Building on a dream 

BECOMING PART OF THE SOLUTION

Village of Ordinary

What if ... every child grew up feeling wanted, loved and completely supported by family and community? What if ... we could all do work that gave us joy? What if ... we were so full of love ourselves that we viewed all other beings with compass...

Building Ordinary Headquarters

Building Ordinary This group is about ways all of us can make the Village of Ordinary--a fictional place where people live together in harmony with each other and the earth--real today, right now. Many people, the world over, are...

Imagine coming home from a long day at work 

You pull into your slot in the community carport, grab your gear, walk past the tennis court and through a well-tended garden.

A butterfly flits to the ancient apple tree you and your neighbors saved from the ax when you bought this old homestead and began planning to build your homes. You smile, tensions of the day forgotten, recalling the first time you and your son sat under this tree. He listened spellbound as you told him of the legend of Johnny Appleseed, said to have planted this very tree.

Image copyright 2007. All rights reserved.

What is an intentional community and how does it work? 

Whatever you call it--Eco-Village, Cohousing, Sustainable Community--all intentional communities have a few things in common:

1. Individual homes clustered in a village-like setting
2. A common building, typically housing dining, recreation and meeting facilities
3. Structures and grounds built and maintained sustainably with "green" materials
4. Energy, water, soil and other resources conserved through composting, reusing and recycling
5. Safe, nurturing environment where children can play close to nature
6. Decision-making by consensus
7. Shared responsibility for maintaining the community
8. Respect for individual needs and space
9. Commitment to growing healthy, harmonious community relationships

Image courtesy The Commons on the Alameda
Homeowners Association
Larger view here

So what is cohousing? 

Get the scoop from the Cohousing Association of the United States

Cohousing is an inspiring story about people of all ages and diverse backgrounds creating an innovative lifestyle that is socially and environmentally sustainable.

The Cohousing Association

Founded in Denmark in the early 1980s, the Cohousing Association boasts member communities in eleven countries. Communities range from urban to rural. All are concerned with quality of life where neighbor knows neighbor, children play safely, and a sense of community is encouraged.

Want to see what cohousing looks like? Take a virtual tour right now. Exciting isn't it? So many beautiful ways homes and communities can be built. Find a cohousing development in your area and tour their neighborhood for real.

For more information, subscribe to Cohousing, or join their listserve. The Cohousing Association is a nonprofit organization and can always use volunteers and donations to keep the information flowing.

image courtesy Cohousing Association of the
United States (CoHo/US).
Photo by Evangeline Welch

The Oshara Model 

SANTA FE, NM, USA

They wrote the book 

THE COHOUSING HANDBOOK: BUILDING A PLACE FOR COMMUNITY

Chris and Kelly ScottHanson have been there, done that, and are doing it still. They pioneered cohousing in the US and now help folks build communities from dream to stepping through the door. This book will get you started--and guide you all the way.

The Cohousing Handbook: Building a Place for Community

by Chris ScottHanson, Kelly ScottHanson

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Amazon Price: $17.79 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $26.95

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The Commons on the Alameda 

SANTA FE, NM, USA

The Commons is an established cohousing community with 28 homes and a common house located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Commons is situated 3 miles from the historic downtown plaza along the Santa Fe River.

From The Commons on the Alameda home page

Short on words, their website is loaded with a beautiful slide show that shows life on the Commons better than a few paragraphs could tell. There is also a link to some videos that, unfortunately, have never played for me, though you might have better luck.

Cohousing sounds good, but how do folks deal with the inevitable conflicts? Learn what Alameda Commoners say about the pitfalls and wins of belonging to a cohousing community.

Image courtesy Commons on the Alameda
Homeowners Association
Larger view here

Pioneer Valley Cohousing 

NORTH AMHERST, MA, USA

Cohousing sounds good, but how do folks deal with the inevitable conflicts? 

WHAT WORKS?

In a March 2005 El Dorado Sun article, members of The Commons on the Alameda community reveal some of the difficulties they have had getting along and how they solve the problems.

Member Erica Elliott tells the Sun personal conflicts were so difficult after the first three years that, "I came to a point where I needed to make a decision because the discomfort of living in this fledgling community was so great for me. I saw I had three choices: to change the community, to move away or to change myself."

Erica realized that she had no power to change the community, "That happens when it happens, not according to my will!"

As a single mom, she felt overwhelmed to make another major change and move, "so the only viable option was to change myself."

Want to know what happened? Read the entire article.

"We have a shared history over this past decade," Erica tells the Sun. "You carry the archives of somebody's history in your heart and they yours. That's so special in these transitory times ... We grew up together."

Image courtesy Commons on the Alameda
Homeowners Association
Larger view here

How is an ecovillage different from cohousing? 

Cohousing is a neighborhood, much like any urban or suburban neighborhood. Typically, residents own their own homes or condominiums, and share some space in common. Shared space may include a community building where folks gather for seasonal parties, to share meals, play ping pong, or for planning meetings or quilting bees. Sometimes laundry facilities and day care are shared in this space as well. Frequently there is a common plaza, undeveloped land, or playground which the community maintains together.

An ecovillage has all these things, plus commerce and a deep commitment to give back to the earth more than they take from it. Some or all of the residents may earn their living in the village, just as in times before industrialization, when village life was more common. So you might take your morning coffee in the local cafe, drop by the general store for today's pick of locally-grown, organic fruits and vegetables, and purchase a hot-from-the-oven loaf from the local bakery.

For a deeper look at the differences between intentional community models, see the Planet Friendly Community Page.

Image: Earthaven 13-sided council hall
Courtesy Earthaven Ecovillage

Findhorn Ecovillage 

SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM

Crystal Waters Permaculture Village - A community working toward balanced natural ecology. 

Brisbane, Australia

A true ecovillage, Crystal Waters is a planned community designed by Max Lindegger, Robert Tap, Barry Goodman and Geoff Young. Villagers are keenly committed to social and environmental responsibility. While they own their own property, which accounts for approximately twenty percent of the total land, they hold the other eighty percent--"the best land"--in common.

Unlike cohousing projects, the ecovillage is partially zoned for commerce. Village enterprises include cottage and light industry, tourism, and education, particularly around permaculture and organic gardening.

They also market food and bakery products, much grown in their gardens, and provide professional and health and well-being services. Approximately two hundred people live and work in the village today.

View from guest campsite
Image courtesy Crystal Waters Permaculture Village

Crystal Waters Permaculture Village

Located an hour and a half north of Brisbane, Australia, Crystal Waters is a planned eco-village. It's a place where everyone, from kids to grannies and grandpas, get their hands dirty and have a lot of fun doing it. Join me in discovering the journe...

Food not Lawns 

If the term permaculture is a new one for you, start with this book. It's funny, well-illustrated, and is easier to read than some novels. Take a look at the second sentence on the first page:

Gardening may seem like just a hobby to many people, but in fact growing food is one of the most radical things you can do: Those who control our food control our lives, and when we take that control back into our own hands, we empower ourselves toward autonomy, self reliance, and true freedom.

Author Heather C. Flores

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community

by Heather Coburn Flores

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Amazon Price: $16.50 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $25.00

Would you like your ecovillage or cohousing project featured here? 

If you would like your cohousing/ecovillage lens featured on this page, contact me, or join the Building Ordinary group. Don't have a lens yet? Build one! It's easy.

Center for Sustainable Villages 

PILOT PROJECT - SAO PAOLO STATE, BRAZIL

The Center For Sustainable Villages (CSV) is a non-profit organization that promotes sustainability by enhancing local culture, ecology and economy through partnerships between eco-villages, environmental activists, scientists, artists, educators, and the general public.

Through grants from multi-national organizations, the CSV founded the Future Vision Eco-village in Sao Paulo State, Brazil (Parque Ecologico Visao Futuro) in 1992. The village is considered a model sustainable community, and people from all over the world visit and take classes to learn how to replicate its success.

Image: Gate arbor
Copyright Maya Verzonilla

Future Vision Eco-village 

Sao Paulo State, Brazil

It is possible to restore a once barren, impoverished area back to ecological health and abundance.

Center for Sustainable Villages
on its pilot project
Future Vision Eco-village

When a village grows its own food, makes its own medicines from indigenous plants, recycles all its waste, including its graywater, and captures all the solar and wind energy it needs, it is self-sufficient.

Future Vision is that village. Using solar and wind energy for lighting, heating water and pumping, the Future Vision Ecovillage in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is off the grid.

The village grows all its food in certified-organic orchards, fields, and gardens, and recycles its waste through gray water recycling, composting, and vermiculture, or composting with worms.

Remarkable to US culture, especially, is the village medicinal laboratory where indigenous plants are processed for use in treating illness and injury.

To preserve a fast-dwindling water table, the village water supply is a series of lakes which impound and harvest rainwater. What's more, they've turned a barren desert back--reclaiming the forest it once was.

Image: Biological water treatment system
purifies water in plant-filled tanks
Copyright Maya Verzonilla

The birds are back 

RECLAIMING THE FOREST FROM MAN-MADE DESERT

Image: Rain-harvesting lake
Copyright Maya Verzonilla

One of the coolest things about EcoVillages is that they show how to reclaim our forests. Like Crystal Waters Permaculture Village, the Future Vision Eco-Village in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is a model of reclamation.

What was once a vast, lush forest had been systematically cleared for cattle grazing. With overgrazing, the land became a barren desert. Since 1992, villagers have pushed back the arid land, planting thousands of trees and building artificial wetlands and lakes. The trees are flourishing, and native wildlife is returning. As Maya Verzonilla says in Notes from Brazil: The birds are back.

But that's not all villagers are doing to halt the encroaching desert. Because wells deplete an already overtaxed water table and hasten desert growth, villagers built lakes for irrigation and drinking water, and they re-use all household gray water.

The water is purified naturally through constructed "wetlands" of rocks, sand, and plants. This is similar to the reed-filtering method the Prince of Wales is using in the eco-home he is building for his son, Prince William.

Earthaven EcoVillage 

ASHEVILLE, NC, USA

Earthaven is an aspiring ecovillage in a mountain forest setting near Asheville, North Carolina. We are dedicated to caring for people and the Earth by learning, living, and demonstrating a holistic, sustainable culture.

Image: Chuck and Monica of
Useful Plants Nursery
Courtesy Earthaven Ecovillage

With sixty members and plans to grow to one hundred fifty, twelve-year-old Earthaven is a model of sustainability, permaculture farming and green business.

EcoVillage family life 

Bringing up children wholistically - Aging in community

Family life is as important in Earthhaven as anywhere in the world--and as diverse. Two-parent families, multi-generational families, and single-parent families thrive at Earthhaven.

Some children attend nearby public or private schools. Others are homeschooled in the Forest Children Program, to which families who live nearby also send their children.

Earthaven residents earn their incomes independently of each other and do not share childcare. Each family is solely responsible for the upbringing of their children. Some of the fourteen neighborhoods within Earthaven, however, have common play areas and are developing child care cooperatives.

Image: Forest Children School
Courtesy Earthaven EcoVillage

Ecovillage at Ithaca 

A BLEND OF COHOUSING AND ECOVILLAGE

Ecovillage at Ithaca blends two thirty-home cohousing communities with the ecovillage concept. Now more than ten years old, the village story is one of the most compelling. Take the virtual tour, then get this book.

EcoVillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture

by Liz Walker

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Amazon Price: $12.21 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $17.95

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Keep abreast of hot topics in Intentional Communities 

CHECK OUT COMMUNITIES MAGAZINE ONLINE

If you think you'd like to explore the possibility of joining a sustainable community, Communities Magazine offers up-to-date information and commentary. Published by the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), each issue explores a single theme about developing, planning, or living in an intentional community. Plus, you'll get to know regular columnists who have been there, done that.

Cover photo image ©2006, Jan Steinman
www.Bytesmiths.com
All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Nature Moms - They're about more than granola 

A WHOLE LOT MORE

Not quite ready for an ecovillage? Check out Nature Moms, a web site by, about and for moms guiding their families to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Ecovillage Living: Restoring the Earth and Her People 

THE BEST OVERVIEW - LOADED WITH FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNTS AND RESEARCH

Here's part of what Russ Purvis has to say about Ecovillage Living: Restoring the Earth and Her People:

"As former President of Silicon Valley Habitat for Humanity,Inc., a 'Green' builder and developer, and an aspiring Ecovillage occupant, it's a pleasure to give 'Ecovillage Living' my highest recommendation."

Ecovillage Living: Restoring the Earth and Her People

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Sustainability blog 

Urban bloggers Robert van de Walle and Caitlan journal on their efforts at living sustainably in the San Francsico Bay Area

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Do you--or would you like to--live in an intentional community? 

Talk to me! 

Dialogue is everything. Tell me what you think. Did you vote in the poll? Tell me how you voted and why, if you're not shy.

SharonMcMillan What is so exciting is that so many of these "dream" communities are becoming a reality. I think you have great lens and it is serving to inspire and encourage so many of us. I'll be back! Posted May 31, 2008

Euryale You are cordially invited to join the "Off The Grid" group at Squidoo! http://www.squidoo.com/groups/off-the-grid Posted December 18, 2007

GypsyPirate This is such a great lens, so much important information is presented so well here. Congratulations for being chosen as a feature on Shakadoo! Posted December 12, 2007

Ms_Appleseed Very interesting lens! The basics of community attitudes in my howtogrow must definitely be at work in these communities! Thanks for sharing. Posted August 13, 2007

SharonMcMillan As a fellow new urbanism/intentional community advocate I rated your lens 5 stars. Excellent information to help spread this affirming way of life. Our communities are taking root slowly but surely. --Sharon Posted August 09, 2007

Graceonline Yes, Kim, it certainly does take a lot of work to live harmoniously. It is always a challenge, sometimes a most interesting one, to find ways to defuse a situation and create a healthy environment when one or more members feel "toxic" to others. Let's talk more about that. Posted July 31, 2007

KimGiancaterino It sounds interesting, but too much like an association, which was one of the worst experiences I've ever been through. I ended up selling my condo because one bad apple on the board made the rest of us miserable. I do respect the idea behind this, however. Posted July 30, 2007

Graceonline Yes, there is a risk. True, of course, moving into any neighborhood, but it would hurt a lot more when expectations are high for a harmonious community relationship. Before signing, I would have a trusted attorney go over any documents to assure I was well-protected with a good escape clause. Posted July 29, 2007

imagineit I love this lens it is awesome! (from quiz above)the intentional community sounds like a great idea, graceonline, but i have some friends who went through hell when they discovered they were incompatible with the other community folks and then had trouble getting out of the property agreement. Posted July 29, 2007

Christene Blessed by a SquidAngel (and rolled on LensRoll.com) Posted July 25, 2007

 

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SUGGESTION BOX 

How could this lens be more helpful to you? Drop your suggestions here.

Margo_Arrowsmith Gracey, reading your lens is like a meditation in itself. Posted June 23, 2008

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