“In 1965, a group of young architects- inspired by the local Pomo Indians’ belief in “living lightly on the land”- began planning a community where the buildings blend with the terrain and instead of yards, there are “commons”: miles of shared fields, oceanfront and walking trails.
community design
Kirk Nielsen – Green Builder
“Community Layout and Structures Designed Using Sacred Geometry
Using sacred geometry to layout the communities enhances the connection to Earth, Spirit, and creates a joyous uplifting environment.
Alejandro Aravena: Bring the community into the design process
“When asked to build housing for 100 families in Chile ten years ago, architect Alejandro Aravena looked to an unusual inspiration: the wisdom of favelas and slums. Rather than building a large building with small units, he built flexible half-homes that each family could expand on. It was a complex problem, but with a simple solution — one that he arrived at by working with the families themselves. With a chalkboard and beautiful images of his designs, Aravena walks us through three projects where clever rethinking led to beautiful design with great benefit.”
Village of the Future
“We are working with a community in Chitwan, Nepal where we are planting hundreds of bamboo along a river bed. In order to avoid monoculture, we are also planting high value crops like lemongrass, ginger, lentil, chamomile etc. Our plan is to add value to these plants, for example by building schools with local resources, or extracting lemongrass oil so that we can create a unique village that demonstrates the world the best local use of natural resources.”
Designing Sustainable Communities
In addition to my house design work (which is really taking off, by the way), I’ve had several requests to design sustainable communities. So far these large projects haven’t fully materialized, but the opportunities I’ve been presented with have given me a chance to think through some possibilities. The ideas outlined below are somewhat unconventional, … Read more