Gaviotas: A Village To Reinvent The World

[Jez]

I don't know which forum this link belongs in Murray...feel free to move it if you wish.

This is a place really worth checking out for those that haven't heard of it:

Article about Gaviotas (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004910.html)





Gaviotas is a village of about 200 people in Colombia, South America. For three decades, Gaviotans - peasants, scientists, artists, and former street kids - have struggled to build an oasis of imagination and sustainability in the remote, barren savannas of eastern Colombia, an area ravaged by political terror. They have planted millions of trees, thus regenerating an indigenous rainforest. They farm organically and use wind and solar power. Every family enjoys free housing, community meals, and schooling. There are no weapons, no police, no jail. There is no mayor.

The United Nations named the village a model of sustainable development. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor of the world."



The above is taken from the 'About Gaviotas' section at the Gaviotas Website (http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/index.html)

There are plenty of other links in the first article, including Alan Weisman's 1998 book Gaviotas: A Village To Reinvent The World (http://www.amazon.com/Gaviotas-A-Village-Reinvent-World/dp/1890132284/sr=8-1/qid=1157760649/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6892950-3687156?ie=UTF8&s=books)

Anyone who has further info about Gaviotas, their community life or technologies, please feel free to add further info.

Very exciting place IMO! 8)

[murray]

hmm.. "Reinvent The World"? how about "the big picture" forum? 8)

[Jez]

Thanks Murray. :D

I hope someone checked this out...for the technology aspect at the very least...some awesome ideas:




Upon their arrival, the Gavioteros began figuring out ways to draw water in the inhospitable climate. They eventually created a unique design for a deep-soil water pump, in which the piston stays stationary and the sleeve around it actually moves up and down. The entire mechanism is attached, on the surface, to a children's seesaw; by playing on the seesaw, the local children actually provide the water for the village.

Other Gaviotan designs include a sunflower-shaped windmill design that has proven so effective that copies of it can be found all over Colombia, thanks to their commonly-held policy of refusing to patent their designs. Indeed, in some places, the word for "windmill" is gaviotas.

The Gaviotas hospital is also an astonishing example of self-sustainable technology. Global:Ideas:Bank describes it thusly:

The settlement's hospital building is set on a rise, a maze of angles formed by sky lights, glass awnings, solar collectors, and brushed steel columns. A Japanese architectural journal has named this 16-bed Gaviotas hospital one of the 40 most important buildings in the world.

Inside, the air conditioning system is a blend of modern and ancient technology. The underground ducts have hillside intakes that face north to catch the breeze. Egyptians used this kind of wind ventilation to cool the pyramids.

In the hospital kitchen, methane from cow dung provides the gas for stove-top burners. But most of the cooking is done with solar pressure cookers. Photovoltaic cells on the roof run a pump; solar heated oil circulates around the stainless steel pot.

In a separate hospital wing, a large thatch ramada has been built for llanos-dwelling Guahivo Indians. Instead of beds, these patients lie in hammocks hung from wooden beams.

While the doctor treats the sick, their families stay with them because the Guahivo believe that to wall someone off away from his people is the ultimately unhealthy confinement. To earn their keep, the relatives tend vegetables in an adjacent greenhouse - Lugari hopes that this greenhouse will form the foundation for one of the finest medicinal plant laboratories in the tropics.