Net Zero Energy Neighborhoods
Small-scale neighborhood design concept which incorporates affordable, right-sized homes gathered around shared open space with pedestrian walks. Vehicular circulation is limited to the development perimeter. This concept provides a strong sense of community and shared stewardship and encourages daily informal interaction between neighbors, cultivating more meaningful and caring relationships.
Community Microgrids
A small, localized electric grid that combines renewable resources such as photovoltaic panels with energy storage and software to generate electricity. Microgrids can isolate themselves from the main grid during power outages to provide power within the community it serves.
Neighborhood Food Forests
Grow today what you can eat tomorrow. A food forest is a sustainable land management system that mimics a woodland ecosystem, focusing on food-producing trees and shrubs. In a food forest system, edible plants occupy a succession of layers—including upper-level fruit and nut trees, middle level berry shrubs and vines, and lower-level herbs, edible perennials, and annuals—to create an interconnected and productive whole. Intermixed with these edibles are beneficial plants that attract helpful, pest-controlling insects and that build healthy soil by providing nitrogen and mulch. Working together, this diverse collection of plants forms functional relationships that maximize food yields while reducing the need for maintenance. This regenerative forest garden ecosystem offers a beautiful, ecologically healthy, and useful way to meet our most urgent human needs for food, shelter, water harvesting, and medicine.