The Self-Sustaining Village
Since 2002 we have prepared establishing a village building on ecological and permacultural principles. We call our building project "Den selvforsynende landsby’, which is Danish for "THE SELF-SUSTAINING VILLAGE". At the moment 16 grown-ups and 9 children live and build their houses here on the beautiful southern part of Funen, a bigger island in the heart of Denmark.
The Village
In May 2004 we bought a farm with 15 hectares to build on. Our piece of land is neighbouring the small village of Hundstrup and is situated about 15 kilometers north west of the harbour town of Svendborg. In the evenings we all dine together in our community building – a charming old farmhouse from the 1780's with thatched roof. Each family is responsible for building it’s own house with or without the help from professionals. We have permission to build up to 26 houses on 3 hectares of the land. So far 18 of the lots have been prepared for and are ready to build on (electricity, phone cables, internet, plumbing, small roads and a willow cleaning system for our wastewater have been established). Now, at the beginning of 2006, 6 houses are under construction, including 5 strawbale houses, and one wooden house. In the year to come the building of the next new houses will commence.
Lifestyle and Philosophy – Permaculture and Ecology
All our houses are built according to permacultural values and contain installations such as ceramic stoves and passive solar design. Our hope is that our farmland will provide most of our organically grown food and the necessary firewood in the future. All residents of "Den selvforsynende landsby" are to contribute 8 hours of work per week, this includes farming, cooking, administrative tasks and other responsibilities
Interested in knowing more?
As we are still in the process of establishing the village we welcome new members to build a house here and be part of our community. You are welcome to contact us for further information.
Volunteers If you are interested in learning more about permacultural building and lifestyle it is also possible to come to the village for a shorter period of time and work as a volunteer. As a volunteer, you work a minimum of 6 hours a day 5 days a week. In return we provide you with all meals. In most cases it will also be possible for us to offer free accomodation in our guestroom in the farmhouse. If you are interested in knowing more about being a volunteer, send us an e-mail.
Our contact address is: kontakt@selvforsyning.dk and our sites are http://www.selvforsyning.dk ore the wiki at http://selvforsyning.biks.dk and our permakculture projects at http://selvforsyning.biks.dk/PermaKultur see projects at http://selvforsyning.biks.dk/EnergiSkov and http://selvforsyning.biks.dk/Omr%C3%A5detOmkringPileAnl%C3%A6gget