Planet Repair Institute
Portland, Oregon

This revolutionary regenerative design project has emerged from within the typical residential condition of isolation and consumption, and it is one of the preeminent permaculture and natural building demonstration sites in North America. First, the project is a kind of village and pueblo of community living, enveloped within food forests and native beneficial gardens. An adaptive reuse of an existing 1907 home, a wide spectrum of natural building materials have been used to bring the building to an entirely new standard of passive solar performance and artistry. Multiple adults and children occupy unique individual spaces and a plethora of shared places. In fact, the overall design of the building and site incorporates more kinds of shared gathering and generative spaces than can usually be found together except within an entire village. There is the piazza, the village commons, the meeting house, the courtyard, the cloister, the sacred sanctuary, a creative workshop, a school, an outdoor kitchen with cob oven, bike corral, tool sheds, all the common spaces of home, and even a small version of Stonehenge. This is all woven together by shared gardens and food forests, a greenhouse “sun collector” native species and shade gardens, a greenhouse, an edible overstory of 14 fruit trees, water catchment and greywater installations, and topped by a reflective roof that includes 6 smaller living roofs, floating overhead meadows in the sky for the enjoyment of birds and butterflies. For the Chickens, there is a fabulous Chicken Palace, and for Cats there is the solar-powered Cat Palace, of course.