How to Build a Village by Claude Lewenz, Can We Design and Build for Quality of Life?,

“In the 20th century we have passed through a unique period, one in which architecture as a discipline has been in a state that is almost unimaginably bad. Sometimes I think of it as a mass psychosis of unprecedented dimension, in which the people of earth–in large numbers and in almost all contemporary societies–have created a form of architecture which is against life, insane, image-ridden, hollow. The ugliness which has been created in the cities of the world, and the banality and pretentiousness of many 20th century buildings, streets, and parking lots have overwhelmed the earth. Much of this construction is caused by developers, housing authorities . . . people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea may be radical–because it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession–but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.” (Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language)

“Pattern 11, Local Transport Areas: Cars are not very good for short trips inside a town, and it is on these trips that they do their greatest damage. But they are good for fairly long trips, where they cause less damage. The problem will be solved if towns are divided up into areas about one mile across, with the idea that cars may be used for trips which leave these areas, but that other, slower forms of transportation will be used for all trips inside these areas–foot [and] . . . a variety of low-speed, low-cost vehicles (bicycles, tricycles, scooters, golf carts . . .).” (p. 64 A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander)

“In days before cars, everything had to be within walking distance–human scale . . . Quality of Life is based on biological principles that simply say that for any part to be healthy, all parts must be healthy . . .If you want to change the way the world is going, change the way we do things.” (Claude Lewenz, How to Build a Village)

 

Executive Summary

This book provides a set of tools, processes and patterns to enable ordinary people and professionals to design and build a 5,000 to 10,000 person Village that is culturally enriched, never boring, architecturally authentic, beautiful, environmentally balanced, prosperous to thrive for many generations and economically secure for all.

The Village began as a question: Can a host of problems facing modern society be overcome by how we design and build our communities? Seeking to raise the bar, it then asked, beyond overcoming problems, what if we zone, design and build for Quality of Life?

Quality of Life starts with freedom from want and fear. It extends to good health, economic security and a place to stand tall. Finally it is a fulfilling life, which for each person is different. It may be freedom from boredom, a life of love, service or a higher level of consciousness–intellectually, emotionally and/or spiritually.

That question What if we zone, design and build for quality of life arose from another question: Have 50 years of suburbs delivered on their promise? Conceived after World War II, suburbs were offered as utopia. They have consistently failed to deliver this. As a model for living, their unanticipated negative side effects have greatly outweighed their benefits.

It now seems that this was the product of tunnel vision, where decision makers strode forward with blinkers that allowed them to see only single issues rather than a complex system of interrelated issues. The suburban solution answered a narrow question, and in doing so produced a host of new problems for society–unanticipated negative side effects. Beyond those problems, life lost its flavour as its potential richness was supplanted by franchises seeking profits through standardisation. Humans deserve better.

How can we redesign communities not only to address a host of major problems, but engender a much higher Quality of Life? To find the answer we must look at scale and scope: the critical mass required to make a place interesting as well as economically viable, and a range of activities, industries and opportunities to make it a wonderful place.

We should look both to history for timeless patterns and to technology as new potential. In proposing an answer, this book names this new form of living as The Village. The Village targets the 20th century suburban development, declaring it obsolete. In its place, the Village allows for a higher density, fully functioning, self-contained community with lower impact on the environment.

Distinguishing features of the Village include:

• Cars banned within the Village walls; instead, everything is within a 10-minute walk with a motorpool outside the Village gate. Cars are not needed within, allowing human-scale design. Thus, it is safe for children, elders and infirm.
• The Village is micro zoned with homes, offices, shops, schools and recreation all built around plazas & pedestrian streets. It is a high-density design where public life occurs on the many plazas.
• The Village is situated within a greenbelt.
• It has its own local, autonomous economy. People work and run businesses within the Village. Workplaces built around 20-30 public plazas. To achieve this a critical mass of 3,500 to 10,00 persons are required on about 100 to 400 acres of land.
• As it has its own local economy, it can be set in a rural area as far as two hours from a city or large town (any further and access to airports and overnight shipping becomes a problem). Among other things, this enables the Village to become a major market for local farm produce: Slow Food
• For regions, a Village compares to a new billion-dollar industry bringing 2000 jobs worth $100 million/year with very little adverse impact on the surrounding area.
• Parallel real estate markets provide affordable housing for teachers, elders, youth, artists & other target groups
• Availability of fast broadband internet connectivity.
• It has artist guildhalls and travellers inns to enrich culture
• A Village can be carbon neutral or even qualify as earning carbon credits for countries participating in the Kyoto Protocol. This will result in lower on-going costs for energy making it more affordable.

The Village intends to be “sustainable”, but much more than sustainable. Doomsayers predict that to become sustainable humanity must face rationing, penalties and a substantial decline in quality of life. We disagree. Compare an hour commute in smog-filled traffic to a one minute walk to the office, with the free time allowing a stop to chat with friends or colleagues at a cafe on one of the plazas – it’s not only non-polluting, it’s a pleasure. Key to successful Villages is the creation of conditions to enable a diverse and thriving local economy. To do that the Village must be attractive in every way; people will want to live there. It must be large enough not to get boring, but not so large to become overwhelming and bureaucratic.

The Village is not an intentional community, it is not an eco-village, not co-housing, not a gated golfing community or a hippy commune. It is a mainstream prototype for sensible living intended for the full cross-section of normal society, with careful attention to design so people get along and enjoy living there. It is for all ages, indeed one important element is that young people are not forced out when they leave school, and old people have a safe and secure place even when in the final stages of life. Today’s decision makers and key influencers, the baby boomers are especially interested as they face their elder years and do not want to suffer the apartheid of retirement homes.

We are entering a new era, one in which the effects of corporate tunnel vision, the obsessive, blinkered pursuit of power and profits, is beginning to bite back. The alternative to tunnel vision is to ask broader questions. Understand where business fits in the bigger picture of human evolution and make intelligent decisions accordingly.

We now stand at a point of unprecedented material wealth with the tools, systems and resources to secure quality of life for many and eventually for all. In order to secure it, however, we need to ask the right questions. We cannot look at human beings as slaves, pawns, machines, consumers or, our latest analogy, like computers. Humans are far more than this. We are all part of a living system called Planet Earth. For this living system to work well we need to focus on true quality of life: social, economic, cultural, spiritual and environmental. Quality of life happens in wonderful places people love. Can we build such places?

 

Have 50 Years of Suburbs Delivered on Their Promise?

Suburbs were invented to sell cars

At the end of World War II, American leaders saw a second Great Depression looming if government spending ended and millions of soldiers returned home to no jobs because government war contracts would end. They decided to turn the war-winning industries of jeeps, tanks and oil into the post-war industries of cars, bulldozers and oil. To make the shift, those business leaders convinced government to invent a new form of human habitat–the suburb. At its core, the suburb separated the mundane chores of life, so people must own and drive a car (or two) to get from home to work, to shop, to schooling, and so on. The suburban utopia would build bedroom communities, office blocks and shopping malls accessed by motor vehicles driving 3.7 trillion miles a year on 3.9 million miles of roads. Suburbs were invented to sell cars.

It worked. For 50 years the US economy boomed. “What’s good for General Motors is good for America”. Other nations, even those who did not make cars or pump oil, rezoned their land to build suburbs. But its side effects are proving very problematic because the leaders who devised the idea did it with tunnel vision. Suburbs proved to be an immeasurably bad use of resources–bad for people, bad for the environment. Suburbs are now obsolete.

Driving separates people, suburbs lose the binding qualities of community, people have to work hard to pay for cars–foregoing the finer things in life, and their health suffers from lack of exercise. Cars pollute. Even clean cars pollute. Cars burn fuel, even more efficient cars will always burn fuel. So much effort is going into making cars cleaner and able to go further on each gallon.

In the New Urbanism movement, master-planners tried to tame the car, to return human-scale to urban design. In real life, we found the car cannot be domesticated. The Village does not try to tame cars. It accepts that cars are too big, too costly and too dangerous. It bans them. It builds a motorpool outside the Village walls where residents may rent a car for the day, or own a covered parking space for their own car. If they come home with things to carry, they can offload them into a golf-cart sized electric vehicle that is allowed in the Village.

In the Village everything is in a 10-minute walk. We get instant 100% clean air, zero emissions and zero fuel use for thousands of people. If in doing so we also gain a higher quality of life, lower cost of living and a stronger sense of community.

 

Human scale vs. megascale

The difference between the Village and conventional suburban is where and how people decided to place buildings and the scale (human, or mega).

In days before cars, everything had to be within walking distance. Human scale. When the petroleum companies and car companies geared up for global-scaled mass production, they engaged in a concerted effort to separate human activities to make everything in driving distance, but too far to walk in comfort. Mega scale.

Cars are great for going long distances. But the experience of walking from a suburban home to a commercial center is not much fun. The landscape is bland, intended to be passed at high speed with little notice. In the car, you create your own world, one of recorded music or news, air-conditioning and a grey background sound of the muffled engine. It works, and it enables functional lives. But at what cost?

Car advertisements feature the open road, beautiful places and the freedom to get there. For those trips, keep cars available. Rarely do car adverts feature real life in the car. The same route every day. Traffic jams. Breathing exhaust fumes. Sometimes road rage, but mostly isolation. The senses shut off; the brain goes on automatic pilot.

Contrast this with the experience in Hydra in Greece, or a thousand other villages built before the invention of cars. Walk out your door, and the air smells fresh, alive. Walk to the plaza, less than a minute or two, and you can expect to greet friends and neighbours along the way. If your workplace is on the plaza, the time you save between the average commuter is 15 work days per year (half an hour commute x 5 days x 50 weeks / 8 hour day = 15.6 days). In some countries that is equal to a year’s allotment of vacation time. What a waste of life.

What do you do with that extra time? You can work harder and longer. Or, you can live better by getting a glass of water, or a coffee on the plaza and engage in conversation with others also going to work on the plaza. You can walk further, go to another plaza, and meet people you don’t see as often. Or you can get exercise, walking the Village streets as the shops and offices are opening up and beginning a new day. You can walk the children to school, and spend time with them.

These are not new ideas. Human beings lived this way for thousands of years until we redesigned how we live so people had to drive in order to get to their destination. Designing back is easy. It costs less, it’s more enjoyable, and given the concerns over the cost of petroleum and the effect of burning it, the political will to support such human-scaled communities is rising.

 

The Future Include New Villages

Villages are designed for quality of life

What happens if instead we design a habitat to provide Quality of Life rather than to sell cars? What would it look like? How would it work? We call the answer that emerged a Village. It embodies the philosophy of “think global but act local”.

Villages offer an alternative to conventional suburban development, a place impossible without the automobile. The 20th Century car-based suburb not only failed to deliver on its promises, but has created huge social, cultural, economic and environmental problems. So let’s stop building them. Instead design and build communities that are not only good for people and for the earth, but wonderful places to live. Instead of building more bedroom communities, office blocks and shopping malls connected by miles of concrete, build a Village: a higher density, fully functioning, self-contained community with a considerably lower impact on the environment.

The Village is about people and places. People have to live somewhere, and where we live shapes the quality of our lives. If all the world’s a stage, as the Bard tells us, then the world’s set designer are the real estate developers. In the 20th century the stage we built left something to be desired. How to Build a Village is on one level about real estate development, or rather how to develop real estate to produce a wonderful place to live while treading lightly on earth.

A Village thus is an idea for different form of real estate development, a different place to live. It’s based on the idea that we can design for quality of life, and if we do, not only will the outcome be more attractive, more interesting, and more secure, it will also address a host of problems that plague modern society.

 

Elements of the Village design

Just as quality of life is based on biological principles that simply say that for any part to be healthy, all parts must be healthy, each part of a Village makes another part work. Here are some of the key parts:

• Instead of putting the homes in one part of town and the office park in another, design it village style, where everything, work, shopping, schooling, cafes, recreation and a wide range of housing, is within a ten-minute walk. Build public plazas with cafes, shops and workplaces and behind them a wide variety of private homes. The Village should be surrounded by a greenbelt.
• In the old days, they didn’t have cars, so they built higher density. Turns out it was a good idea, so ban cars from within the Village walls. You don’t need them. Build a motorpool outside the village walls for longer distance transport with spaces for private ownership and Village rental cars. Banning cars within allows a completely different, human-scaled design. It saves money and land, and it’s safer, quieter and makes life more enjoyable. Old people need not move to retirement homes when they lose their driver license. Instead, we can design homes for them in a habitat that suits their slower, more settled life. They remain in the community. We need them in the community, especially for the children. If we ban the cars in the local habitat, we also make the streets safe for children to play. People connect on plazas, no appointment needed. Streets are narrower, cost less to build and maintain. Since we make narrower streets, we need to make the buildings fireproof, so we use materials like foam-injected aggregate. This way, residents need not spend so much buying and maintaining cars. They don’t need to pay for a two car garage or a driveway. When one forgoes having to design for 3,000 cars for every 5,000 persons, the development costs less to build, needs less land, yet is more beautiful. We tread lighter on earth. We have more money and more free time for the finer things in life. A strong sense of community. A solid local economy which protects all. Our life no longer stuck in traffic. Our quality of life improves. Surely, this makes more sense than what we are doing now.
• Design the Village to be wonderful, interesting, fulfilling, authentic and suitable for all ages and stages of life. For this to work, we need at least 3,500 persons, best at 5,000 to 10,000. Over 10,000 the systems becomes bureaucratic. This is called critical mass. You need 5,000 people to support a watchmaker and a Main Street of shops. At 1,200 people, all you can support is one general store. With 5,000 to 10,000 people, you can live a lifetime there without becoming bored. If you then design to make it even more interesting, by attracting artists, a university year-abroad, the Creative Class and year-round visitors coming for specific purposes, Quality of Life becomes the paramount feature of the community – it becomes a great place to live. Make it a Slow Food community by contracting with farmers in a ten-mile radius to provide organic foods with local flavour. Create parallel housing markets to provide permanent, non-bureaucratic affordable housing for key sectors of the community . . . youth, elders, teachers, public servants, artists and so on.
• Avoid the grid model. Instead lay out the pedestrian streets like a labyrinth with clear markers so people don’t get lost, with intentional walks that enable residents to take an evening walk for over an hour and never backtrack. The walks have many alternatives and variations, and go through many plazas, each with its own character. This enables people to encounter friends and neighbours without an appointment, to make connection if they want to visit, or keep walking if not. As long as the critical mass is there–enough people (5,000 to 10,000), it never becomes boring–all by how the streets are laid out in the beginning.
• In the old days, business needed to be in cities for proximity. Now millions of people in business sit in offices and work together using broadband. As we move to video conferencing, workgroups and computer-based invention, manufacturing and distribution, distance matters less provided we have a superfast broadband link. This means we can create a diverse local economy two hours away from the city and be tied into the global network (two hours remains the general limit because we still need access to air transport hubs and overnight delivery). If we design a habitat with a local economy where 20% of the people work in businesses that bring money into the community (sell local to global), and we design our internal systems so each dollar then turns five times before leaving (buy local), we have a thriving local economy.
• Then add an intentional visitor component, the Traveller’s Inn, a university sector, a youth zone and of course the artists guildhalls, and suddenly things are happening all over the Village. 100 to 400 acres allocated for a single Village is actually a lot of land, especially if built with high density activities. If the plan includes an activity overlay with some parts peaceful and quiet, others hopping with activity, people can choose where to go and weave infinite variety into their lives. For one it may be the same plaza each evening, perhaps playing chess or cards. For another, each day brings a different adventure, one day active, the next tranquil. The variations are almost unlimited, what makes it possible is clear intention in the design, pursuit of quality of life, authenticity and beauty, the critical mass in terms of population, the local economy and the banning of cars from within the Village walls.

The book offers hundreds of other design patterns that fit together in the Village concept. Yet, in providing them, the book does not dictate a master plan–no cookie cutter design. Instead, it provides a process in which the people who will live there, the professionals with expertise, the approving governmental authorities, and the attributes of the land work together to produce an authentic design reflecting the distinct character of the people and place. This assures each Village is distinctive, reflecting the authentic character of its people, and that it remain interesting and fulfilling for a lifetime.

 

What is a Village not and what it is

The Village is not an intentional community, it is not an eco-village, not co-housing, not a gated golfing community or a hippy commune.

For some reason, when people heard about the Village idea, many immediately presume it is some sort of “intentional community”, such as an eco-village and co-housing. No. This is an incorrect presumption. Intentional communities tend to connect like-minded people who have a particular focus. Eco-villages tend to focus on green architecture but many fail to look at the local economy. Thus, in some, we find eco-living commuters driving off to work every day and in others we have people living in subsistence condition which sometimes resembles poverty except that it is voluntary. In the Village, we build sustainably, not as its point of distinction, but simply as another expectation of responsible design.

The intent of the Village is to create a normal community which is human-scaled. Travel to the old city and village centers of Europe to find out what human-scale means. It’s how things were built before they had cars and trucks, and before they invented steel and concrete to enable industries to build skyscrapers. People visit these places in old Europe when they go on holidays. Few would go to visit a suburb on holidays, except to visit relatives we don’t otherwise get to see.

In co-housing communities, social cohesion becomes a major issue, with community kitchens and overall a more communal way of life. This appeals to some, but not all. In the Village, the plazas serve the social function–the local cafe with publicly-owned chairs and free water so you don’t have to buy a meal to sit and visit.

In Village design, careful attention is given to balancing public and private–borrowing wisdom from the Moorish architecture which mastered the art of the high garden wall. Focus groups reported the largest complaint from those who grew up in small towns was the utter lack of privacy (coupled with nothing to do, resulting in gossip as a contact sport). Thus in the Village, careful use of beautiful and effective high garden walls provide places of privacy, especially in the home. If you have a domestic argument behind walls, it remains private. If you choose to have the same argument at high noon in the public plaza, it becomes community theatre–it’s your choice.

By designing the Village around many individuals and distinct plazas, each with its own character or architecturel style, reflecting the will of the founders of that plaza, neighbourhoods will emerge that are different from each other. This is to be encouraged, especially during the design phase. If an immigrant population is attracted to a Village, the organizers may encourage them to place references to their ancestral culture on their plaza, giving us one plaza of South Africa and another of Japan, for example. One plaza may emphasize vernacular design and another fashionable, cutting edge style.

Consistent in all such design is the principal of authenticity. The village development process is structured to encourage the founders–those inhabitants who will be the first to live there, to feel comfortable embedding their personality and character on their home, workplace and collective plaza.

 

The local economy

The idea of the Village is similar to an emerging philosophy of development called the New Urbanism movement. However, when in 2000, we visited one new urbanism communities, Poundbury, its management commented that a disproportionate number of the large homes were being sold to retired couples from London who needed the room for a lifetime of collected furniture, art and visiting guests from the city. What seemed lacking was a strong local economy. Many of the buyers were able to pay premium prices based on their net worth. Gradually residents have moved in who bring businesses with them, but the lesson we took away was to make planning for a robust local economy paramount.

In the Village, the local economy forms a central part of development plan. By providing the appropriate micro-zoning (workplaces around the plazas and on the busier pedestrian streets) and infrastructure (highest speed broadband supporting teleconferencing, rapid delivery services, good connections to transport links), the Village becomes an easy place to do business. By providing a wide range of living opportunities, it provides a diverse supply of potential employees. By reducing cost of living, and encouraging people to own their workplaces, it supports capital investment in the business. The recommendations include allowing start up businesses to have a very small apartment in the workplace for the owner–small enough to lose its attraction once the business becomes profitable, whence it will likely be transformed into more work space.

Finally, by making the Village an attractive place to live, a supportive place to raise a family, and a stimulating place after work, the Village provides intangible value benefits–if you must work somewhere, choose a place which makes work a pleasure. By designing workplaces facing the plazas where children play, families can work yet still keep an eye out for children, a much better alternative than anonymous day care.

 

A Village compares to a new billion dollar industry bringing 2000 jobs worth $100 million/year

In many parts of the world, corporations and industry have become very sophisticated at negotiating large concessions from regional and local government if they choose that site to create new jobs and make new capital investment. Yet the jobs and investment such industries bring pale in comparison to a new Village.

If the average home sale is $500,000 and only 2,000 units are built that is a billion dollars in new valuation–on land that might have been assessed at ten million dollars before rezoning. In fact, 2,000 units may be low, as some buildings will contain both a home and a workplace. In a 5,000 population Village, 2,000 might be the right number, but certainly as it grows to the maximum 10,000 (over that and the Village ceases to work well and tends to become bureaucratic), one can expect a higher valuation.

With a 5,000 population one can expect 20% to be school-aged children, and an equal amount of elders, disabled, etc. That leaves 3,000 of working age. If we allow that only 2/3rds will work, and we take an average wage of $50,000 per year, that comes in at $100 million in wages. In fact, it is likely that the wages may be higher. (Note that for the purpose of this exercise, we used local Auckland averages)

Further, this only focuses on the new jobs created or brought to the Village by its new residents. No attempt has been made to calculate the positive employment impact on the surrounding region, but one may rest assured it will create many new regional jobs serving the Village.

For example, feeding 5,000 people will bring a constant new income stream to the surrounding farmers, creating new farm employment. By doing this, the Village also offers competition to the city, and may encourage the young of farming families to stay close to home, even when the children chose an urban lifestyle.

By building strong connection between the Village and the surrounding farm communities, it can also facilitate the embodiment of the slow food philosophy, which believes in eco-gastronomy–a recognition of the strong connections between plate and planet. It contends that food must be good, clean and fair. It believes that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work. It consider their followers as co-producers, not consumers, because by being informed about how their food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, they become a part of and a partner in the production process. All in all, a good thing for people and the environment.

 

Affordable Housing–Parallel Real Estate Markets

At one time most people lived on a wage, thus the real estate market was stable. House prices tended to reflect bank credit and prevailing wages in a region. However within the past several decades we have seen the emergence of sophisticated investment instruments, changes to how loans are given out, and changes to compensation packages for what used to be called the middle class. Now it seems we have two middle classes–the old one, and a new one, the comfortable class, that has made a lot of money in capital gains. The comfortable class is able to pay more for homes, creating a crisis in many communities, especially ones regarded as desirable. The Villages will become premium places in terms of desirability which means essential groups in the community will get priced out (gentrification). Subsidised state housing is probably not the best solution, because it creates a sense of second class citizen, and is also vulnerable to political greed when the party in power decides to get out of the business and realise a large capital gain.

The simplest solution we found is to set aside a certain percentage of the homes at the time of development, say between 20-30%, specifically intended for target groups of citizens whose focus in life has meant they cannot compete against the new comfortable class. One example would be the local school teachers. In this plan, a certain number of homes would be sold to teachers at an affordable price. If the average teacher’s salary is $50,000 a year, the bank says they can get a mortgage to buy a home for $200,000. So the Village sells them a nice home for that price, even if the comfortable class is prepared to pay $500,000 for it. The Village puts a condition on the title which says when they go to sell, they can sell at any price, but only to another teacher. (That actual market would probably be broader, meaning teacher, local government employee, police officer, etc., but let’s keep it simple for example’s sake). No cheating, or the Village auctions off the home in a no-reserve auction where the buyer must be in the approved employment band. In this way, when inflation sees the average teacher’s salary double to $100,000 a year, the market keeps pace without the need for a regulatory bureaucracy. What makes this plan work is doing it at the beginning when the land is being subdivided. It becomes another negotiated concession to secure government approval to subdivide.

The Village propose parallel markets for service workers, such as the teacher example given above. It also propose markets for youth under age 25–their first home, which could be something like a worker’s cottage from Victorian times, small, inexpensive, perfect until it’s time to start a family. A youth could live in the home until age 100 if they want, but when they sell the buyer must be under age 25 and be able to show they secured the mortgage on their earnings, not an inheritance or gift from their parents. We suggest similar parallel markets for elders, the infirm, and we propose a special category for creative and performing artists where the Village not only provides the small low-cost home, but the Artist Guildhall for their work.

 

From Here to There

Now that we have mentioned the design elements of a Village, we proceed to the actual process of building the Village. Below are some fundamental process in doing so.

 

Begin with the Village Walls.

Know your boundaries. Of utmost importance is that once the Village boundary is set, it is kept.

This is common practice in Europe, where the demarcation of village and country is both clear and permanent. In contrast, the United States has so bled its boundaries that they have merged into one incoherent mess–with an accompanying decline the quality of life. At one time, America had its boundaries. Then with the advent of the car, developers persuaded local authorities to let them put in a new subdivision on the edge of town, or a drive-in burger joint. Then a car dealership was added and then a discount shopping mall with big box stores. The same thing was happening in the next town, and fifty years later, the only memory of the demarcation is a roadside sign alerting drivers they have gone from one town to the next. Later, other countries adopted this American approach to sprawl.

If possible, the Village should buy enough land to own its surrounding green space. As a condition of subdivision, seek zoning or consenting authorities’ agreement that the green zone be preserved in perpetuity. In granting consent to a project as large as a Village, the authorities should secure the surrounding farmlands and forest as permanent farms and reserves. Within the green space, we strongly recommend that the Village be surrounded by an urban wall, constructed to keep domestic animals and wandering toddlers within. Build many gates and doorways in the Village walls to enable people to walk beyond the Village.

The purpose of Village walls go deep into ancient human memory, creating a sense of enclosure. Walls block wind, absorb sunlight, and create a warmer micro climate in winter when the sun is low. They do enable some control of domestic pets who otherwise can wreak havoc on native birds beyond the Village walls. They provide security, especially for young toddlers. The wall should be built of a solid aggregate–stone, light concrete, perhaps adobe. The Village rules should permit some of its boundary walls to be built into the back of Village houses, although it is recommended that such a wall remain the property of the Village.

In setting out Village walls, avoid the surveyor’s temptation to make it perfectly straight. Nature rarely follows a straight line. The best way to set out the village boundary is with a number of people walking the land with pegs and stakes. Let the proposed boundary line undulate with the hills, let it move out to enclose a tree or in so the tree sits outside the wall (but don’t cut the tree just because it is in the way). Outside the wall build large gardens, sports fields, an equestrian centre and paddocks for farm animals, and of course, the motorpool and the shipping depot.

In some places, where the nearby buildings are public, make the wall wide enough to walk upon with lovely wrought iron railings. In other places, build a recess in the top, filled with topsoil and planted with cascading vines and flowering plants. If you have the luxury of falling water, consider even using the wall as a Roman aqueduct to transport the water to the right place for a plaza fountain. In some places, leave the wall natural. In others, coat it with brilliant white whitewash or clay-tinted slurry that develops a patina over time as different tints are applied and eventually wear through.

 

The design brief as a vernacular process

Under normal circumstances, authority for the design brief lies with the customer. Usually that customer is an investor or an investor-developer who borrows the money to buy the land, secure subdivision approval, and either develop it or sell it off to a developer-builder. In many cases the architect or master planner drives the design brief by holding a series of meetings with the real customer–the people who will live there–listening to the customer’s ideas, going away to make drawings, and coming back with new ones until the customer finally agrees and signs off. In high-profile jobs, architects may seek to plant their artistic stamp on the project, convincing the real customer to accept a design brief that the architect hopes will be prize winning. With the normal time pressures of business, and especially of borrowed money, the parameters considered when creating the design brief are often truncated. Very early on in the process, the design brief is established.

We propose that the design brief process take longer, that it embraces the five elements of quality of life (economic, social, cultural, environmental, spiritual) in a thorough manner and that we create tools for the real customer–the people who will actually live in the Village–that enable them to provide for their own collective well being. We propose this to give the Village a true sense of authenticity.

On the front book flap of architect Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, he writes “. . . people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.” We ask “How can we enable people to do their own design within the context of building a five to ten thousand population community with thousands of homes, offices, shops and public buildings?”

Answer: model train set. In testing various tools, we found some nonprofessionals have difficulty reading architectural drawings or visualising computer generated renditions. So we build build a 100:1 three-dimensional scale model of the Village including buildings, streets and open spaces. Make the buildings movable. We then take timeless patterns and reduce them to business card sized fridge-magnets, printed on an ordinary ink-jet printer, and have the non-professionals work with them on large magnetic white boards. With these two simple tools, we enable non-professional people to create the design brief for their community. Not by themselves, of course–we draw upon all the professional expertise any major development project would. It’s just that we change the working relationship between the professionals and the people who will live in the Village. Only then that the design brief be reduced back to paper–that becomes the master plan for zoning approval. As Christopher Alexander suggests this will radically transform their profession.

When we provide a tool set for the customer to develop a design brief this way, the first thing that changes is the relationship between the professionals, who receive the design brief, and the real client: the people who will live there; who will live with the results. To make this process clearer, we name these future residents as ‘Founders’ and we group all the professionals, be they architects, planners, engineers, designers, bankers, and the like, with the name of ‘Mentors’.

 

The Design Code

Up to this point we have been focused on the process of enabling people to participate in the design of their Village, however a Village is more than a start-up. It evolves over many decades, even centuries, and to be coherent a set of design codes need to be put into place. A design code requires a more formal approach as it implies specific language that guides not only the initial development, but also its evolution into the future. It must accompany the Design Brief process.

When tailored and completed for your Village, such codes and plans becomes part of the Village specifications. While the design brief becomes the Master Plan, these codes become the standing rules, and in addition to being adopted by the approving agency as part of the conditions for approval, they may be placed as a condition of title. In most cases, we would expect local government planners, who must recommend approval for a Village Plan, would welcome such design codes.

The codes can be explicit, to achieve social outcomes. For example, in Seaview, Florida, the code requires homes have front porches and they be close to the street. Why? Florida is warm, people sit on porches while others walk by and proximity encourages human contact. Do not be afraid to write such requirements, they are what make great places so wonderful.

Another example:

Road types:

Pedestrian streets/roads may be as narrow as several meters/yards in width. Actual width will be determined based on projected peak foot traffic.

Connector footpaths join pedestrian lanes/streets and may include steps and gates.

Access streets/roads/alleys – Each building must have direct access to a roadway of sufficient width to deliver goods and services. Each must have at least one handicap access in accordance with law. The access may either be street frontage or alleyways . and the width must provide for (a) safe parking of a standard low speed vehicle (b) safe, slow passing room for a second and (c) pedestrians walking on the access street.

Pedestrian boulevards connecting the main plazas may be substantially wider, but shall not be wider than the average adjacent building height.

The Village Parade is a single street wide enough to host a festival parade with all residents in attendance. It connects the Village Gate to the Central Plaza.

A whole range of design code for each element of the Village Master Plan is needed.

 

How you can start building a Village

Every person has the skills to build a village, they’ve just not done it before. All you need is a helping hand, and How to Build a Village is just that. Our goal however is to do more than sell books. Yes, please buy a copy, but then read it, give it to others to read, and form a circle of people (a Village Circle) who want to live in one of the Villages.

If a thousand people come together, have the funds to buy their own home and/or workplace, and say they want to live in a Village, that becomes powerful. People will listen, especially enablers . . . the elected and appointed officials who must approve, the sustainable investors and developers who will see opportunity to do well by doing good, the sustainable professionals who dream of getting such opportunities.

The book sets out the parameters, so you end up getting what you want. It sets out ideas, but more importantly, it sets out a process where collectively very different people can negotiate a scale model that then becomes the master plan to build the Village.

If you want to live in a Village, if you own or know of a great site to build a Village, if you are a government official or an investor wanting to sponsor a Village, or if you are a professional wanting to become involved, this book is only the beginning. To actual connect with others to build a Village go to www.VillageForum.Com . It’s all in the early stages now, but if it catches people’s imagination, it could grow rapidly.

 

References

1. “Book Review: How to Build a Village” by Malu Fink at Worldchanging.com, October 11, 2007
2. Village Forum, the website of the book
3. Readable low resolution preview of the whole book (page by page) at Lulu.com
4. Website of the Slow Food Movement.
5. Pattern Language, an association of people from all walks of life, with architects and builders, who are rebuilding neighborhoods and slowly rebuilding the earth.