THE ECO-HOMESTEAD
New living footprint for self-sufficient farm Ohanas
On slightly more than an two acres of ag land the Arcturus Research and Design Group has proto-typed a small model farm where a land family (ohana) can reside, work the farm, and also work elsewhere to make ends meet. They eat together to save money and also build real family ties which are critical to survival if things get scarce.
What is unique about this design is the paradise quality of the botanical farm areas, the affordable temporary living buildings for farm workers, and the privacy afforded to all the people who live on the land. Utilities are 50/50 on and off grid. The experiment will be totally sustainable for 12 people by 2012 given the fruit trees reach climax after 7-9 years developing their yield.
Imagine 60 plus mature fruiting trees, 20 food bearing bushes, 10 small ground level vegetable gardens, herb and medicine plants, an abundance of flower bushes, 14 aromatic bushes and trees, plenty of nitrogen fixing trees and bushes for fertilizer, a pond, catchment tank, 6 firewood stashes, 6 timber trees, toolmaking bamboo, and a chicken coop.
There is one permanent small house, two small portable homes, and two greenhouse buildings. The set-up is like a Pacific Basin compound style arrangement where people sleep in smaller structures but come to the main building for meals and work planning. Each building is isolated inside an agro-forest stand so, unlike a sub-division, they each have privacy but access to the main viewplane.
In the center of the acreage is a sanctuary with pond, outdoor cooking area, table for meetings or eating, and many small private and cozy seating areas built right into the landscape. Here the ohana can gather each day and sing together or eat or nestle just far enough apart to have some privacy if they so desire later on.
There is one primary view plain that all inhabitants can access and it stretches way out into the natural beauty of the view all the way to Maui and Haleakala mountain. In the main house the view plain crosses the pond and provides almost 30 points of interest for six different work stations so that people enjoy paradise as many moments of the day as is possible. This is the key to living in a paradise setting.
If this kind of development were to be valued the total price would be the same as the capital investment for a 3 bedroom house house on one acre of ag land. That is because the trees must go in in the first year and then seven to ten years later when the harvesting must occur, the other farm help comes on -board with their portable dwellings and makes an exchange for services provided. Since the agro-forest model is the least work intensive and most productive model for generating food and subsistence on the islands of hawaii, this is an approach we must follow and then amend what-ever zoning we need to to make it even easier for people to achieve.
Times have changed. We don't want to be wage slaves, we want to live in the lush aina, and have the sustainable regular crop of food we need to "survive". The government we have has failed to provide security for disaster stricken situations. This is a case where we take the situation in hand and happily enough find the before California building codes were adopted Pacific peoples had created a very dependable array of footprints to get a long in troubled times. When you think of it ...its a no-brainer: Ohana living using agro-forest planting.
The guiding values are ALOHA< OHANA< and KOKUA. If you carry the implications of those three values alone you will see they are core to survival. And we want to survive with our loving ohana. This footprint is healthy, affordable, sustainable, and has the correct historical cultural integrity. We are maka -aina, we are keiki O ka Aina! We are not sub-division candidates. Lets return to real Pacific building models. We want to survive the coming times.
Jim Channon social architect Arcturus research and design. 808-889-0223 Have a strategic plan done for your land.
