As reported by Inhabitat, an abandoned medieval village situated in a valley in the Ligurian Alps in the northwestern part of Italy has been restored and transformed into a self-sufficient ecological community which promotes a healthy lifestyle with a much reduced carbon footprint.
The project has been two decades in the making. The renovation used local stone, natural lime, and natural insulation, so the original aesthetic remains unchanged. Several organic permaculture gardens and fruit orchards provide fresh produce through organic cycles and seasons and the village inhabitants proudly make their own jams, honey, olive oil, and bread. Goats and chickens mill around freely, providing eggs and dairy products. Solar panels are used to provide hot water and some of the electricity being used. There are plans to add more solar panels to improve on the energy balance and eventually gain independence from the grid.
The original article with a picture gallery is here:
Medieval Italian Village Transformed Into Self-Sufficient Eco-Community
The village also has its own website:
Ecovillage Torri Superiore – TRAVELING TOWARDS THE TRANSITION
A video on YouTube, although it misses English text, nevertheless gives a good idea of the area where the village is situated. Worth watching even if you don’t understand the Italian comment.
Wow! I guess this is as close to Alexander’s vision of a new kind of world as you can get!
A NEW KIND OF WORLD
> A world in which we experience, daily, our unity with the universe
> A world which is made like nature – and in which we are daily making nature
> A world in which the daily process of making, adapting, and deepening is a vital part of our lives
> A world in which there is something to believe in – not a religious thing – but a believable vision of God as the unity behind all things which guides us and impels us to act in certain ways. God not conceived of as a construct of any organized religion, but as a fact of nature and its wholeness
> A social and political world which contains (and explicitly provides) the freedom for us to act in this way – something we rarely have today
> A world in which we feel the cultural trace of human beings before us who made and loved every part
> A world in which we value ourselves according to the beauty of the places we have carved out, and modified, and taken care of, and in which we have woven our lives together with that of other people, animals, and plants
> A world in which buildings are shaped according to these principles, and laws governing the shaping of buildings in this way, are the laws most precious to us, and those to which we give most weight
> A world in which we have an entirely new understanding of what it means for the world to be sustainable: not a technical matter, but a matter in which respect for the whole governs
> Above all, there is a world in which meaning exists. The deadly and frightening state in which we do not know why we are here, is replaced by a world in which there is a natural and accurate and truthful picture — an answer to the question ‘why am I here’ – one that is not made up, but that stems from and accords with the true nature of things
– Christopher Alexander