Vandana Shiva, an internationally recognized Indian activist and philosopher, explains that planning for the human being rather than the automobile can liberate space and create community within a city. In her opinion, a sustainable city should operate as a self-reliant and self-sufficient cluster of villages.
The new Village Town Movement is meant as a human and sustainable alternative to suburbia, one of the most inhuman inventions of the 20th century. Some still consider the solution to be skyscrapers, like this example, where they add just one pattern and think that makes it human. No, human neighborhoods consist of a long range of interconnected patterns, to create a living pattern language. A Village Town offers a human scaled face-to-face neighborhood founded upon patterns of eternal values.
What I love most about Village Towns is the central role of the plaza, this ingenious heritage of Mediterranean villages and towns. The plaza is the heart of every village, like the heart is the source of life in the human body. Personally I’ve had the privilege to visit Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy, which is acknowledged to be the most beautiful plaza in the whole world! After this experience I’m convinced that living your life without a plaza in the core of your neighborhood, is like living a heartless life.
What I love second most about Village Towns is the network of learning. A village education is a mix from the best of home and public schooling, where the village is like your extended home. Here the students are integrated into village life; they are not segregated in educational monocultures, like in a public school. And they are not isolated from the greater world like in home schooling. I simply don’t think I could offer anything better for my daughter than a village school! Learn more: The Village as Campus: Primary and secondary education.
As a construction material they seem to have put their love in foam concrete, which is a material with many interesting properties (see also). It doesn’t give you a breathing wall. But it has a well-balanced ratio between thermal insulation and heat retention, like that demanded of the ninth principle of Building Biology. Unlike for ordinary concrete, you can add a plaster of lime or gypsum on a foam concrete wall. Lime plaster has, unlike concrete, an excellent moisture buffering capacity. A gypsum plaster has less moisture buffering capacity, but offers better acoustic properties. If you mix some gypsum in the lime plaster it’s easier to work with as well.
Unfortunately they don’t seem have the same enthusiasm for the compost toilet, but hopefully they’ll take this advice from Lester Brown.
While they have embraced the wisdom of A Pattern Language, I can’t find anything on their website about Alexander’s latest achievement, Generative Codes. This worries me some, because generative codes are the path to building welcoming, beautiful and sustainable neighborhoods.
“My life’s project is to help the best I can to spread the new architectural theories developed by Christopher Alexander and his companions. Further I want to implement the principles of the German term “Baubiologie,” and material ecology is one of my great interests. Third I want to make permaculture and permanent agriculture a natural part of all built environments.”
Democracy is built in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods. We can join with our neighbors to build communities of care that meet our direct needs and show that another world is not only possible, it is already blooming.
I am not sure that my employer quite understands the changes that have been set in motion. The gossip chain spread that story within days. Now, we all know that we have leverage. We can demand. Wouldn’t it be great if such a thing were to happen in your community! So what’s stopping you…
In short — the key to the profound changes that our current polycrisis is calling for lies in the cultivation of the social soil. Every one of us can be (and is) a gardener or farmer of that soil.
