus privately used caravans.

So I moved in mid-October, and for two weeks I helped to build a polyvalent bicycle trailer with electric motor – the WOW (workshop on wheels). The group, consisting of Matilde, Adeline, Sophie, Patrick and Alex, had already worked on a first prototype during the summer and were now improving it based on the experience of a rather long bike trip.
I was happy to work on the team for a short time, learning more about DIY batteries and electric bike motors. For this part of the work, we were supported by Medi, who runs a workshop in Marseille for electrical upgrading of bicycles.

La Déviation – Collective space in L’Estaque

In order to sustainably secure the site and guarantee its collective use for the future, ‘La Déviation’ was purchased in the name of the owners’ association ‘Le Parpaing Libre’ (= engl. The Free Concrete Brick). This legal structure aims to prevent future sale of the property and is based on the model of the German ‘Mietshäuser Syndikat’ (= owners’ syndicate). The owners’ syndicate unites individuals who seek to purchase participatory, collective spaces in order to remove them from the system of private ownership and capitalist real estate speculation.

I find this model very interesting; the purchase of an open space (as opposed to temporary interim use) allows for a completely different approach to the community and neighborhood. It allows for long-term engagement while remaining independent of outside interests. The association that manages the finances reinvests all income generated, thus maintaining and developing the place. Click here to read more (french).

Here I stay now until Christmas – maybe longer. In December, I’m helping to finish a metal winter garden, for which I welded the balcony and the roof.

Outlook

I believe that it is important to take time to get bored. One project after the other, always on the go, there is little time for new ideas and fascination. This is especially important for me, because the motivation to learn and try ‘new’ things drives me.

In this sense I hope for a boring and uneventful time, but keep you up to date if something happens.

Until next time,
Dani

+4915238478321
log.danielparnitzke.de
Instagram: danipar__

September – October: Pyrénées – Poitiers – Lussas – Auvergne – Allier – Scheyern (de) – Vlieland (nl) – Xirocourt – Hérisson – Paris
At the moment: Marseille

Status report:
Kilometre reading (22. October) : 239 589 km
since the beginning (18. March): 8 610 km
since last newsletter (20. August): 1 687 km
power meter: 17,2 kWh

Most listened music last month:

Outlook
until December: Marseille

a good thing that happened:
When I was stuck with my car in the middle of nowhere, 2 German-speaking Italians arrived on the road a few minutes later with their 4×4 and pulled me out of the mud.

Travelling with and without a car

In August I discovered the Pyrenees, then I parked my car (aka home) behind the atelier of a friend in Poitiers where it would stay a little while. For the following 8 weeks I would not see it again, while journeying through France, Germany and the Netherlands. I went to the Lussas documentary film festival in the Ardèche, took a beautiful and emotional trip through Auvergne and Allier, and came home to Bavaria for a short visit.
Vacations were over, I took up work again on the Dutch island Vlieland, followed by a week of construction in Lorraine. A very short working break, yet again in the beautiful Allier, was followed by yet another week of construction, in Paris. Now, I am in the south of France, Marseille, freshly reunited with my car. Here I am expecting to stay (at least) 3 weeks, building a wind turbine followed by other exciting projects.

in-situ workshop with students on Vlieland

I was happy to get the chance to meet the 29 new Master students of my old study program at the Social Design department of Design Academy Eindhoven. I participated in organising a study excursion on the Dutch island Vlieland, running workshops for rapid making exercises and for hands-on construction, improvisation and in-situ work, as a way of ‘thinking through making’.

We constructed several versions of of smoke-free fire pits that were collectively built with scrap materials and improvised construction methods. They were later used to roast ‘spent grain’, a waste material from Fortuna Vlieland brewery (our collaborator and host for the trip) to make cereal bars. Vlieland (and probably all small islands) have tangible limits in ressources and local production, which makes them particularly interesting places to reconsider wastes as valuable ressources.

a separatory dry toilet in Xirocourt

With a group of motivated people we used the last week of September to finish on some unfinished projects at the association Être Éco Lié and the connected orchard Le Verger de Vincent.
Notably, a separate dry toilet, another of the modules that Pierre-Antoine and I designed earlier this year. The toilets are part of the mobile outdoor furniture which also includes a kitchen, a dishwasher and a waste collection system.

The oven consists of a wooden shell filled with 1.5 cubic metres of rubble and waste, which enclose the oven dome and provide insulation and thermal inertia through their mass. The attached bench is constructed according to the same principle.

The roof consists of shingles made from 250 beer cans collected from around the site. Most of the materials used in the construction were either reused or found in the surrounding area.

a new and improved pizza oven in Paris

Last week I was in Paris, coordinating the construction of a new pizza oven for Vive Les Groues. This was the place where I built my very first oven, which was fired up on a weekly basis.
After 2 years of use, the old (improvised) pizza oven will be replaced by a new (and improved) version. Adapted in size, shape and insulation, it is constructed on a mobile ‘chariot’ with a brick skeleton, covered by the local clay-rich earth of the site.

The oven was built with volunteers that came to help with the different steps of construction. The weather was on our side, and thanks to the 15 people who came to lend a hand over the 5 days of construction, the object took shape quickly. It is now going to dry, inauguration is planned for December.

Until next time,
Dani

+4915238478321
log.danielparnitzke.de
Instagram: danipar__

June – August: Xirocourt– Le Rutin – Brussels – Pyrenees
At the moment: South of Toulouse

Status report:
Kilometre reading (20. August) : 237 902 km
since the beginning (18. March): 6 923 km
since last newsletter (27. June): 2 701 km
power meter: 16,3 kWh

Most listened music last month:

Outlook
since August 14: Holiday in France
September: Allier (Centre) – Netherlands – Bretagne

A rammed earth bread oven in the Allier

In June/July I stayed as an artist in residence at Polymorphe corp. Polymorphe promotes cultural and artistic activities in the countryside. Bony and Léo created the project in 2018 in the remote hamlet of ‘Le Rutin’, in the Allier département.

A time-lapse of the construction here (1min):

The aim of my residency there was to build a bread oven out of rammed earth (aka pisé). For this, a sandy and coarse-grained earth mixture is strongly compacted.I decided to use this type of e earth construction because, on the one hand, it can be realised with local materials, on the other hand, it is not technically complicated and, in contrast to other types of e earth construction, it does not require any interruptions for drying. With the help of volunteers, the team on site and a one-week ‘chantier participatif’, we managed to complete the construction work within 18 days.

The construction was carried out in 3 stages:

1 – Masonry with raw stones and lime mortar.
2 – Pisé with a team of +/- 6 people, mixing, transporting, tamping earth in a previously fabricated formwork.
3 – Construction of a roof from acacia and chestnut trunks, covered with tiles found on site.

A pizza oven made from construction rubble in Brussels

In Brussels I was invited to construct a neighbourhood oven for the project ‘Recup Ton Quartier / Recup Jij Wijk’. RTQ/RJW is located in a public space along the canal, between Molenbeek and Anderlecht. It is situated at a crossroads of streets and paths where litter is regularly deposited. I decided to work with the materials and resources available and build a pizza oven out of scrap materials and construction waste.

The oven consists of a wooden shell filled with 1.5 cubic metres of rubble and waste, which enclose the oven dome and provide insulation and thermal inertia through their mass. The attached bench is constructed according to the same principle.

The roof consists of shingles made from 250 beer cans collected from around the site. Most of the materials used in the construction were either reused or found in the surrounding area.

We dug a hole and set a foundation of paving stones, sawed wood, made our own paint, painted, drilled and assemnled a casing. We filled the empty casing with stones and rubble, therefore crushed tiles and built a dome out of clay and lime. We pulled nails out of pallets and built a bench out of pallet wood to sit next to the stove. We collected beer cans, cut them up, flattened them, folded them and nailed them to the roof as shingles.
Then we made a fire, spread tomato sauce on pizza dough and put cheese on it.

Wind mills in Brussels – first contact

Supporting the organisation ‘La Pile’ in the initial contact with neighbours of a social housing estate in the north of Brussels. Through a two-day intervention, first contacts were exchanged and acquaintances were made, opening up possibilities for future cooperation on energy-related issues. The long-term goal is to create a European pilot project for cooperative energy production – a wind turbine for the housing unit.

My tasks were to create, design and produce the technical and mechanical parts of 90 paper wind mills, as well as to run the workshop on site. The rotors were folded and decorated by the children of the housing unit.

I’m going on holiday now. Have a nice summer and see you next time, Dani

+4915238478321
log.danielparnitzke.de
Instagram: danipar__

May – June: Monts du Cantal – Saint Étienne – Bourg-en-Bresse – Xirocourt
Currently: Tonnerre

Status report:
Kilometre reading (June 24) : 235 201 km
since the beginning of the journey (March 18): 4 222 km
since last newsletter (May 14): 1 428 km
power meter: 11,7kWh

Most listened music last month:

Book recommendation:
bolo’bolo by P.M.
follow this link for the English edition: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/p-m-bolo-bolo

Outlook
from June 28: three-week artist residency at Polymorphe Corp. in Cérilly, central France. There I will build a bread oven out of rammed earth and stone.

June / July:
Cérilly (Centre de la France) – Brussels

On the road with Charlélie in the Massif Central

Since my project in Cérilly was postponed in May, I met my friend Charlélie in the Massif Central, in the Monts de Cantal. We drove over adventurous mountain passes, where I sometimes had to shift into first gear – unlike Charlélie with his four-wheel drive.

Digital Workshop at the HfG Karlsruhe

At the end of May, I put my nomadic workspace to the test. To do this, I parked on the banks of the Loire (near Saint Étienne) and held a digital workshop with students from Chris Kabel’s ReAct seminar (product design) at the HfG Karlsruhe. The aim of the intervention was to take away the students’ fear of failure and to create a starting point for their further material research.
Documentation of the workshop here: http://hfg.danielparnitzke.de/

Stranded

Departure from Saint Étienne, north-east, towards Lorraine, 450km of road. Halfway there, I had a mishap, skidded over a threshold and bent my wheel rim. It was Saturday evening, the garages were already closed, and I had an appointment on Monday.
At first it was stressful, but bit by bit I was able to tackle the problems, reschedule the appointment, get a spare wheel, adjust the track, change the axle boot.

A weekend in Bourg-en-Bresse

So I had to take a 2-day break in Bourg-en-Bresse, north of Lyon. In the area there are beautiful houses and a building tradition with rammed earth, which I had a look at on a little bike tour.

Chantier Participatif and outdoor furniture

Back to Xirocourt (see Newsletter 1) and a project for the Verger de Vincent, the community garden linked to the association Être Éco Lié. The aim there was to design and construct an outdoor kitchen, an outdoor sink, a recycling station and a dry toilet. These elements were to be mobile, stable, simple, reproducible and versatile, based on existing standard sizes, a single wooden profile and low-tech construction. The inspiration for this was Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione from 1974, a series of furniture that can be realised with standardised wooden profiles, a hand saw and a hammer.

The realisation took place collaboratively with volunteers, who were on site partly after their working day, partly for a full week. For this chantier participatif* in Pierre-Antoine’s workshop we set up various work stations and production processes, which also enabled amateurs to produce excellent results.

A chantier participatif, also known as a solidary workshop, collaborative workshop, shared workshop, etc., is an event during which individuals meet to work together, voluntarily and in a friendly atmosphere. (translated from French Wikipedia)

A month in Xirocourt

I stayed in Lorraine for almost 4 weeks. It is good to have such longer breaks in the same place to tackle longer-term projects or repairs. There was a lot to do as well: Installing a yurt, repairing my car, mowing with a scythe, mounting a solar installation…

Short trip to Paris

Two days in Paris, meeting friends, checking up on old projects (rocket stove at LEO, wind turbine at Vive Les Groues, see newsletter 1+2). Here is a great illustration by Julie Dancre, from our workshop with Coline in March.

Two weeks later: A violent storm has raged on the terrain of Vive Les Groues and caused some damage – among others to my wind turbine. The wooden rotor blades bent backwards by more than 30cm in the high wind speeds – until they touched the mast and broke.

A location for my solar-powered website

More than a year ago, I handed in my Master’s thesis under the title “Pleasure in Scarcity”. I applied this principle to the format of the thesis itself. It is accessible through an autonomous server that is powered by a solar system and a battery – simply put, a medium that is directly connected to a limited, local energy source. The solar-powered server is located in Xirocourt, eastern France, with seasonal daylight hours between 8h19m and 16h07m.

During extended periods of bad weather, this website will go offline. It gives the user the possibility to use an “energy saving mode”, whereby up to 80% less data is transmitted. It shows the reality of the global data and energy infrastructure and is at the same time an example and a proposal for an internet with limited accessibility.

The thesis and current information on the server’s energy production and consumption here: http://pleasureinscarcity.com. More about the format of a solar-powered website here: http://pleasureinscarcity.com/chapter/27

Until next time,
Dani

+4915238478321
log.danielparnitzke.de
Instagram: danipar__

Same thing as last time, if you can help me, know a nice place or have any other feedback, please reply to this email!

April – May: Xirocourt – Saint Étienne – Ardèche – Haute Loire
Currently: La Garde-Guérin

Whats next?

May:
– visit another volcanic region, Auvergne, to meet Charlélie. 
– visit Cérilly for material testing, to prepare for the residency at Polymorphe Corp.

June:
– 3 weeks chantier participatif (collective construction site) to build outdoor infrastructure for the orchard ‘Verger de Vincent’ in Xirocourt (Association Être Éco Lié). 
sign up for the chantier participatif here!
– 3 weeks residency at Polymorphe Corp. We’ll construct a bread oven from rammed earth (Pisé). 

July:
– 2 weeks chantier participatif in Brussels with the project RECUP TON QUARTIER _ RECUP JE WIJK. We will construct a pizza oven from waste materials on site.

Reach out if you live next to my itinerary and want to meet for a coffee or a workshop. If you don’t live close, send a message and we’ll see when I can pass by.

May / June / July: Auvergne – Haute Loire – Cérilly – Xirocourt – Cérilly – Brussels

My Fiat as a mobile atelier

Since I am on the road, I built myself two shelves, a multi-functional chair (= toilet) and a rocket stove for cooking to economise on gas. This rocket stove is the first one in 1,5 years that I built exclusively for myself! (Still broken my gas stove…)
Also, I am working on a small wind generator with hand carved wooden blades and an old hoverboard motor.

Workshop in Saint Etienne

I was invited by students of the M2 ‘design espace’ department at ENSADSE, for a one-day workshop at the Cité du Design in Saint-Étienne. The goal was to build a rocket-stove-bread-oven in one day.
I’m always very excited to do workshops like this. Thank you to all the motivated people and persistent people who collected materials and joined in.

I spent a few days in Saint Étienne, where I met a bunch of kind and engaged people. I’m sure it wasn’t the last time for me to visit.

Volcano landscapes in Ardèche 

Due to ongoing restrictions in France, my residency at Polymorphe got postponed. Instead, I’m discovering the national parks of France. I made my way through the Pilat next to Saint Étienne, and found myself in a beautiful landscape created by volcanos and shaped by glaciers, the Ardèche. I stayed to take a few days off.

Tour à Eau by Gilles Clément 

Two years ago I met Gilles Clément in Paris. Last week I came across his work in Ardèche, almost by accident. It’s a water tower made from solid rock, that collects water on the inside. It is located right next to the source of the Loire river next to the Mont Gerbier de Jonc, exactly on the line separating the streams going either to the Atlantic or to the Mediterranean Sea.

Baking bread in Boussoulet

After meeting her in Saint Étienne, I visited Clémence in Boussoulet, a village located in the low mountains of the Haute Loire departement. She is currently doing a CAP Boulangerie (bakery apprenticeship).
In Boussoulet, every two weeks, she bakes bread together with another baker, Manon.

In this region, even small villages have their own bread oven. They are maintained by the village community and managed as common property. Anyone with “smoke coming out of the chimney 6 months a year” is free to use them. 

The three of us baked 50kg of sourdough bread, 10kg of Brioche and 5kg of Baguette.

La Garde-Guérin 

Next to the medieval village La Garde-Guérin which is located on the top of a huge canyon carved by the Chassezac river, I found a parking with good data reception. From here I am writing this newsletter, and preparing the upcoming workshops, constructions and lectures in June and July. In between I take little hikes down the canyon or over the fields.

Until next time,
Dani

+4915238478321
log.danielparnitzke.de
Instagram: danipar__