A sad loss permeates the excitement behind the recent news (here + here) of N55’s revolutionary, low cost, high design, sci-fi, geodesic Micro Dwellings—namely that artist Ingvil Aarbakke, a key member of N55, died late last month.

According to her obituary in The Guardian:

The artist Ingvil Aarbakke, who has died of cancer at the age of 35, was, with her husband Ion Sorvin, the moving force behind the Copenhagen-based collective N55. She thus made a central contribution to its aim of questioning and transforming the practices of everyday existence through a thoughtful, radical approach to the exercise of her gifts.

Named after both a street address and the latitude of Copenhagen, N55 came into being with its half dozen members sharing their living space and holding all things in common, with the minimal of “private life” or property. The challenge to private property was focused through the need to preserve and extend the public domain; N55 holds that material objects ought to be shared and saved from the constraints of private ownership. Rights and power – above all, the right to resist the power of ownership – are central to the group’s endeavours.

An argument could be made that the notion and practice of private property attempts to preserve the conceptual separation between self and other, the world outside. Meanwhile, a conversely related argument could be made that many paranormal events, like the siddhis described by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras, happen when this distinction is punctured, when differences between ourselves and the world outside dissolve.

N55 researches, designes, documents, and provides manuals for smart, pragmatic ways to create enviroments and mechanisms for life which conducive for this type of growth. They continue to contribute beautiful, practical, evolutionary ideas that solve real world problems in down to earth ways. Generously, these solutions are offered at no cost, free of copyright, into the public domain.

Best wishes and prayers towards the continuation of their great work.