Guidance for planning a physical space where a neighborhood learns, solves problems, and runs its own AI tools. Written with a historic community campus in mind (such as the LAMP campus in Kansas City), but general enough for a library branch, community center, or church hall.
What a hub is for
- A room for Learn and Solve sessions. This is the core. Everything else is optional.
- Open hours where neighbors can get one-on-one help: checking a suspicious message, reading a city notice, drafting a letter.
- A home for local AI hardware, so tools run on site under community rules.
- A public wall (physical and online) showing problems raised, next steps, and what got resolved.
Space checklist
Learning room
- Seats 25, movable tables (clinics need small groups)
- Large screen or projector visible from every seat
- A long blank wall for sticky-note clinics
- Step-free access, accessible restroom, good lighting, acoustic control
- Reliable Wi-Fi sized for 30 devices at once
Help desk / open hours corner
- Two or three seats side by side (people help people, not across a counter)
- A shared screen, a printer
Equipment closet or cabinet
- Lockable, ventilated, not in a public room
- Dedicated 20A circuit if it will hold a GPU workstation or server
- Wired network drop, space for a UPS battery backup
- Room to grow from one workstation to a small rack
Public wall
- A visible board for the problem log and commitments
Planning construction (for spaces being renovated)
If a building is being renovated, it's much cheaper to plan for these now than to retrofit:
- Extra electrical capacity and a dedicated circuit in the equipment room
- Cooling or ventilation for the equipment room (a GPU workstation can put out as much heat as a space heater)
- Conduit for network runs between the learning room, help desk, and equipment room
- Enough outlets in the learning room for 25 people to charge phones and laptops
- Blocking in walls for a large display and a sticky-note wall
Governance
A hub should have a short written operating agreement covering:
- Who holds keys and admin passwords (at least two people)
- Open hours and who staffs them
- What the hardware may and may not be used for (Safety Doctrine)
- How residents can see what data exists and request deletion
- How decisions are made about new tools (use the Pilot Rubric)
- What happens to equipment and data if the program ends (recommended: data deleted, hardware donated)
A sensible sequence
- Run Learn and Solve in any decent room. Prove demand.
- Add open hours with loaner devices and cloud tools used carefully.
- Add a single local workstation once a real tool needs it.
- Scale hardware only when usage justifies it.