Community places
Libraries, cultural institutions, parks, and neighbourhood spaces.
Deep Rooted
Return to Presence
A place to sit together. A question worth staying for.
A quieter beginning
We have never had more ways to communicate.
And fewer places designed for a real conversation.
The moments that bring people closer rarely begin with more noise. They begin when there is enough space to notice one another.
Connection cannot be manufactured.
But the conditions around it can be designed.
Deep Rooted creates physical places that invite people to slow down, become present, and discover where a conversation might lead.
Presence comes before connection.
The first embodiment
Introducing the table.
A round table. A shared fire. A simple invitation to begin.
The table is the first form of Deep Rooted: a physical place for meaningful conversation. At its centre is the Hearth, the quiet screen that reveals a conversation starter and then fades back into the fire.
The encounter
One touch. One conversation starter. Then, space.
01Sit together.
Come as you are. No account or preparation is needed.
02Touch the centre.
Someone taps the Hearth, the screen at the centre of the table.
03A conversation starter appears.
A question or short statement is selected from a carefully curated local library and turns toward the person who touched the screen.
04Follow the conversation.
The words quietly disappear back into the fire. The conversation remains.
Made for its place
Every place has its own character.
The questions and short conversation starters shown on the table can be chosen for the people, language, and context around it.
A library does not need the same invitation as a station. A care home does not hold the same rhythm as a university. The encounter stays simple; the care behind it is local.
Current pilot languages: Dutch and English
Technology that disappears
The conversation is the interface.
- No account to create.
- No feed to follow.
- No score to improve.
- No reason to look away.
The table runs locally. It reveals a conversation starter, then the technology steps back.
Where the table can live
For places where people cross paths.
Deep Rooted should fit its setting: the people who use it, the rhythm of the place, and the conversations that can naturally emerge there.
Care and learning places
Universities, hospitals, elderly homes, and environments built around growth or support.
Shared and transient places
Workplaces, hotels, stations, airports, and the spaces between arrival and departure.
Crafted in Belgium
Solid oak. Carefully made. Ready to be tested.
The table is a working prototype built around a solid oak tabletop.
Made in Belgium with an emphasis on honest materials, careful construction, and a calm physical presence.
It is ready for its next setting: a real place, with real people gathered around it.
Mycelium · mobile browser prototype
A private place for what you may want to bring to a conversation.
Today, Mycelium is a mobile browser prototype: an early version of a future phone app. It lets someone privately keep their interests and decide which of them may later help find fitting conversation starters for the table.
- Interests
- Stories
- Questions
- Values
- Perspectives
- Wonder
01Keep it private
02Choose for yourself
03Give clear permission
01
Keep it private
Save what matters to you.
In the prototype, someone can add a moment, story, question, source, value, or curiosity. Nothing needs to be public, polished, or written for other people.
The material stays in the browser. The person decides what remains private, what is paused, and what may be prepared for one future conversation.
02
Machine learning · simulation
The system looks for a shared way in.
In controlled simulations, it compares only the interests people choose for that moment. It looks for possible common ground and proposes a conversation starter that may fit the group.
This is tested today with fictional participants, not yet at a live table.
03
Common ground
Not matching people. Giving the conversation somewhere to begin.
The result is not a profile or a match. It is only a possible shared way in for the group: a theme and a fitting conversation starter.
Mycelium stays optional. The table already works without a phone, contribution, account, or network.
The intended flow stays simple: choose briefly, give permission, put the phone away, and return attention to the people at the table.
From one seed to a living network
We plant a seed. The place and its people shape how it grows.
Every location starts with a simple library of conversation starters. In controlled tests, we then examine what may fit the place, what is still missing, and which alternatives deserve human review. We do this without identifying people or listening to conversations.
01Today · working prototype
Start with one seed.
In Place Seed Studio, a steward describes the location: who comes there, which languages are spoken, what kind of conversations it wants to welcome, and what does not belong. The prototype turns that into a proposed first list of conversation starters.
What this gives usA first list shaped for the location.
A person reviews everything before it can reach a table.
02Today · controlled test
See what fits the place.
In simulations, we compare where approved conversation starters may fit and where the list is still too limited. These tests do not change the table that people use today.
What this gives usA clearer view of what fits and what is missing.
No names, recordings, conversations, or emotions.
03In development · people decide
Create better alternatives.
When a kind of conversation is missing, the system can propose several new versions. We test them in a limited setting, discard weak options, and let an editor decide what is useful.
What this gives usReviewed proposals with a clear source.
Nothing is added to a table automatically.
04Tomorrow · network
Let places learn from one another.
Later, Deep Rooted locations could share safe, non-personal lessons. A library could learn from the wider network without becoming the same as a hotel.
What this gives usShared lessons, with a distinct voice for every place.
This connected network does not exist today.
The place shapes what grows. The network would share only safe, useful lessons without remembering people.
Later · connected places
Each place keeps its own voice. Useful lessons could be shared.
Later, a network could compare safe, non-personal patterns across locations. A library could learn from what helps elsewhere without starting to sound like a hotel.
We only test parts of this in controlled development. The tables are not connected today, and no public network is learning from them.
An invitation
Bring Deep Rooted to a place where people gather.
We are looking for thoughtful partners who want to explore what becomes possible when a place makes room for conversation.
If you help shape a library, university, care environment, workplace, hotel, public space, station, airport, or another shared setting, we would like to hear from you.
Host a pilotTell us about your place and why the table might belong there.