Kailash Ecovillage… Could You Do It?

The Kailash EcoVillage is the community project that I believe, more than any other discussed throughout the course of the class, exemplifies the importance and power of having community leadership that is knowledgeable, kind, charismatic, and passionate about the betterment of the people and land of that community. The documentary shown in class showcased this in the leader of Kailash. He was gung ho about every aspect of sustainable communal living, while retaining a sense of understanding that not everyone in the community would fully buy in. He seemed like a shining example of the pinnacle of sustainable living, while having empathy to understand that others would come around at various times and levels. This is the sort of approachable nature that needs to be brought into more of these projects in order for them to become more mainstream. Communities of alternative lifestyles need to seem more acceptable and imaginable to the layman in order for them to truly be feasible.

The community was once an old motel-esque complex consisting of nothing but run down residential units sitting within a desolate paved lot. This development has thirty two units ranging from 1 to 3 bedrooms that are all in the process of being gradually updated as budget becomes available. In the project's genesis, The community, with help from local contractors and charitable organizations, tore said lot up by hand. As an interesting quip, they found things under the lot that had been hidden for half a century such as a mini-pond, which was repurposed in the garden design to facilitate water management and wetland conditions. This sort of chance addition to the plan speaks to the sort of haphazard charm of this project. It is not pretentious and feels very human in its composition and planning.

The community lets nothing go to waste, as the compost bins are continually being filled from everything to food scraps to human waste. While this seems unsightly, the community has a system of wood chip coverage for the bins that makes, at least from the point of view within a video, to completely keep the waste and rot out of sight and apparently undetectable by smell. This insular and cyclical nature of resources in the community is further elaborated on as the community demonstrated its urine recycling process. This is where I believe that the project becomes a bit over the top of most people's comfort level. The visual of a thousand gallons of human urine seems a bit extreme to the layman who does not really know or care about the ecological and planting benefits of this practice. However, the tanks being kept pretty well out of sight, as well as the practice not being mandatory is a good enough counterpoint to the practice being too strange to live there.

All in all, this is the answer to the community of a sustainable future. Whether people are comfortable with these practices or not. I believe that people like the leaders of this community are key to the acceptance of this truth to the general populous. Leaders who are informed, passionate, loving, understanding, and in truth great talkers and marketers of these practices and lifestyles may be the single most important factor to the realization of these practices at scale. It is one thing to get followers of this practice in Portland, but the implementation of them in conservative and rural areas is a whole other ball game. Education of the layman by informed and excited figureheads is of paramount import.

Links to consider:

https://www.communitecture.net/kailash-ecovillage.html

https://www.ic.org/directory/kailash-ecovillage/

https://www.communitecture.net/kailash-ecovillage.html