Residents Platform: House Desk

A calendar that stays correct and a searchable memory of the house's notices, reviewed by resident-led volunteers.

Residents are offered dozens of programs a week, announced across a newsletter and chat groups, and house notices that most never read. House Desk is the part of the platform that fixes both: one calendar feed that stays correct, and a searchable memory of the notices. Resident-led volunteers review everything before it goes out. I built it as part of Affective Technologies, which serves the residents.

Affiliation. Affective Technologies provides the website and technical infrastructure for resident-led I-House projects. Not affiliated with International House NYC or AVI Foodsystems.

At a glance

  • Status: the calendar is in production. The Bulletin is a preview for volunteers while it is reworked.
  • Modules: the Programs Calendar and the Bulletin.
  • Built on: Cloudflare Pages Functions, D1, and R2.
  • Principle: nothing publishes itself. A volunteer reviews every event and notice.

See it

The House Desk Programs subscription page: a three-step bar (Your email, Open our email, Add to calendar), a name and email form, and a phone mock-up listing upcoming I-House events
The subscription page. Three steps, a name and an email, and a preview of what the calendar will look like on a phone.

You can try the live page at desk.ihnyc.affectivetech.com.

The modules

Each module is a project of its own. Open one for the full story.

Programs Calendar

Programs Calendar

A private, auto-updating Programs calendar that residents add once to Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook.

How the modules fit

flowchart TD
  Src[Newsletter, posts, documents] --> Rev[Volunteer review]
  Rev --> Cal[Calendar feed]
  Rev --> Bul[Searchable notices]
  Cal --> Apps[Calendar apps]
  Cal --> Pub[House Pub TVs]

The same review step feeds both modules. House Desk is the system of record for events, so Residents Platform: House Pub reads the events shared with it instead of keeping its own copy.

What is live and what is not

  • Programs Calendar: in production.
  • Bulletin: a preview for volunteers, under rework.
  • An iPhone app: in development.

For how this fits with the rest of the platform, including shared principles and the status of shared identity, see The Platform Map.

Read more

The resident-facing guide is public: Programs Calendar guide. So are the platform stewardship statement and the privacy policy.