Definition

No definitive description of the Laboratory is possible until we have located and acquired a site for it. However, we can describe many of the elements that will be incorporated in order to make the Laboratory function optimally. If you feel we are missing something vital in these pages, please leave a message; all suggestions are most welcome.

At heart of the Laboratory will be the community who live there and make everything happen : the closest description of this community is that of an eco-village.

In this 26 min video on peakmoment, Diane Leafe Christian gives a good overview over what an ecovillage is -

The classical definition of an eco-village coined by Richard Gilman in 1991 and quoted by Diane is -

QUOTE
“human-scale full-featured settlement in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world with multiple centres of initiative in a way that supports healthy human development, and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future.”
UNQUOTE

The challenge the Laboratory is setting itself is, in collaboration with all already engaged in eco-villages, to develop the modules that will make it possible for what is currently confined to isolated eco-villages to become the global norm. Please re-read above definition – is this not something worth working towards?!

For this reason, in addition to containing all the facilities the best of eco-villages offer, the Laboratory will place greater emphasis on the early incorporation of a conference & training centre, guest accommodation, actual research labs, video, film and sound studios, a variety of workshops, a farm (and any other facilities that may become identified as the start-up team expands and additional and new skills join).