Community Centers: How we will live “together”

The core idea of the experiment is to live differently. To explore the world with a community. We are drawing on knowledge from cohousing and intentional communities, which is the closest comparable thing there is.

We want to strike a balance between all families having enough time and privacy for themselves, and also making it easy to be a part of the community.

One of the important things here is where and how we live. We are using the term “Community Centers” to describe how our village is forming on the ground.

We have many logistic challenges, so it’s a matter of compromise, but the definitions are:

In Hội An and in Kyoto the community center will be approximately 1×1 kilometer square on a map. This will be the geographical center of the community and a guideline for where families should look for housing. Not everyone will live directly in the center and not all third places (for example places for communal meals) will be exactly in this square, but it’s a tool for us to book lodging, so we are close.

The work of finding these community centers is ongoing and will be decided by the founding families and released before the 1st of February (when it’s possible for invited families to actually sign up).

When families start booking their lodging, the community center square will develop and we will create a custom map, so everyone can see where everyone is staying at. The further we go with planning the map will be developed with places for coworking, communal meals, sports, and hangout-places.

The idea is to create a village in the village, so we have a bunch of places where we can randomly meet other village members and make it easy for everyone to plan and do stuff together, limiting the logistics for everyone.

In Ko Lanta, we are doing it differently. After being in Hội An we are starting to get to know each other well and smaller groups and routines will have developed. In Ko Lanta, we are working on finding one resort or group of bungalows where we can stay together. This means that in Ko Lanta we will get closer to actually being a real cohousing.

This will limit logistics and costs for external places to be. Here we will try to live very differently and have kids running around and probably many more hours of being together with the community.

We don’t expect all families to live in the same place and it’s not a requirement. There can be different reasons why a family would want to book something different and that is completely okay. Our hope is that 50-75% will stay in the same place and thereby making it possible for us to negotiate with the owners of the place so that all the families of the villages can use the areas around the place.

Just as we are still working on the areas in Hội An and Kyoto, we are still working on finding the best place in Ko Lanta. Maybe we can find a place where we can also rent their kitchen and actually cook together? We are doing a lot of research and talking with potential places. The deadline for this is also the 1st of February 2023.