Eco-Villages

Many authors and researches defined Eco-Villages as urban villages, Eco- Housing, Earth Housing. However; Robert Gilman set out a definition of an Eco village in 1991, later on this definition became a standard (Gliman, 1991). Robert defined an Eco village as a:
• human-scale
• full-featured settlement
• in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world
• in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and
• can be successfully continued into the indefinite future

The people who lives in Eco-villages houses are united. They share Ecology, Social- Economic, and culture values. Those people have their own lifestyle, they know how to collect water, they know about sustainable farming they know how they affect their communities in a good way. For example, they know how to decrease the impacts of sewage treatments, or how to reduce the impacts of home construction by using local materials, the know how to reduce fossil fuel use for air conditioning by using natural ventilation.

The aim for a population of an Eco villages is between 50-150 individuals because it the maximum social network (Human-Scale) according to sociology and anthropology. Large Eco-villages could take up to two thousands individuals but it will be consists of smaller subcommunities. According to Marc Tobin there is ten main Design Goals for Eco-villages (Tobi, 2005). The goals are:

1.      Reduce automobile driving

2.      Reduce consumption of nonorganic meats

3.      Reduce consumption of nonorganic fruits, vegetables, and grains

4.      Reduce fossil fuel use for space heating

5.      Reduce fossil fuel use for hot water

6.      Reduce fossil fuel air conditioning

7.      Reduce energy demand from household appliances

8.      Reduce energy demand from lighting

9.      Reduce impacts of home construction

10.  Decrease impacts of sewage treatment

In 2002 Gilman said that there is no existent for Eco-villages because they don’t meet all the criteria yet. In her article “Green Building in Eco-village” Diana Leafe Christian disagreed with Gilman, she said that there is many good examples for Eco-villages, such as well-known Eco-village projects in this united states are Eco village at Ithaca in New York state, Dancing Rabbit in northeastern Missouri, Sirius Community in western Massachusetts, Lost Valley Educational Center in Oregon, Los Angeles Eco-village, and Earthaven Ecovillage near Black Mountain, North Carolina.”(Chirstan 2002).

A good example of an Eco-Village is Sirius community which was established in Shaftesbury, Massachusetts in summer 1978 by former members of “Findhorn Community in Scotland wishing to establish a similar community in their American homeland” (Sirius community, 2013). This community is described as a spiritual community, educational center, and ecovillage.

Figure 1: Sirius community center (http://www.siriuscommunity.org/, 2013)

Members of Siruis ecovillage have their own ecological ways of living, they produce their own organic food, they build all their solar and environmentally friendly buildings, they use solar, wind for electricity. They recycle waste materials, “build and use composting toilets, collect and filter used vegetable oil for operating our vegetable-oil burning cars and trucks” (http://www.siriuscommunity.org/, 2013).

The 35 members of Siruis ecovillage created their own gardens, ovens, and benches. They built these features by using local materials which is one of the important goals for sustainability. They share Ecology, Social- Economic, and culture values together. The total area for this community is 90 acres.

 

Figure 2: Sirius community Greenhouse (http://www.siriuscommunity.org/, 2013)

 

Figure 3: Members of Sirius community created their own Oven for social gathering and they also built their own benches from local materials (http://www.siriuscommunity.org/, 2013)

Another good example for Eco-Villages is Florida Eco-Village in Dunedin. The first affordable net-zero town home development in the US (Figure4). The goal of this project is to provide affordable dwellings for everyone. Those houses are designed on a way to reduce overall household energy use, solar panel, led panels, water filters, electric chargers and man other features were added to these units to save energy. This eco village consists of 25 units (townhomes) they were designed to maximize energy efficiency.

 

    

Figure 4: An innovative housing development is set to get underway in Dunedin, Florida that will see the creation of the first affordable LEED Certified Net Zero Energy townhome development in the US. (Singh , 2012)