This was my first party as the new Zeta House Community Steward since arriving in late December 2025, and I wanted it to make a splash. The idea first came to me a few months ago and I floated the idea of having a live jazz band to some friends involved in the UT Austin School of Music, and their answer was unanimous: You need Genesis. So I spoke with her, and hired her immediately.

I knew I couldn't throw it on Mardi Gras itself becuase, well... its a Tuesday. The Saturday before was Valentines, so that wouldn't work, but how about that Friday? Well it was the 13th, and I thought, how perfect! Let's lean in to that famous New Orleans Voodoo Charm.

We decked out the house in purple, green and gold, hung string lights in the yard, set out the charcuterie, set up the bonfire, helped the musicians set up with their instruments, stuck a coin in our King's Cake, strapped on our best (read: cheapest available on Amazon) masquerade masks, made my uncle Chispy's sangria... and by the time we finished blowing up the last baloon, friends started arriving.

An hour later, Genesis and her friends starting playing for us as we relaxed around the bonfire. We had a singer, a trumpeter, and an upright bass set up on the back porch under the string lights, and we kept the doors open so the music just drifted through the house. The trumpet under warm lights, the bass humming, her voice carrying through the yard... it made everything feel slower and richer and a little romantic.

Afterwards, we cut the King's Cake and crowned our Master of Mischief for the night. And of course it ended up being a friend of mine, the lead singer of a local band. He leaned into it immediately, fully embodied his role, wore the crown like it was ordained, and then (this is my favorite part!) wore it to their show the following week. I'm still waiting for pictures...

The jazz trio is what really made the whole night feel transported, though.

People kept floating between the kitchen and the porch, drinks in hand, half listening to a story inside and then getting pulled back out by the music. It stopped feeling like Zeta and started feeling like someone's backyard in NOLA.

We had tarot readings going in one corner too, which I love because it subtly derails normal party conversations. Someone pulls a card and suddenly they're talking about life cycles and reinvention and risk instead of quarterly goals. It just adds depth. Whether you believe in it or not doesn't matter! It was really fun.

We told some ghost stories by the fire as we roasted marshmallows, and the best storyteller won a lucky gris-gris bag.

The whole night was so much fun. Just jazz under string lights, a coin hidden in cake, a mischievous frontman claiming his title, tarot cards flipping over on a wooden table, smoke from the bonfire in everyone's hair, and a house that felt genuinely alive for a few hours.

That's that voodoo that I like to do...

... so well!

More to follow!

-- Christina

Zeta House Community Manager

Event signup: https://luma.com/nh7e3re6

See photos of our 2024 event here: https://zeta.house/events/2024-friendsgiving-at-zeta-house

Guests are encouraged to bring something: food, music, vibes. Just let us know what you're bringing so we don't end up with six different sweet potato casseroles.

This isn't just about a meal. Friendsgiving is our annual gathering at the physical anchor of our work, the structure and land that makes it possible to run the kind of deep, long-term technical and social experiments that can't happen in some rented coworking cube farm.

While we feast, we'll also be launching something new: the Protocol Embassy.

Zeta House already attracts high-agency people. Not just people who want to build startups, but people who want to build civilization. Folks who are not content to play within the current rules, but are designing new ones.

The Protocol Embassy is a 1 - 3 month off-season residency in Austin. It's not a lecture series. It's not YC for protocols. It's an embodied dialectic and practice — fully integrated into daily life at Zeta House. Because trust systems, identity layers, capital flows — they don't live in figma boards. They live in fridges, electric panels, community calendars, and broken internet routers.

We're not building another startup school. Those optimize for gatekeeping certifications or how to plug into centralized capital. The Protocol Embassy teaches how to redirect capital flows toward decentralized protocols. No more learning how to impress VCs. We're here to make them irrelevant.

The new playbook: Proof over Promises

• The Strategy (The Quiet Takeover) Centralized platforms like AWS or GitHub are delivery trucks. They move data. We overlay logic, trust, and identity on top of them — slowly replacing their guts with protocol-native components. Eventually the platform becomes the dumb edge, and protocol logic becomes the actual core.

• The Currency (Proof, not Pitch Decks) Protocol Embassy teaches how to produce economic receipts: cryptographic proof that you did a thing, and that it worked. These aren’t logs — they’re assets. They plug into capital protocols, where the math pays the outcome. No VCs. No permission. Just settlement based on proof.

• The Engine (Agency) Agency is what this all runs on. Not the "empowerment" kind. The kind where you produce coherent, durable structure in a chaotic world. Agency that shows up when your systems hit real-world constraints: plumbing, politics, timing, entropy. That's why the Embassy is embodied — you live the thing.

This isn't an idea. It's already starting. The first Protocol Embassy residency will be piloted right here during Austin's off-season, folded into Zeta House's ongoing experiments with access control, energy receipts, and verifiable trust.

The result? Protocol Blueprints — replicable, bankable, auditable infrastructure that can attract mission-aligned capital. Not just ideas. Working receipts.

Come for the turkey. Stay for the protocol takeover.

We're catering authentic Texas BBQ (brisket, sausage, chicken, sides). If you'd like to bring a favorite dish to share, please do, contributions are welcome but not required. Tell us any dietary needs when you RSVP.

Event Signup: https://luma.com/ryiu0mvo

Some highlights from the past year:

• Zeta House welcomed more than 50 residents to Austin
• We use more than 2x the electricity of the average Texas home (and yes, we know)
• We started the conversation on running a Protocol Embassy at Zeta House
• Expansion and construction plans are under way (more rooms, better infra)
• And we identified Texas as a special economic zone for energy experiments
• We have adopted Luma as our event calendar for now: https://luma.com/calendar/manage/cal-gfH5rCWFLBuEiwY

Now, about that Protocol Embassy...

The Protocol Embassy isn't just a cute name, it's where things get real. It's where digital trust stops being a slide deck and becomes receipt rails, signed logs, and provable outcomes. Think of it as the infrastructure layer of governance made physical: adapters, specs, datasets, all wired into a real house with real power bills, real access control, real community SLAs. We think wrotocol Schools is the next evolution of Hacker Schools and Startup Schools, but focused on generative resilience than just tool usage and capital extraction.

Zeta House will become one the visible nodes on the emerging Atlas of Embassies - a grid of places experimenting with verifiable systems. A Protocol Embassy isn't a co-living space with a Discord server, it's a replicable unit: receipts, trust OS, working artifacts. What happens here is meant to be forked.

We've been drawing inspiration from places like the Penang Skills Development Centre, which taught us that hybrid R&D-residency models can work if they're plugged into local manufacturing and energy sectors. Imagine PSDC crossed with an anarchist hacker house, plus signed receipts.

The next phase of Zeta House turns it into a true protocol node: a public interface where your energy experiment, lease agreement, or identity adapter can be minted into a verifiable receipt. Residents won't just live here, they'll ship proofs, specs, and acceptance-tested adapters. It's like devrel, but for infrastructure that hits the real world.

There's more to say soon, about retrofitting the house for signed access control, about embedding protocol schools inside our calendar, about running a Seapunk-style Proto-College drill right here on site.

But for now, come by for the BBQ.

The first lesson was that the physical house is a formidable opponent. In project management, there's a well-known principle: you must budget for both the "known unknowns" and the "unknown unknowns." The latter can easily blow up a budget, and we learned this firsthand. American housing construction, with its famously "thin walls," presents a unique challenge for coliving, where creating acoustic comfort is a prerequisite for sanity. This is an example of path dependency. Once capital is deployed into concrete and wiring, you are on a set course, and your ability to pivot becomes constrained. Often we will receive suggestions or advice about increasing comfort, but this must be balanced with managing risk.

This is also where location becomes strategic. While the national insurance market faces volatility, Austin is a pocket of relative stability. According to FEMA's National Risk Index, Travis County has a "Relatively Low" risk profile for the catastrophic natural disasters that plague many other American cities, primarily because it sits far inland from the coast and outside of major fault lines. This is reinforced by its social safety. Austin consistently ranks as one of the safest large cities in the U.S. with a violent crime rate significantly below the national average. While our biggest climate risk is undoubtedly Texas's extreme summer heat, this is a manageable engineering challenge. This overall stability allows us to focus our energy on building durable social infrastructure, confident that our physical substrate is on solid ground.

The physical house is just the substrate. Our hypothesis has been that we could build something more than just an onboarding ramp to Austin. But building a durable community is not a goal you can achieve by checking off a list. It is an ongoing concern, a careful balancing act of incremental investment and supporting structures.

The real magic is in the emergent, self-started culture that the residents create. We can provide the structure, but we cannot ritualize spontaneous connection. The energy of the house ultimately depends on the people who live here. We've seen this in the spontaneous weekend pickleball and volleyball rivalries, the late-night pool competitions, and the late-night sessions at the nearby Mendez basketball court, shooting hoops while sharing business ideas. We've had countless shared meals, and on one memorable night, one resident crafted meaningful Chinese names for our non-Chinese residents, weaving our diverse backgrounds into a shared story. These moments are not coordinated by a manager. They arise organically from the friendship networks that form in a high-trust environment.

This social experiment is taking place at the epicenter of America's next great expansion. As of 2025, Texas ranks No. 1 in the nation for cumulative megaproject activity, with more than $200 billion already in motion. From Samsung's approximately $45 billion chip factory outside Austin and Tesla's 5-million-square-foot Giga Texas complex (21000+ employees), to SpaceX's rapidly growing Starbase on the Gulf Coast, which has attracted over $3 billion in investment and employs roughly 3,400 people, and TI's $30 billion Sherman fabs. Those headline builds act like economic super-magnets: last year Austin startups pulled in $4.5 billion in venture capital (including a record $1 billion week in Q1 2025), the metro's tech workforce has grown 29% since 2018, and more than 90 coworking venues now offer roughly seven desks for every 100,000 residents. That concentration of capital, talent and flexible workspace is what really powers the city: the daily swirl of AI founders refining models for Samsung, digital marketers shaping Tesla campaigns, filmmakers crafting launch stories for SpaceX, and remote analysts crunching data for the next solar-battery or green-hydrogen play, all within a few kilometres of each other.

This vibrant context brings us to the economic reality of the house. Our all-inclusive membership, with rates that become more competitive with 6- and 12-month stays, is designed to abstract away the friction and hidden costs of modern life. When you sign a traditional lease for an apartment, the headline price is just the beginning. You still have to pay for utilities (electricity, water, gas), which can be another $240 per month. Basic fiber internet is another $70, plus the ongoing cost and hassle of furnishing a space, cleaning and maintaining those furnishings (if you've used AirBnB, you know how hit and miss living "equipment" can be!). Unlike many other short-term coliving spaces, our room's minimalism are in fact designed for resident customisation. For the many entrepreneurs, remote workers, and creatives who live with us, the dedicated office space they use can be tax-deductible, offering a significant financial advantage. These advantages also compound into the future, with additional investment being planned to create a central courtyard.

But the true value extends beyond the numbers. Our location in the heart of East Austin means residents can walk to events, restaurants, parks, and grocery stores. This walkability saves not just money, but time. It replaces a dangerous commute with spontaneous encounters and neighborhood belonging. The energy of a connected community and a vibrant, walkable neighborhood is a priceless asset in a world that is becoming increasingly isolated.

This brings us to a deeper theory of community. The next wave of technology, especially AI, promises a world perfectly tailored to each of us. It can create a pocket dimension of endless personal enjoyment, a simulation tuned only to our desires. But a world where every person is the sovereign of their own private reality is a world where we have no shared reality left. It is the ultimate local optimum, a planet of lonely gods. Community is the opposite of this. It is messy, full of friction, and beautifully unpredictable. It demands that we tune into frequencies other than our own. Here, we embrace a core belief: friction is not a bug to be engineered away. It is a feature. It is the resistance that forces growth, the grit that creates connection, and the shared challenge that forges trust.

At Zeta House, we are not trying to build a frictionless paradise like automated Airbnbs. We are building an arena for practicing the difficult but essential art of being human, together. One day in the future, we may release an Orion Protocol, an open-source toolkit to help others create these kinds of integrated communities where life and work are woven back together.

The U.S. Surgeon General has declared a national epidemic of loneliness and isolation. This is the quiet crisis that defines our time. We believe the antidote is not a top-down program nor a drug you can ingest, nor a new app, but the patient work of building interconnected, high-trust, high-agency enclaves that act as lifeboats and laboratories. These are spaces where people can stop being passive consumers and instead become stakeholders in their own lives. A place where their contributions have a direct and visible impact, and the reward is a sense of purpose, not just a paycheck. This is the true alternative to a future of quiet alienation. Zeta House is our attempt to do just that. It is a place designed for the builders, the thinkers, and the quiet heroes who are ready to take responsibility for crafting a more durable future, starting with themselves. If this mission resonates, you'll know where to find us.

In any shared space, there is a natural drift towards one of two extremes: the sterile silence of a multi-room Airbnb where no one speaks to each other, or the low-grade chaos of a share-house where nobody owns the outcome. Early on at Zeta House, we saw this tension firsthand. We realized that coordinating the complex, overlapping needs of a high-functioning household requires more than a remote landlord or a group chat. It requires an onsite presence with the authority and trust to make real-time decisions. This isn't about top-down control. It's about creating the conditions for a community to self-organize without succumbing to entropy.

This led us to design a Community Steward role that would operate across three critical layers:

1. The Physical Layer: This is the most visible work. A Steward is the first line of defense against the realities of a physical house: a smart lock that needs a new battery, the fridge water filter needs replacement, a hailstorm that triggers a power outage, or a missed recycling bin collection. They are responsible for ensuring the house is not just functional, but a place of durability and comfort.

   

   

2. The Digital Layer: Zeta House runs on a stack of technology, from smart-home devices to backend software orchestration, and internal communication tools. This creates what we call "IoT tech debt." The Steward helps manage this complexity, ensuring our digital tools serve the community rather than creating friction. The Steward is also capable of physically overriding when the technology fails (and if you think software is buggy, wait till you need to deal with software-hardware synthesis!).

   

   

3. The Social Layer: This is the most important surface. A Steward isn't a front-desk clerk, they are an encourager, a connector, and a culture-setter. They onboard new residents, ensuring they feel welcomed into a community, not just assigned a bed. They mediate the inevitable interpersonal friction that arises from shared living. Such friction when navigated constructively, drives immense personal growth. For example, at Zeta House we've had plenty of candid and meaningful discussions about the state of the world between the residents, and these are often the most engaging interactions at the house, especially when our residents come from diverse backgrounds, but overwhelmingly seek meaningful experiences. The Steward sets the ground rules for shared facilities and gently enforce them, acting as the embodiment of our social contract.

This is why the Steward must live here. Authority at Zeta House flows from proximity and trust, not a title on an org chart. You cannot steward a community from a distance. You have to feel its rhythm. This is a fundamental departure from the high-churn, transactional "community manager" model seen in many large-scale coliving brands. Those roles often burn out because they lack deep, personal investment. Our model is different. The Steward will have skin in the game. Their reward is the agency to shape their own living environment and the capital they build through their contributions. This creates a durable, aligned incentive structure.

Today, we're formalizing this role by appointing one of our most experienced and trusted residents to take on these responsibilities. This isn't a job posting or a corporate hiring process. It's a delegation of trust to someone who has already demonstrated a deep commitment to the health of our community.

While this is a founder-appointed role, we are always scouting for residents who embody the qualities of a steward. We are looking for a specific archetype: a builder-host who is as comfortable debugging a network switch as they are mediating a house meeting. Someone who understands that a well-run home is the stable substrate upon which a vibrant community can grow. If you are a high-agency individual who thrives on turning chaos into order, and who sees community as a practice and not a commodity, then Zeta House is waiting for you. We are building a new way of living, and we are looking for the people who will help us write the playbook.

If you lived in Texas during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, you already know: a winter storm can be more than just inconvenient, it can be catastrophic. Millions of homes were left without power for days as the grid failed under the stress of extreme cold. At Zeta House, those events have been a guidepost for how we prepare for winter storms now.

While our current systems, like redundant heaters, HVAC units, and heavy-duty insulation, keep us comfortable during regular winter weather, we're taking lessons from Uri to future-proof Zeta House against the rare but severe storms that push infrastructure to its limits. One area we're actively researching is the integration of propane generators. Propane offers reliable off-grid power and can keep critical systems (like heating, refrigeration, and communications) running during prolonged outages. The goal is simple: Zeta House should be as self-sufficient as possible, even during worst-case scenarios. Uri taught us what can happen when backup plans aren't enough. We don't intend to repeat those mistakes.

While research into propane generators is part of our long-term planning, Zeta House is already equipped to handle typical winter conditions with ease. Here's what goes into our winterization strategy:

• Redundant Heating Systems: Our dual heating and HVAC systems ensure uninterrupted comfort. If one unit fails, another takes over.
• Insulation for the Win: Six feet of spray foam insulation means our interior stays a consistent 30°F warmer than the outside temperature.
• CO2 Monitoring: Sealed spaces are great for energy efficiency, but they also need fresh air circulation. Our CO2 monitors alert us when it's time to vent, ensuring the air inside remains breathable without sacrificing warmth.
• Dripping Taps: Our community manager ensures faucets are dripping during freezes to prevent pipe bursts, one of the most common (and expensive) winter headaches.
• Sealing Drafts: We've inspected and sealed every door and window gap to lock in warmth and block out the chill.

Outside, Zeta House's garden might look delicate under its snowy blanket, but it's as tough as Texas gets. Every plant is a native species chosen specifically for its ability to withstand temperatures as low as 20°F. Our garden thrives in extreme conditions while remaining low-maintenance. Sustainable landscaping isn't just about aesthetics, it's about creating systems that can handle whatever nature throws at them.

Preparation isn't just about physical systems. It's about staying informed. Tools like the Windy app gave us advanced warnings about the incoming winter storm accurate to the square kilometer and to the hour. That gave us plenty of time to warn Zeta House residents, stock up on essentials (hot drinks and snacks, obviously), and make final checks on our winterization measures. Early alerts mean less scrambling and more calm—and that's the kind of energy we like to bring to every storm.

As we enjoy this first snow, we're also thinking about how to make Zeta House even more resilient. Propane generators are a big part of that vision, but we're not stopping there. Future upgrades might include battery storage systems or solar integrations to complement our backup power setup. The ultimate goal is a house that doesn't just endure winter storms but thrives through them, completely independent of external power sources if needed.

Winter might bring challenges, but with preparation, technology, and a focus on resilience, it's nothing we can't handle.

Celebrate with us over a festive feast of food and drinks (provided by us), followed by a lively game night and other exciting activities. Feel free to bring a dish or item to share and make the evening even more special.

Learn more about our coliving and coworking offerings at https://zeta.house. Let’s come together to create an unforgettable Friendsgiving experience!

RSVP here: https://partiful.com/e/H0Q8RR0XH4KeatOVmVvR

Wow, what a night! Last Wednesday, Zeta House hosted our very first Friendsgiving, and honestly, it couldn't have gone better. We had amazing people show up, residents, neighbors, and friends, all gathered in our cozy coliving space to share some food, laughs, and great conversations.

We kicked off the night with a feast that was part potluck, part Zeta House-hosted spread. People brought everything from apple cider to congee, cakes, and snacks. It was such a beautiful mix of flavors and styles, and honestly, seeing everyone share what they made (or bought - no shame!) was heartwarming.

The theme that kept coming up throughout the evening? Gratitude. We're all so thankful to be part of this community, and it was clear everyone felt the same. Conversations drifted from the usual catching-up to deeper topics—like what it means to create spaces like Zeta House and how these experimental communities can shape our lives in meaningful ways.

It’s moments like these that remind us why Zeta House exists, to bring people together, not just to live and work but to connect and build something special. We're so grateful to everyone who came out and made this first Friendsgiving such a success.

If you missed it, don’t worry, this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for more events and more reasons to come together. Here’s to building something beautiful, one gathering at a time.

To celebrate, we held a house warming and birthday party at Zeta House.

We invited residents, neighbours, general contractors and all of the friends and partners who helped launch Zeta House.

We now have 6 bedrooms available for rent, 2 bedrooms have ensuites, 2 large bedrooms sharing 1 large bathroom, and 2 smaller rooms sharing 1 smaller bathroom.

We have a large shared kitchen as well as an coworking office and a wrap around deck. Our coworking office is still under development, we are installing new furniture and office amenities like whiteboards and printers.

For now, you can sign up for staying at Zeta House at one of our room listings on AirBnB.

• https://airbnb.com/h/zetahouse-c1
• https://airbnb.com/h/zetahouse-c2
• https://airbnb.com/h/zetahouse-a2
• https://airbnb.com/h/zetahouse-b1
• https://airbnb.com/h/zetahouse-b2

The exploration took us from San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, to eventually Austin with a side of Phoenix and Houston.

Austin surprised us with the density of community, energy and activity, the perfect demographics, favourable legal environment, and an axis of attractions that suited the creation of a coliving and coworking space. The economic macro-trends of Austin and the Texas triangle was also a rising tide for population increase.

There were also several key people located in Austin Texas who had similar ideas and had already setup coliving spaces. These people were critical to solidifying the vague idea of a coliving space into Zeta House.

While the city had the right foundation, the next step was determining the exact property that would work. There were several dimensions we had to consider and constraint-optimize on, and that's how it led us towards setting up in East Austin.

Walkability​

Walking is the most natural mode of transportation for humans. It was critical that one could walk from the property to nature, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, community events and be able to bridge to other kinds of transportation networks. Walkability also implied cycling and scootering was safe and easy.

Walkability is not something you can understand from the map alone. It is necessary to walk the neighborhood from early morning to night, from being in the cold, to being in the heat.

Proximity, quality of the streets, the amount of traffic, level of shade, air quality, feeling of safety at night all factor into walkability.

Being walkable meant that a car was not a necessity. And as we have found out in Zeta House, that the car is not a must-have but instead an optional add on to people's experience if they wanted to visit areas away from the Austin core.

Nature​

The biggest natural feature of Austin is the Colorado River/Town Lake/Lady Bird Lake. This added a significant aesthetic appeal to the city. It was important to be within walking distance of the river.

The lake is formed by dams on each side, and paddle boarding, kayaking, fishing, boating and turtles are significant attractions.

Economics​

Based on our observation, Austin exhibits both technology-oriented economics as well as Texas-oriented economics.

Austin is known as Silicon Hills. It's still a baby compared to San Francisco. But the ground reality is that with the rise of remote work, this doesn't really matter.

Texas also benefits from being a net energy producer and having a border with Mexico enabling lower-cost manufacturing and services. This all contributes to a lower cost of production, enabling more efficient usage of resources.

Incomes would have to be able to support the rental costs of the property, and in turn the rental costs would also have to support the interest costs and property taxes. Austin's median income is currently between 70 to 80,000.

Culture​

Austin feels like a small town community combined with a pursuit of change and growth. As of now (2024) you can still see cranes on its downtown skyscrapers, within 15 minutes drive, you'll see highways still being built. It has very young energy.

East Austin historically was redlined by the I-35 highway, therefore it's development is relatively recent. There are still lots of undeveloped land. East Austin still retains the weirdness of Austin compared to West Austin, which is far more manor-like (bougie). This has created a unique situation where East Austin has suburban-like living but it's walkable to the city downtown.

https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/78702/ - Austin is one of the youngest cities in the US

Productive youth is demographically one the most important signals for future growth.

Hospitality​

The neighbourhood by which a property is located in serves as an extension of the life-support system for the entire population. It's important to avoid monoculture in both natural and artificial ecosystems as it is prone to cascading failure.

Therefore nearby restaurants, bars, clubs, cafes, churches, music, fields, courts, event-spaces would create an environment of diverse activities. This overlapping ecosystem is more like an organic system that avoids urban/suburban deserts that tend to characterise many mass-manufactured suburbs.

Events​

Austin is also known for 4 major events:

1. South by South West (SXSW)
2. Austin City Limits (ACL)
3. Formula 1 United States Grand Prix
4. Trail of Lights

SXSW is an unique event in the US blending Music, Film, Media and Technology. It has a global brand and attracts visitors from the entire world. It's also within walkable distance from East Cesar Chavez.

All these 4 events attract around 400,000 visitors annually.

Public Transportation​

The US has a poor reputation in public transportation for a variety of reasons.

However the only operational train-line (not including inter-state) to downtown ran through East Cesar Chavez to East Austin and further north.

Expansion plans for the transportation network would likely expand using this red line as a starting point.

While these are in the planning stages, if and when they are completed they would enable a much higher density of population in the city core. Especially as the roads in the city core are already gridlocked at rush-hour every day, and that doesn't include all the major events that attract visitors.

Legal Environment​

Texas has no state income tax. It however has one of the highest property taxes in the US. This creates a favourable environment for high-income workers while also forcing the land to be used for productive purposes, instead of being sat-on. Property owners are therefore forced to ensure that the land is used profitably. This creates a dynamism in the land-usage compared to more geriatric states.

There is also contention between local city politics and state politics when it comes to how land owners make use of their property - especially in the case of the short-term rental market. Restrictions are likely to be reduced as population demand for housing increases, and increased desire for density.

The Actual Property Itself​

After all the constraints were considered, 3 main areas in Austin were considered suitable.

Although area 1 (East Cesar Chavez) was considered to to be the area that best fit all dimensions, 2 other areas were considered: West Austin and South West Austin.

In the end, we found the perfect location for Zeta House in East Cesar Chavez.

This was due to to the property itself.

Many single family homes in Texas are built around the single family. However this leads to a particular architectural layout where there is a large master bedroom that takes up a lot of space and many smaller bedrooms.

Zeta House's master bedroom isn't really all that different from the other bedrooms. This meant that it allowed the other bedrooms to still have generous space.

Furthermore, the property possessed a living room that was situated above the kitchen and away from the bedrooms. This created a very nice physical work-life separation.

The property was located on 2 corners, enabling up to 3 ingress/egress points, which was important for further expansion in the future.

Externally the property was very unique. With white stucco walls and castle-like iron fences and gates, arranged in a north-south axis that would enable cross-shade from the hot Texas sun.

https://drajmarsh.bitbucket.io/sunpath3d.html

Internally, the bathroom layout was also suitable to coliving, with large sharable bathrooms and smaller ensuites. Hardwood floors would simplify cleaning and suited natural materials and color pallete.

However the property would need renovation work: rooms, gardening, deck and more, but that will be a topic for a subsequent post.

Coliving is a modern form of communal living where residents share not just physical living spaces but also social and collaborative environments. It combines the practical aspects of shared resources with the flexibility and community-driven ethos often lacking in traditional shared housing arrangements.

Rather than merely reducing per-resident cost by sharing facilities (kitchens, dining rooms, living rooms, bathrooms), coliving focuses on active social engagement between residents and the shared facilities are the physical-platform by which this is achieved. Thus sharing facilities should not be considered a detriment to each resident, but an enhancement to resident lifestyle, economics, and health.

Why do we focus on social engagement, what exactly does this entail?

Social engagement is about is creating trust between resident members to allow residents to work together towards collective-action goals that would otherwise be difficult to achieve alone.

This means engagement can mean any activity to increase trust between residents. Generically the definition of trust is the ability for party to be vulnerable to another party on the presumption that they will act in ways that benefit the trustor.

Check out https://ncase.me/trust/, it's the most intuitive way of explaining trust

To be more specific, many things can increase trust (religion, culture... etc), but Zeta House focuses on these areas of trust (not exclusive-to):

• Entrepreneurship
• Technology
• Startup Society
• Decentralism
• Futurism
• Optionally a strategically ambiguous techno-anarcho-libertarian-alternative mindset

These ideas were inspired by other coliving movements such as the Cabin City - an actualisation of the network state philosophy, and Creators ATX - Christian coliving community based in Austin.

Network State Dashboard

This entails a unique set of social activities at Zeta House that overlaps with other coliving spaces.

• Coworking - is the primary draw (and one of the key additional physical features to the property)
• Meetups (focusing on tech and tech-adjacent concepts)
• Digital Native Events - broadcasting meetups to the internet, and marrying the digital with the physical
• Occasional communal dinners - sharing food has been theorised to lead to the invention of language - occasional eating together shares culture, and people may be less guarded than other scenarios
• Consultation/Advise/Allowing members to share knowledge, skills, concepts, funding, human and financial capital

In particular, the coworking side is the most important social activity in Zeta house. This is why Zeta House is a coliving + coworking site.

Unlike simply a shared office or rented desks, the coworking experience is directly linked to the coliving experience. Every room is assigned a "workspace" in the office room. We distinguish "workspace" from regular desk, because we envision it to be more than just a basic desk.

This means that each workspace becomes dedicated to the resident, and the resident must feel comfortable leaving their valuable equipment in the office.

AI imagined coliving + coworking space

The coworking space represents the key collective action trust-building physical space. Even though residents may be working on their own projects, they collectively can contribute resources towards building things in common or enabling each other's success through sharing skills, knowledge, technology, tools and experience.

Zeta House isn't necessarily right for everybody and every circumstance. Life circumstances change, and residents may grow out of Zeta house. In that case the location represents a phase in people's lives, but an very important, dynamic, engaging and exciting phase. A phase that represents growth.