A Virtual Tour
Photos and text by Jim Bosjolie
As you turn off the main road onto EcoVillage land, you enter a new world.
a world that begins, after a short drive, at the Common House.
You're just in time for dinner.
Won't you join us?
We usually have plenty of room,
and you can leave your kids in the playroom.
After dinner, they may enjoy a story in the sitting room...
while you view the rest of the Common House and look into one of ten offices
used by residents in their businesses.
Downstairs is a laundry room. Three washers and three dryers serve
30 households!
Next door is the mat room - a general purpose area used for yoga/meditation
in the morning, bigger kids play in the afternoon, and occasional meetings.
In an alcove off the mat room is the reuse room.
Have something you don't want anymore but it's still
too good to throw out? Bring it to the reuse room.
Need new shoes/clothes/books/toys but don't want
to pay the price? Find it in the reuse room. There's
never any charge, and it's a great way to recycle.
And that's most of it. The purpose of the Common
House
is to provide communally what you might
otherwise need in an individual home.
Now let's take a walk in the 'hood. Notice that the main thoroughfare
is a walkway and not a road...
making it easy to have a kids' sandbox right on the path.
All houses in both neighborhoods are duplexes with the front doors
facing the 'street'.
The houses were constructed to be adequate in size, while keeping in mind
the lighter the ecological footprint, the better. They are very comfortable
as this living room...
and bedroom attest.
District heating is the norm in the first neighborhood.
This means that an 'Energy Center' houses...
twin gas boilers that heat six to eight units at the
same time through a system of underground piping. All
homes in the village are super-insulated and utilize passive
solar. As a village we use about 40% less natural gas and
electricity than other homes in the Northeast.
We hope this gives you a 'flavor' of the First Resident
Group (or FROG).
Now let's go west of this common
house and visit...
(photo by Tendai Chittewere)
the Second Neighorhood Group or SoNG.
SoNG is the younger 'hood and houses do not
adhere to a uniform house-model as found in FROG.
Landscaping is still continuing in SoNG,
and the Common House, which will be located in the center, is currently
under construction.
Construction is slated to be completed in the spring of 2006. You can follow
progress by clicking the "Progress on SoNG Common House construction"
link after clicking "Photos" menu link on EVI main page.
Houses are laid out differently in SoNG, and open up into a large open area
in the center. Use of this area is yet to be determined, but may include play,
plantings, and benches.
Now let's take a look inside an atypical SoNG house.
(There are really no typical houses).
Here is the cheerful kitchen bathed in light from a southern view...
which flows into a dining/living room downstairs.
Upstairs the master bedroom has a door that opens onto a balcony.
From the balcony you can clearly see the viewgap in the
neighborhood's center. It was designed so that the
Common House windows would have a southern vista.
This duplex is heated by a small, 92% efficient gas heater
which is typical for most of SONG.
In addition, almost half of SoNG homes have photovoltaics on the roof
and generate electricity from the sun.
Now let's journey to the end of SoNG and look back at the Common House
of the first neighborhood. This gives you an idea of how large this
neighborhood is. Both FROG and SoNG consist of 30 households and are
fully occupied with 102 adults and 60 children who range in age from
newborn to people in their 80s.
But there is more to see than just the neighborhoods. EcoVillage
at Ithaca lies on 174 acres of land of which the two neighborhoods
take up seven acres or less.
Actually, a minimum of 80% of the land is preserved as open space allowing
for wildlife, recreation and organic agriculture to coexist with cohousing.
There are many magical spaces in EcoVillage, and we wish to preserve them.
We also serve as land stewards as part of the larger cohousing community
Therefore, education is an important part of the EcoVillage mission. We are
partnering with Ithaca College and the National Science Foundation to educate
a new generation of students in sustainable management. Here local ecoforester
Mike DeMunn assists students in building a deer enclosure to help restore
forest biodiversity by protecting tree seedlings endangered by overgrazing deer.
Because of our educational commitment and outreach,
we have attracted many international visitors including
Kioykazu Shidara, founder and Director of the
Permaculture
Institute in Japan. While here he helped us
gain a greater understanding of permaculture principles.
But let's get back to our virtual walking tour. To the South of SoNG
you will find a sheep pen with four sheep owned by one of the residents
Continuing east, a sauna built by local residents appears (note the sod roof).
which can and has provided space for 10-15 people at a time.
We would be remiss if we didn't mention the village pond, which provides
swimming in summer, skating in winter and fire protection
for both neighborhoods.
There are also open fields for outdoor play...
and community celebrations such as May Day.
And at the eastern end of FROG you will find a greenhouse belonging to
West Haven Farm.
It is used for starting and growing crops as part of the eleven acre organic
Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm on the land.
Community Supported Agriculture is a topic in itself. Visitors who wish
to learn more about this subject and take a virtual tour of the farm...
should visit West Haven Farm. (photo courtesy of West Haven Farm)
But now it's time to end our tour and head back to the neighborhood.
We hope you have enjoyed this virtual tour of EcoVillage. If you would like to
take an actual tour, see our Visiting page for further information.
~
Thanks for taking the virtual tour!
