ssociated Press | Blackwater, Missouri | May 24, 2440
BLACKWATER, Mo. — A week after the first families moved into Blackwater 17, the neighborhood has developed a problem familiar to communities everywhere: children are visiting one another, residents are making plans for their gardens, and somebody is always looking for a person who was supposed to be home ten minutes ago.
For the V’ren families who spent their first days on Earth in temporary accommodations at Camp 17, those are welcome problems.
The first households moved into their new homes on May 17. Seven days later, the streets have acquired children’s bicycles, porch furniture, flowerpots, visiting neighbors, and the beginnings of a community whose residents have considerably more freedom to arrange their lives than they enjoyed aboard the Kalnareth.
The houses themselves are unusual, even by the extraordinary standards of the past three weeks.
Blackwater 17 contains 156 detached houses, built as part of Marmaduke Inc.’s evaluation of different residential designs and construction methods. The principal development contains 144 houses arranged across twelve residential blocks, twelve houses per block. Another twelve larger houses occupy positions along one side of the development, arranged three to a block side. These are large-house prototypes, including eight-bedroom homes and designs with even greater sleeping capacity, constructed for evaluation rather than immediate mass production.
The neighborhood is effectively a residential laboratory, although the people living in it are becoming increasingly interested in ordinary domestic matters rather than experimental construction.
Eleven Designs, Many Different Households
The houses illustrate how differently the same fundamental problem can be approached.
Krieger Littleton, fifteen, lives in a narrow, three-story modern house with 3,429 square feet, four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, and a two-car garage. Its upper levels include balconies, an office, and flexible living space.
Across the street, the Rell family occupies a strikingly different six-bedroom design. Its 3,770 square feet of living space are distributed across two residential floors above a large four-car garage. Both residential levels contain kitchens, living areas, laundry facilities, and bedrooms, allowing different parts of an extended household considerable independence.
Gith Dral’s family home offers another arrangement. The five-bedroom, 4,670-square-foot residence has much of its principal living and entertaining space on the upper floor, including a large kitchen, dining space, music area, and covered terrace. Bedrooms occupy several levels, while a lower recreation room and theater provide additional shared space.
At the other end of the scale is community director Fallon’s house. His Craftsman-style residence contains approximately 8,903 square feet, eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and a three-car garage. Its extensive communal spaces include a great room, recreation and games areas, media facilities, and outdoor gathering spaces. Six houses were built using that particular large-home design.
The homes are not simply cosmetic variations. Their layouts test different arrangements for larger households, shared spaces, private rooms, and multigenerational living. That diversity is especially relevant to the V’ren, whose family structures and household needs do not necessarily correspond to the assumptions built into conventional human housing.
For the families now occupying the development, however, the immediate questions have become more personal: Which bedroom has the better windows? Where should the family eat? Is the upstairs living room for everybody? And why does a child who finally has a bedroom of her own still insist on spending most of the afternoon at someone else’s house?
From Blackwater to Leta
Blackwater’s varied designs also provide an interesting comparison with construction at Leta, where the housing program has taken a deliberately different direction.
At Leta, planners considered three detached-house designs and selected one standardized six-bedroom house for production. The model is intended to be repeated across residential blocks, with twelve houses per block and consistent locations for utilities and installations. Rather than adjusting construction procedures for numerous floor plans, crews can repeat the same installation process as they move through successive buildings and settlements.
Blackwater 17 tests residential variety. Leta tests how efficiently a standardized home can be constructed, finished, and occupied on a much larger scale. Both approaches have value, and the lessons learned from Blackwater’s larger residences may influence future developments. Some of its eight-bedroom prototypes are already being considered as possibilities for the planned North Park Community, although no decision to reproduce them there has been announced.
Meanwhile, Blackwater’s first apartment building is still under construction. It is scheduled to be ready May 31, adding another prototype to the evaluation program and another housing option for residents.
The People Running the Place
Fallon, nineteen, is responsible for the broader community operation. A year working under Dave Roxas provided experience, but Blackwater is presenting a different collection of responsibilities. Residents now have private homes, individual schedules, and plenty of opinions about what their neighborhood needs.
Gith Dral serves as activities director, assisted by Krieger Littleton. Krieger helped organize Camp 17 during the emergency housing operation that followed the V’ren arrival. His new responsibilities are less concerned with locating beds and more concerned with giving people reasons to leave them.
Children’s activities, music gatherings, and recreational planning are already generating considerable interest. Krieger is quick to point out that he works for Gith. That distinction has not prevented residents from asking him questions about everything from musical instruments to neighborhood activities.
Slaivo Praech, responsible for groundskeeping, faces a different challenge. Residents are beginning to establish their own gardens and outdoor spaces, sometimes with more enthusiasm than experience. Freshly planted landscaping is particularly attractive to children, who have yet to develop the same appreciation for newly established grass that the maintenance staff possesses.
For families accustomed to tightly managed shipboard surroundings, the chance to decide what should grow outside their own doors is proving popular.
A Place for Children to Grow Up
Perhaps the most important difference between Camp 17 and Blackwater 17 is what happens when the adults finish their work. Children are beginning to establish routines and friendships independent of their parents’ assignments.
Families who met in the camp are maintaining those connections, while neighbors who barely knew one another aboard the Kalnareth are becoming acquainted over meals, visits, and shared activities. The same children who once relied on organized camp gatherings now have friends they can visit along the street.
Sira Rell and Krieger are among the young residents helping bridge that change. Krieger’s house has already become familiar to visiting friends, although its three floors provide him with considerably more space than he has found time to organize. His dog, Pedro, has also attracted an enthusiastic following.
The larger point is visible throughout the neighborhood. Residents are no longer simply waiting for officials to tell them where to sleep, eat, or spend their evenings. They are making arrangements with one another. That doesn’t eliminate the need for community management. It changes what the managers are being asked to do.
What Comes Next
Blackwater 17 is not finished. Beyond the apartment prototype scheduled for May 31, the community’s planned recreational additions include an athletic and community hall, a baseball field, and Little League fields.
Those facilities will expand opportunities for sports, organized recreation, community gatherings, and activities that require more space than a private home or residential street can provide. They will also give Gith and Krieger a considerably larger calendar to organize.
But much of the community’s social life is already developing without waiting for those buildings. Neighbors are visiting one another. Children are organizing games. Residents are comparing gardens and arranging activities. The differences between the house designs are still attracting attention, and construction personnel continue gathering practical observations about how the homes are being used.
Those findings will matter when decisions are made about future residential construction. Yet a week into occupancy, the most revealing evidence may be what the residents have begun doing without prompting. The houses were built as prototypes. Their residents are treating them as homes.
And the neighborhood that began as an emergency response to the arrival of more than a million extraterrestrial refugees is developing the familiar complications of any small community: schedules, friendships, competing preferences, shared responsibilities, and the occasional disagreement over whose children are supposed to be where.
Blackwater 17 is still an experiment in construction. It is already becoming a place where people know their neighbors.
Social Media Reactions: One Week at Blackwater 17
@Camp17Mama Seven days in our own house. My youngest has already informed me that she intends to marry the boy next door. They’re both six.
@GreenGirlMom Ask whether he’s got a job.
@Camp17Mama Apparently he owns three toy trucks.
@MissouriMom4 Solid financial foundation. Let the negotiations proceed.
@KriegerLittletonFan Krieger Littleton is fifteen, has a three-story house, a girlfriend, a dog, and two jobs if you count school. At fifteen I was delighted when somebody let me borrow the car.
@LittletonCousin He doesn’t have two jobs. He’s Gith’s assistant.
@KriegerLittletonFan School is absolutely a job when you’re fifteen.
@DogsofMissouri Pedro is the only one in that house with a reasonable workload.
@ArchitectureAfterDark The Rell family house has TWO KITCHENS. I have never wanted a floor plan more.
@DivorcedDadMO Imagine arguing with your spouse and being able to go upstairs to make another dinner.
@VrenGrandmother Imagine not having to argue because everyone can cook what they want.
@ArchitectureAfterDark You have both just sold me this house harder than the architect did.
@FallonFan2440 Fallon’s house has eight bedrooms, a games room, media room, exercise room, and enough square footage to get lost looking for your socks. Meanwhile, he’s running a community at nineteen.
@FloorPlanCollector I want the basement.
@PracticalParent I want whoever cleans the basement.
@FallonFan2440 I want to know whether Fallon has found time to unpack.
@GithDralAppreciation Gith’s house has a home theater, a music space, and a covered terrace. She also organizes community activities. I foresee a scheduling conflict between people wanting to use the theater and Gith wanting an evening off.
@BlackwaterParent Please don’t volunteer her house for community events.
@ChoirNerd I was only going to ask about the music room.
@GithDralAppreciation And this is how the scheduling conflict begins.
@OldSchoolBuilder I want to know which house gave the construction crew the biggest headache. Not the most expensive one. The one that made somebody throw a wrench and go home.
@StructuralEngineer The answer will probably surprise you.
@ElectricianWithOpinions It’ll be whichever architect forgot electricians exist.
@OldSchoolBuilder So, all twelve designs are tied?
@LetaResident I have seen photos of seventeen different kitchens this morning. I have one question: when can I move into mine?
@LetaConstruction They’re working on it.
@LetaResident I know. I’m excited, not complaining.
@KitchenEnvy Speak for yourself. I’m complaining about the one with TWO refrigerators. I want that one.
@NorthParkWatcher If North Park gets some of those enormous houses, can we please have trees planted before people move in? A mansion in an empty field looks like a corporate headquarters having an identity crisis.
@LandscapeArchitect Mature landscaping changes everything.
@FutureNorthParkResident I’ll take the mansion and wait for the trees.
@NorthParkWatcher Fine. But we’re planting something before you install your third television.
@Blackwater17Local Someone needs to establish neighborhood rules about visiting. Yesterday I answered my door and found four children who wanted to know whether I had any dogs.
@PetOwnerMO Do you?
@Blackwater17Local No.
@PetOwnerMO Then I’m afraid you’ve failed your first neighborhood inspection.
@CivilEngineeringNerd The actual achievement here is making a dozen architectural designs work with unfamiliar building technology. I want to see the conversion software.
@BuildingCodeNerd I want to see the inspection records.
@ArchitectOnDeadline I want to know whether the software complains about stair placement.
@CivilEngineeringNerd I want to know whether the software complains about architects.
@ApartmentLifeForever I’ll take the apartment opening on May 31, thanks. I don’t need eight bedrooms, a three-car garage, or a personal relationship with my lawn.
@BigHouseStan But think of all the space!
@ApartmentLifeForever Space for what? Collecting furniture?
@MinimalistMissouri Some of us prefer being able to vacuum the entire home before lunch.
@BlackwaterBaseball Forget the houses. When do we get those Little League fields? I’ve got three kids asking whether V’ren know how to play baseball.
@VrenDad My daughter says she wants to try catching.
@YouthCoachMO Tell her to bring a glove when the program starts.
@VrenDad She wants to know why catching requires special clothing. This may take a while.
@SlaivoSupporter Slaivo Praech has been responsible for the landscaping for ONE WEEK and residents are already experimenting with private gardens. I hope somebody gave her a very large supply budget.
@GardenClubMO Somebody planted flowers too close together near my sister’s house.
@VrenNewGardener How close is too close?
@GardenClubMO Send me a picture. We can fix it before Slaivo sees it.
@HousePlanAddict Fallon’s giant Craftsman next to those tall modern houses must be an architectural experience. I’d pay admission just to walk down the street.
@ModernistArchitect The Craftsman looks like it belongs in another century.
@TraditionalHomeFan It’s a beautiful house. Yours looks like a shipping container.
@HousePlanAddict Excellent. Blackwater has already developed its first homeowners’ aesthetic feud.
@VrenMotherFour My daughters have discovered that they can shut their bedroom doors. They have now discovered that their sisters can knock on those doors. We’re making progress.
@HumanMomOfFive Wait until they discover locks.
@VrenMotherFour Don’t you dare.
@HumanMomOfFive Parenting is a series of unfortunate technological discoveries.
@MissouriSmallBusiness Somebody needs to open a bakery near Blackwater 17. I don’t care how advanced the construction equipment is. People still want something warm with their morning coffee.
@VrenRetailWorker My wife wants to open a small shop someday. She’s studying the requirements.
@BakeryObsessed Does she bake?
@VrenRetailWorker No. She intends to sell things other people bake. She’s quite sensible.
@ShowMeTaxpayer I understand testing building technology. I understand housing refugees. I do not understand why the prototype neighborhood looks more expensive than most wealthy suburbs.
@HousingEconomist Appearance and construction cost aren’t the same measurement.
@ShowMeTaxpayer Then I’d like the actual measurement.
@ConstructionAccountant That is a considerably better question than judging a budget from the front porch.
@SoutheastAlliancePolitics There’s going to be a lot of interest in Blackwater from governments looking at their own housing shortages. You can practically hear the delegations requesting tours.
@RegionalPolitics And people asking why their governments haven’t delivered anything comparable.
@AllianceCitizen Because building houses is easier than getting permission to build houses?
@RegionalPolitics Depends who owns the land, who controls the permits, and who you’re allowed to annoy.
@GossipFromColumbia I’m fascinated that Krieger lives across the street from Sira’s family. Did the housing people do that on purpose?
@FreeholdTeen Families knowing one another isn’t exactly a conspiracy.
@GossipFromColumbia I didn’t say conspiracy. I said interesting.
@SiraDefenseSquad I give it another hour before you start diagramming the street with hearts.
@VrenArchitecture I’m curious how the Rell household will actually use two full residential floors. They may discover arrangements nobody anticipated when selecting the design.
@HumanHousingDesigner Which is the value of occupying prototypes instead of leaving them empty.
@VrenResident Or they may simply decide the upper kitchen is better.
@VrenArchitecture And then everyone goes upstairs for dinner. The research findings will be devastating.
@OldManBlackwater I’m old enough to remember when the most exciting thing around here was somebody putting up a new barn. Now we’ve got extraterrestrial families moving into houses with rooftop terraces.
@LocalHistoryBuff Blackwater’s going to have some interesting history books.
@OldManBlackwater I hope somebody remembers the old stuff too.
@LocalHistoryBuff That’s why we’re still writing it down.
@VrenYouth2440 People keep talking about how large the houses are. I’m more interested in the planned community hall. Are there going to be music performances? Clubs? Dances?
@BlackwaterTeen Somebody needs to organize a dance.
@VrenYouth2440 I’ll help.
@BlackwaterTeen Excellent. We’ve formed a committee. Now we need somebody who knows how to organize one.
@SalineCountyGossip I’m sorry, but I remain fascinated by the fact that some very well-connected people are ending up in extremely nice houses while everyone assures me this is all perfectly ordinary.
@FreeholdLocal Who told you it was ordinary? It’s a prototype development.
@SalineCountyGossip That explanation gets more convenient every time.
@BlackwaterResident You’re welcome to complain about my house. Just don’t expect me to invite you into it.
@AntiMarmadukeClub Matthew Marmaduke has discovered a remarkable political technique: build everyone a nice house and suddenly nobody wants to discuss who actually holds power.
@ColumbiaPoliticalWatch People are discussing that constantly.
@AntiMarmadukeClub Not as loudly as they’re discussing kitchen islands.
@HousePlanAddict I’ve seen your political commentary. The kitchen islands are more interesting.
@TrollFromColumbia So we’ve got alien refugees living in giant houses, a fifteen-year-old helping run activities, a nineteen-year-old managing the community, and a dog apparently enjoying a better lifestyle than me. Missouri has officially lost its mind.
@Blackwater17Resident Most of us are just unpacking and trying to remember our neighbors’ names.
@TrollFromColumbia Does the dog at least pay rent?
@DogsofMissouri Pedro contributes more to neighborhood morale than your entire account.
