Modestly saving the world (or trying to)

By Matt Haviland

Anyone who read The Road by Cormac McCarthy (or traveled on a similarly apocalyptic adventure to find a movie theater that actually plays the film) knows how bleak our planetary future might be. Sure, roving bands of cannibals might seem a little much, but what really will befall us once the environment finally crumbles under our industrial pressure and we are forced to live off the land? Whatever it is, the answer might begin with some forward-thinking architecture.

Robert Campbell reviewed a “cohousing” village recently built south of Petersborough, New Hampshire. It’s called the Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm. Designed by David O’Neil and Sheldon Pennoyer, these 29 old-country styled houses form what Campbell calls “a kind of Shaker colony with computers.” Originating in Denmark, the idea behind cohousing is to have families live in separate houses but come together at common facilities to eat, have meetings, get mail, etc. The surroundings are very woodland and natural, and occupants’ cars (yes, they’re still allowed to drive) are all parked in “one corner of the village.” From there, residents get out and walk to their houses. Just one of the ways this setup hopes to preserve the environment.

The real conservation is less visible. As Campbell states, “energy consumption is as close to zero as you can get.” Wood pellets are burned in a central boiler to provide heat and hot water for the entire community, without using any fossil fuels (the pellets are provided by Jaffrey, a nearby town that has no problem contributing because the pellets are “waste lumber” to begin with). “Sealed and insulated so tightly against the weather” that annual heating/water costs are only around $900 combined, this is a good deal for both the planet and customers. Aside from a few free-standing houses, most of them are condos. However, with each property boasting two floors and an attic, “ground-floor heat rises naturally to fill the volume.”

Campbell lists other features, such as the ease of building an additional room/adding a porch to each house, and the fact that most of them were built on sites of previous architecture, “so as to leave the best farm soil untouched.” Due to zoning laws, a whopping 95 percent of these cohousing villages ever see construction. But environmental movements are trying to change those laws. After all, what could be bad about such an Earth-friendly concept? Most of the residents are “in hi-tech occupations, often self-employed and working at least partly from home,” which gives the impression that these are smart, successful people – as opposed to the hippies and technologically-phobic crowds you might expect in a nature-friendly farming commune.

Campbell calls the Nubanusit Neighborhood “a gem of unpretentious architecture.” It is a Swiss Famil(ies) Robinson, if you will. Looking beyond the niche groups of Earth-conscious consumers (well-educated as they might be), these communes seem like a huge solution to many of America’s, and the world’s, problems. Food? Done. You grow your own in addition to what you can buy at the store. Energy conservation? Extreme. Fossil fuel use? Almost nonexistent, except when the residents get in their cars and drive somewhere else.

Given recently updated predictions on global warming, which explain that even the best possible outcome will result in total terra-disaster, we need more communites like this. Yes, the architecture is aesthetically appealing, but beyond that, it is truly green. Not just a recycled paper cup for your Starbucks latte, this is an climate-responsible way of life, and it doesn’t sound at all challenging when looking at the benefits. Why world governments haven’t been looking into this as a sure way to validate their many promises for a cleaner and better Earth is… well, it’s an aggravating question.

Many of the answers have been hiding between the digits of our heating bills and in the constantly refilling empty spaces in our gas tanks. The Earth will probably not be saved by how many generations your most trendy coffee cup has been through; it might stand a fighting chance, however, if you bring that cup back to a community that isn’t wasting our resources quite so much. Since buildings and utilities are such a huge part of our modern lives, we should look to them first when figuring out how to solve our modern problems. If they can help prevent the doomsday theories that our scientists are soberly graphing for us, maybe the future will be less like The Road and more like, well, the way it was when farming communites weren’t just Amish curiosities and unpretentious “gems” – when they were the norm. Maybe living off the land can be the norm once again, because if we don’t start doing it soon, the land will be hard-pressed to support us at all.

Not just another snappy Robert Campbell review of this week’s new building, A model for the future with an eye to the past is a feasible plan for saving our planet. At the very least, an excellent step forward that only requires a couple of small steps back.