We’ve been busy with infrastructure design details! Here are the initial layouts and aquaponics and walipini combination designs called aquapinis. The three walipini food production systems we will demonstrate as Phase I of the One Community self-sustainable food production plan are:

1. Walipini Greenhouses: These will be used as traditional soil growing areas to grow things we can’t grow in the other greenhouses including trees for year-round production. In support of our open source goals these greenhouses will provide the most affordable and simple option for people to duplicate.
2. Large-scale Production Aquapinis: These will be aquapinis purposed for maximum food volume production of the foods we need the most. In support of our open source goals these will demonstrate and share a model for commercial use and impoverished areas most in need of large-scale quality food production utilizing very little water.
3. Diversity and Aesthetic Aquapinis: These aquapinis are designed to demonstrate maximum food diversity, space utilization through a combination of growing methods including aquaponics, and provide a small space for just enjoying the environment. In support of our open source goals these combination aquapinis are purposed to provide a food production system that will inspire a person to want to build it in their backyard as a way to produce a volume and diversity of food for all their family and friends (and several additional families) while also creating an aesthetically pleasing place to go and sit in nature and comfortably read a book during the coldest months of winter. As we continue to design these we are exploring a combination of water features, sitting area designs, and other options to make them both functional and beautiful. We are also building these with the long-term intent to demonstrate that we can convert them into walipini permaculture environments once the higher production levels of the aquaponics are no longer needed due to permaculture and the other sustainable food production facilities incorporated into each of the Pods.

For more information and details on our open source food systems integrating aquapini, aquaponics and walipini designs (including links to our complete design notes, food production details, etc.) visit:

• OUR SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION OVERVIEW PAGE
• OUR OPEN SOURCE SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS DETAILS PAGE

CONSULTANTS ON OUR AQUAPONICS DESIGNS

Avery Ellis: Aquaponics Specialist and owner/operator of Integrated Aquaponics

The drawings below are now in the hands of one of our architect consultants:

Douglas Simms Stenhouse: Architect and Water Color Artist (see: transparentwatercolor.com)

This is the layout integrating initial layout drawings with Avery’s sketchup designs. Doug will now be looking at this with an architects eye to improve aesthetics, water catchment and flow, air flow and venting, heat retention and utilization, accessibility, space conservation, etc.

Integration of Initial Layout Drawings with Avery’s Sketchup Designs – Click Image to Enlarge

Aquapini and Walipini Above Grade Layout Drawings – Click Image to Enlarge

Aquapini and Walipini Below-Grade Layout Drawings – Click Image to Enlarge

For more information and details on our open source food systems integrating aquapini, aquaponics and walipini designs (including links to our complete design notes, food production details, etc.) visit:

• OUR SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION OVERVIEW PAGE
• OUR OPEN SOURCE SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS DETAILS PAGE

Along with all the infrastructure details that are moving forward (more updates coming here this week), One Community has been in the process of updating our sustainability non-profit site to create an overview site because this site is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate as we produce more and more open source content. Looking into the future we see this overview site as being our primary site that we refer people to that will help people understand what One Community is before they dig deeper into the much more comprehensive open source blueprint site (this one).

SUSTAINABILITYNONPROFIT.ORG

There are two reasons for creating and updating sustainabilitynonprofit.org. The first is that feedback we receive is consistently a combination of appreciation for the level of detail we present and overwhelm due to this same level of detail. Because of this we are adding the image below to the foundational pages of this website to help people who like less information while maintaining all the work we have invested for those who like more information.

TOO MUCH INFO LINK:

On the overview site we are adding a similar image and link to more quickly connect people seeking more information to the expanded pages of this site.

GIVE ME MORE INFO LINK:

THE OTHER REASON(S) FOR THESE UPDATES

The other reason for the new site updates is the application of hundreds of hours of SEO research that we have done for a $10,000 per month internet marketing grant (click here for details on our marketing engine) that we are benefitting from. Applying what has amounted to researching almost 500,000 keywords associated with sustainability, we have created massive adwords campaigns and also optimized the new site with the most relevant of these words. All current and future marketing efforts now point to this site so people can more easily understand One Community before diving into this site that will eventually grow to be 1,000’s of pages.

Sustainabilitynonprofit.org is also much more specifically communicating our message of global change and how we are working to usher in a new golden age of innovation, cooperation, collaboration, and global conscious focus on creating and living for The Highest Good of All.

COMPARING THE TWO SITES

If you’d like to compare a few of the pages, here are the ones we have completed thus far:

The SEGO Center City Hub will arguably be One Community’s most important buildings and is purposed to demonstrate cutting-edge sustainability, to function as the community recreation center, dining hall, and laundry facility, and to offer a green-luxury option to donors, major eco-investors, VIPs, or anyone else that might not feel like they are initially ready to stay in one of our earthbag or straw bale hand-constructed homes. It will also replace individual kitchens, laundry rooms, and living rooms for One Community residents.

Eco Hot Tub and Natural Pool Design

A key aspect of the SEGO Center that we are excited to develop and open source free-share are our designs for an eco hot tub and natural swimming pool. To make this possible we are working with Jennifer Engelmeier Â (Eco-pool and Spa Specialist and founder of www.LoveYourPool.com), Meg West (Landscape Architect, Permaculturalist, and founder of Meg West Design), and LEED AP Team Aravind Batra (Electrical Engineer, LEED AP, Principal of P2S Engineering) and James Del Monaco (Mechanical Engineer, LEED AP, Sustainability director of P2S Engineering).

With a desire for maximum diversity, duplicability, and open source content creation, we are working together to design the eco hot tub to commercial code and standards, and the natural swimming pool to residential code and standards. This will allow us to explore, demonstrate, and open source free-share the process for both an eco-pool and eco hot tub design, and both residential and commercial codes (designing to California Code standards for maximum duplicability), all assisting us in providing what we believe will evolve into the most comprehensive and detailed open source and free-shared plans available for both.

Here are a few initial concept pictures:

The eco hot tub will occupy the central area of the SEGO Center and the natural swimming pool is being designed to function as an indoor and outdoor pool with an indoor waterfall and the ability to swim under the wall to transition from outside to inside. The picture below demonstrates this but we are now in the process of updating the designs such that the pool is also centrally located and close to the hot tub.

For regular updates, follow us on our facebook updates page.

SEGO Center Level 1 CAD Screenshot

For more information visit:

The Center of Peace Details Page

Foundational Natural Pool and Eco Hut Tub Designers:

Jennifer Engelmeier: Eco-pool and Spa Specialist and founder of www.LoveYourPool.com
Meg West: Landscape Architect, Permaculturalist, and founder of Meg West Design

Additional thanks to our overall design team:

Andrew Sadera: Architect Drafter and Designer
Douglas Simms Stenhouse: Architect and Water Color Artist (see: transparentwatercolor.com)
Karl Harris: Architect Drafter, Designer, and founder of Harris Design & Technology Services

One Community is happy to welcome Jennifer Engelmeier, Eco-pool and Spa Specialist, to the One Community Consultant Team. Â Jennifer has 15 years of experience working with DEL Ozone, specializing in reducing chemicals by utilizing ozone technology and other natural water purifiers and clarifiers. In 2011 Jennifer started her own business to help people searching for better, healthier water and now operates LoveYourHotTub.com and LoveYourPool.com. Through her years of working in the industry, Jen combines a wealth of experience with an extensive community of pool, spa, and sanitation experts helping us design the Center of Peace natural pool, jacuzzi, and laundry facility to minimize environmental impact while maximizing water quality, health, and safety.

For more information on the Pool and Spa Designs Jennifer is helping us with, visit our Center of Peace Details Page.

One Community is partnered with Hestia Home Biogas to help forward home biogas plant design and promote the advantages of biogas over fossil fuels. For those who don’t already know, biogas is virtually identical to fossil natural gas, only instead of taking 65 million years to make, it can be made every day in our own backyard using a simple biodigester that requires no moving parts, special equipment, or chemicals. As amazing as this natural energy source is, it has been greatly under-utilized in the United States with less than 100 homes benefiting from it here. Meanwhile, in China over 50 million households are presently using biogas and towns in countries like Sweden operate complete bus fleets on biogas.

CLICK HERE FOR HESTIA HOME BIOGAS’ CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN

THE ADVANTAGES OF BIOGAS

1. 100% renewable
2. Production of energy (heat, light, electricity)
3. Globally implementable and affordable
4. Transformation of organic wastes into high quality fertilizer
5. Improvement of hygienic conditions through reduction of pathogens, worm eggs and flies
6. Environmentally regenerative and supportive through protection of forests, soil, water, and air

HOME BIOGAS PLANT DESIGN

Warren Weismann operates Hestia Home Biogas (located in Eugene, Oregon) and is one of only a handful of biogas and anaerobic digestion experts in the United States. He has over 20 years experience as a builder, heavy equipment mechanic, and power plant operator and, together with his business partner David Rasmussen, is on a mission to popularize biogas technology by offering simple, low-cost home biogas plant design classes and plans for biodigesters that are easy to build and operate to produce home cooking fuel, fuel electric generators, pumps, and water heaters. One Community has partnered with Warren and Hestia Home Biogas to demonstrate bio digester technology as part of Pod 1, open source share our building process, and to work with Warren and Hestia Home Biogas to play as large a role as possible in promoting small-scale domestic biogas as one path to energy independence.

HOW YOU CAN HELP BIOGAS RIGHT NOW

Warren and Hestia Home Biogas are doing everything they can to support making biogas plant designs and the advantages of biogas accessible and usable to as many people in America as possible. They teach classes, offer biogas supplies and learning kits, and now they are also operating a crowd funding campaign to develop a biogas stovetop that is UL approved for indoor domestic use in North America.

Contributions to this campaign will help pay for the cost of development, materials, and prototyping for a double burner biogas stovetop that is presently being engineered by Oregon State University’s engineering department. This UL approved stovetop is the final barrier to really allow widespread US implementation because it will allow biogas to comply with US building, safety, and fire codes.

Any proceeds over and above the target amount will go towards an aggressive marketing campaign to make more homeowners aware of biogas as a 100% natural clean burning option for home cooking and electric energy. Please help us make biogas a part of America’s energy future and be sure to share this link!

VIDEO OF HESTIA’S HOME BIOGAS PLANT DESIGN

ONE COMMUNITY’S OPEN SOURCE BIOGAS PROGRESS

As One Community builds our own home biogas plant we will be posting videos and links to our open source information here so please contribute now to Warren’s crowd funding campaign and bookmark this page for future reference.

We just emailed an update to a couple of our closest collaborators for global transformation and realized we should share that update here too!

Here’s what we are up to over the holidays:

Our non-profit application will be open-source and free-shared and available on the this site by the end of the year, we should have a new open-source community time and organization tracking application available within a month or so (beta testing it now), 3D renderings and next stage building plans for the SEGO Center City Hub will be done and posted within a few weeks, we’ve done a lot of work on our aquaponics designs and the first of these images should be posted here within the next week – with much more detailed plans coming over the next six weeks (or sooner), and updated energy infrastructure (280 KW solar array) details will be posted here as soon as I have time to add them to the website.

Thank you everyone for your support!

With Gratitude,

Jae

One Community is happy to announce three new consultants to our global change team:

Doug Pratt –  Solar Expert and Solar Systems Design Engineer: Progressively focused from a young age, when the Arab Oil Embargo occurred it ignited in Doug a lifelong interest specifically in renewable energy and conservation. He has lived in passive solar homes both on and off-grid since 1980, worked in the renewable energy industry as an installer, engineer, teacher, and author since 1985, and now works for the largest solar provider in the United States. He has engineered, designed, and consulted for the solar electric industry at all levels from single huts in developing countries to large corporate mega-watt solar arrays and is now volunteering his vast experience and knowledge to the design for the One Community sustainable energy infrastructure for our Phase I build including: Pod 1, the SEGO Center City Hub, and aquaponics and greenhouses.

L’iv Â  (eL’eve) – Architect, Engineer, and Building Expert – Beginning at an age of 18 years, in the mid 1960’s, L’iv formally joined construction trades to finance his degree work in Architecture and Construction Engineering Management. With 40 years experience L’iv has sat in every seat around the real estate-design-development-construction-finance tables, in the office and in the field. He has worked as a Laborer, Carpenter, Superintendent, Construction/Development Manager, Planner, Architect, Engineer, Builder, Developer, Real Estate Broker, Financial Planner and Mortgage Officer and more. L’iv brings a life of experience and exploring cutting edge science, philosophy, and the more esoteric sciences of manifestation, sacred geometry, and more to assisting One Community and further sharing his passion through writing Guides (see his Land Resource Guide) and consulting on various aspects of Unconditioned Love (see his website www.LiveLoveAndProsper.org) for Mother Earth and all living creatures.

Samuel Kiwasz – Teacher and Sacred Geometry Specialist: Samuel spent 22 years as a school teacher with the L.A. Unified School District where he incorporated his passion for sacred geometry into math through a class called “Geometric Drawing. The Math/Art Connection.” Leaving that career, he is now a social entrepreneur and community synergist sharing his passion for assisting people to arrive at their next level of spiritual development. Samuel operates a website called  www.SacredPendants.org, teaches seminars, maintains an extensive and daily email list dedicated to forward thinking and empowering information sharing, and has contributed his sacred geometry knowledge and lesson plans to the developing education model of One Community.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR COMPLETE TEAM OF PARTNERS AND CONSULTANTS

The SEGO Center City Hub and Aquaponics designs continue to move forward! New images are now available on the SEGO Center Details page and the Aquaponics Details page.

We’re also happy to announce that we’ve received a lot of new help recently in the form of new Consultants to the project that we’ll be announcing here soon as well.

………………………………

Click Image for Details Page

Click Image for Details Page

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT

• Sustainable Food Production Infrastructure Overview Page
• Aquaponics/Walipini Open Source Design Details page
• The Center of Peace Overview Page
• SEGO Center City Hub Details page
• Our Progress Updates Page

Click For Complete Page

One Community is incorporating vermiculture bins into our composting toilet plans as one way to share with the world how to add a compost bin into any human waste disposal plan. Doing this will take composting with worms indoors with a new eco-friendly toilet we believe anyone will be able to duplicate. In our opinion, there are more and more people starting to think about how to compost at home and we are open source project-launch blueprinting and free-sharing plans for a vermiculture composting toilet (and eco-showers) as part of the earthbag village (Pod 1) that will incorporate vermiculture bins into an eco-friendly toilet model that will:

┏ Teach people how to make their own eco friendly toilets and compost at home
┏ Demonstrate indoor worm composting as an option for human waste disposal
┏ Include a traditional septic for people that want one and counties that need one

RELATED PAGES

   OPEN SOURCE PLANS | EARTHBAG VILLAGE HUB | OUR OPEN SOURCE PURPOSE

Worms for Composting and Zero-waste Living

Building a composting bin and composting with worms is nothing new; what is new is what we see as a large shift in people interested in what we call living For The Highest Good of All and comprehensive sustainability focused on zero-waste living that includes a re-examination and consideration of our current collection and processing approach to human waste disposal through collection at centralized processing centers, sterilization, and then pumping it into our global water bodies.

 “Turn the ‘garbage’ into ‘compost’ for the garden of your life.”
~ Author Unknown

How to Make Your Own Compost Resources

While most people are still thinking about how to make a compost bin for home-garden or basic indoor composting only, we see a much broader application if eco-friendly toilets incorporating vermiculture and worm composting can be made easily, safely, more affordably, so it’s easy to use, and in compliance with county requirements. We are now designing a vermiculture composting bathroom that will meet these requirements with the added open source details covering exact labor hours to build it yourself, detailed materials costs and where to buy, maintenance requirements, compost production volume based on number of people using it, trouble shooting, working with your local government guides, and more.

Earthworm composting and red worms composting are incredibly efficient ways to convert everything from paper to table scraps and even human waste into nutrient-rich compost for your garden. Vermiculture composting experts agree that compost produced by worms will produce the best results and help your plants thrive.

Click here for a free PDF manual comprehensively covering vermiculture and vermicomposting

Vermicomposting for the Future

We see worm composting bin integration into eco-friendly toilets as the wave of the future with tremendous benefit and application especially for third-world countries struggling with waste disposal and food production. Before this can happen, however, we see the necessity for demonstrating and open source sharing a model that is affordable and easy to build and use while simultaneously meeting existing international building and health standards.

This is what we are creating and the earthbag village is where we will be integrating this vermiculture composting toilet first:

• Click here for the earthbag village open source portal
• Click here for the vermiculture toilet and eco-showers page

RESOURCES

Click here for a free PDF manual comprehensively covering vermiculture and vermicomposting
Here are open source urine separating toilet seat design plans we’ll be implementing with this system
Here are building instructions for another version of a “dry” toilet that separates all liquids

WE’D LOVE HELP IF THIS STUFF EXCITES YOU TOO

CONSULTANTS | PIONEERS

One of the greatest learnings about leadership and team management that we have gained from operating a project of the magnitude and scope of One Community is the value of creating a culture of “how can I help” and “build on top of.” Working with diverse teams on goals as large as ours has clearly identified the value of these approaches in supporting the necessary on-going positive mindset, energy, accountability, proactivity, and leadership supportive of our collective success. Because of this, we have made these two statements a sort of mantra within our organization that is foundational to how we look at accomplishing tasks together.

HOW CAN I HELP

Creating and maintaining a culture of “how can I help” means expecting all individuals to ask “how can I help” versus appointing a Facilitator or Manager to seek out individuals needing things to do and then assigning tasks. Most of us have had the experience of working with a group where one or more individuals are constantly needing to be asked to help. In situations like these, even with an energetic and willing participant, it still takes on-going energy from someone else to keep these individuals engaged in whatever process is being undertaken. We are self-motivated and responsible people and seek to work with others like us. We give feedback if we feel someone isn’t being proactive enough and will remove people from the team if this feedback fails to improve accountability.

BUILD ON TOP OF

The second important mindset and One Community cultural element we are dedicated to is the concept of “build on top of.” What this means is that:

• An item must be essential to us preparing for construction. Here is the list of what we already consider essential to being ready to begin: Action List/Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
• Any modifications, changes, and/or additions to WBS items must follow the One Community Requirements Management Procedure.

In short, our culture of “build on top of” means asking the following key questions of any proposed change or addition of something to the Action List/Work Breakdown Structure (WBS):

1. How does what I’m about to suggest build on top of/fit with everything else?
2. What has already been done and how can I build on top of that versus changing direction?
3. Will my contribution, approach, etc. ultimately add to or reduce related net energy/time needs?

The One Community Requirements Management Procedure provides the specifics of how we evaluate suggested changes. Operating like this allows us to maintain our focus and creative input and energy on designing solutions, continued expansion, and what is most important to begin construction.