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096 エコプロダクツ2006

お知らせ

エコプロダクツ2006 SPECIAL
『信藤三雄と安斎肇は、エコか?』

DATE : 2006年12月16日(土)

ピチカートファイブのグラフィックなど、日本をリードするオシャレなデザイナーであり、坂本龍一さんと『エロコト』を創刊した信藤三雄さん。そして、タモリの空耳アワーのソラミミストで有名な安斎肇さんが、ご登場。

素敵な信藤さんと、なぜか笑ってしまう安斎さん。
さすがに笑えるトークとなり、結果、おふたりともエコでした!

今回、エコプロダクツ2006展でBeGood Cafeは、エコプロマーケット(BeGood Village)、会場内エコツアー、お馴染みのレストランなどを運営しました。
また、グリーンズの「エコプロ速報編集部」も登場。
制作協力したアウトドアランドというアウトドアの紹介ゾーンに高さ7メートルのクライミングウォールを設置。子ども達が大喜びで登っていました。

左の写真はエコプロマーケット(BeGood Village)の入口。
今回も楽しくエコなショッピングをお楽しみいただきました。

自然食レストラン Natural Food Cafe。

今年の人気・新メニューは「山の幸茶漬け、海の幸茶漬け」でした。

たくさんのお客様が来てくださいました。

制作をお手伝いした「アウトドアランド」。
マウンテン/自転車/水遊びなど、楽しいアウトドアの入門編。

アウトドアランドのお薦めは写真右のクライミングウォールでした。
高さ7メートルに登るチャレンジに、チビッコ達も大喜びでした!!

ゲストプロフィール

■信藤三雄さん
アートディレクター、映像ディレクター

信藤三雄1985年、コンテムポラリー・プロダクション設立。
松任谷由実のアルバムジャケットの制作を機に本格的にジャケットデザインを始める。以降、ピチカート・ファイヴ、Mr.Children、MISIA、元ちとせ、GLAYなど、これまで手掛けたレコード&CDジャケット数は約900枚にも及ぶ。2005年、「ほっとけない世界のまずしさ」キャンペーン(ホワイトバンド・プロジェクト)で、映像プロデューサー、アートディレクターをつとめる。2006年夏、初の劇場長編映画「男はソレを我慢できない」を発表。同年秋には坂本龍一氏と雑誌「エロコト」を創刊。

■安斎肇さん
イラストレーター、アートディレクター、ソラミミスト

安斎肇JAL「リゾッチャ」キャンペーンの初代王様『太平洋ちゃん』など、主にキャラクター・デザインを中心に様々なジャンルで活躍。1992年よりテレビ朝日系「タモリ倶楽部」“空耳アワー”にソラミミストとして出演。また、みうらじゅん氏と“勝手に観光協会”としてスカイパーフェクトTV「なまはげ兄弟」を放送中。今年12月からは、NHK「みんなのうた」で作詞・作曲・歌とキャラクターデザインを担当した『ホャホャラー』がオンエア予定。

BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2 レポート

BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2 トーク
トークゲストの竹下和男先生がはじめられた『弁当の日』の条件は「親は決して手伝わないでください」。

こどもが自分で弁当をつくることにより調理技術の習得だけでなく、親に対する感謝の気持ちやもったいないの心をはぐくみ、生きる力を身に付けていく姿が紹介されました。家族の会話が増えたり、こどもたちの家庭での役割の発見につながる・・・くらしの時間を見つけ呼び戻してくれる「弁当の日」の試みは、バイタリティーあふれる竹下先生によって日本中に旋風を巻き起こしそうな予感がしました。


BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2
BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2
飲食
今回は「思い出のお弁当大集合!」ということで、参加者の方々がそれぞれの思い出の弁当のおかずを持ってきてくれました。卵焼き、ひじきの煮物、車麩のフライetc.
懐かしいものや珍しいものがずらりと並び、エピソードなども紹介されました。他にもアイガモ米のオニギリや雑穀料理などのおかず販売があり、ブッフェ式のランチタイムには参加者全員で「いただきます」。
お茶のソムリエなる茶ムリエさんによる緑茶コーナーと甘酒コーナーもあり、とても美味しくワクワクしたランチタイム&ワークショップでした。

BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2 ライブ
津軽三味線奏者の森山由希華さんは若いころ家元である父親に反発していたそうですが、自然の流れのように故郷に戻り同じ道を歩み始めたそうです。
ほのぼのとした雰囲気の中でも力強い津軽三味線と柔らかな三線を弾き分け、時に美しい歌声も披露してくれました。
自らもマイ箸を持ち始めて1ヶ月という森山さん。会場に参加していた“マイ箸広め隊”隊長さんから隊員第98号に任命されました。まさに「素敵ないいこと」をはじめられている森山さんに拍手です。


BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2
BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2
BeGoodマーケット
“BeGoodマーケット”と題したコーナーでは、卵や白砂糖を使わないナチュラルスイーツやフェアトレードのチョコレート・雑貨などが販売され、あれこれ質問しながら買い求めるお客さんとお店の方で楽しそうなおしゃべりに花が咲いていました。
また書籍のブースにはマクロビオティックから布ナプキン、環境問題などさまざまな分野の「素敵ないいこと」を始めるためのヒントとなる図書がたくさん並べられ、思わずじっくりと立ち読みしてしまうお客さんやスタッフの姿も見られました。

“proto-cohousing”U Court

by Diana Leafe Christian

Penny’s and my favorite conference presenter was Professor Yasuhiro Endoh of Aichi Sangyo University in Nagano. An older man in perhaps his early 60s with an amiable expression and an unmistakable air of warmth and friendliness, Professor Endoh travels the length of Japan advocating “collective housing” through his nonprofit, “Team of Green Growth.” He showed slides of a successful 22-year-old collective housing development in Kyoto, “U Court.” The project, completed in 1985, consists of 48 units in three buildings of from three to five stories each. The buildings are arranged around a south-facing “U”-shaped courtyard surrounding tall trees and a patio. U-Court doesn’t have a common kitchen/dining room. However, with a shared meeting hall, all stairwell entries facing into the courtyard so people meet their neighbors daily, open and shared ivy-covered balconies that serve as outdoor hallways running along the courtyard side of the buildings, and parking out of sight in one corner of the property, it sure seemed like “proto-cohousing” to me.

Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - U-Court (collective housing in Kyoto)Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - U-Court (collective housing in Kyoto)

Professor Endoh emphasized the importance of trees and the natural environment in creating community. U-Court residents debated whether to plant trees in their central courtyard, which would have been expensive for them, but finally did plant trees. The presence of these trees later made all the difference in cooling the building, adding a beautiful, shady outdoor place for neighbors to gather in spontaneous as well as planned meetings, picnics, and celebrations. U-Court residents also all grew ivy up the sides of the buildings and especially across their shared balconies. At first they couldn’t get flowers and shrubs started along courtyard walkways because their toddlers would gleefully rip them out. So U-Court parents waited until the children were slightly older and asked them to plant flowers and shrubs and water them. The kids leapt into the project and proudly cared for the landscaping for years, later noting how important it had been to them return from school everyday and feel welcomed home by natural beauty. The parents also considered building a small round pond for the children to wade and splash in. While some were concerned it would be unsafe, they finally did build a pond, and it became the centerpiece of the children’s experience of the courtyard as they grew up. “You can’t believe the happy memories people who’d grown up at U Court had when they came home from school only to find that one of the men had gotten drunk and fallen into the pond again,” Professor Endoh explained, showing a photo of a man half-lying in a shallow pool, submerged up to his armpits, a silly grin on his face. Nature, ponds, and water are so important to Japanese people that one pair of neighbors created a small fishpond on their shared balcony and stocked it with koi.

Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - U-Court (collective housing in Kyoto)Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - U-Court (collective housing in Kyoto)

Professor Endoh’s longitudinal study of the of young adults who’d grown up at U-Court indicated that they had loved the natural environment there and their sense of safety and connection to so many adults who served as substitute aunties and uncles. Like kids raised in community anywhere, they were much more confident and socially developed than their counterparts who’d grown up in conventional housing. And, not surprisingly, they wanted to move back to U-Court to raise their own children there too.

BeGood Cafe 福岡 Vol.9

テーマ 『パーマカルチャーとエコビレッジ』

地球温暖化など環境への危機感が高まりつつある今、私たちの日々の暮らし方が問われています。農薬で汚染されてないオーガニックな野菜を求める人が増え、さらには自給自足的ライフスタイルが注目を浴びてきています。

循環、永続可能、共生といった言葉が、自然に回帰しようという人々の共通して持つキーワードとなっています。地球の生態系を破壊せずに、自然と人間が共生していくためにはどのようなライフスタイルが望ましいのでしょうか。
BeGood Cafe 福岡 Vol.9

わたしたちは一つの選択肢として、資源循環型の暮らしをデザインするための実践的学問であるパーマカルチャーを提案いたします。さらにはエコロジカルな住居と、エコビレッジについても紹介します。

スケジュール 2008年2月24日(日)12:00〜19:00

12:00〜 開場
13:00〜13:30 オープンマイク
13:30〜14:00 NPOインフォメーション
14:00〜15:00 ビーグッドインフォメーション
15:00〜17:00 ビーグッドトーク
17:00-18:00 LIVE
19:00 終了

日 時: 2月24日(日)12:00-19:00
会 場: ピエトロズカフェ百道浜店
福岡市早良区百道浜2-4-27 AIビル1F
092-852-2535
http://www.pietro.co.jp/restaurants/rs_0086.asp
料 金: 1,500円(当日券のみ、ドリンク1杯含む)
中学生以下無料、出入り再入場可
トークゲスト: 設楽清和さん(パーマカルチャー・センター・ジャパン事務局長)
松下修さん(パーマカルチャーネットワーク九州代表)
山田信行さん(NPO循環型たてもの研究塾理事長)
ライブゲスト: Leilani / レイラーニ
司 会: シキタ純、倉地マキ子
プロデュース: シキタ純、常冨泰弘
ディレクター: 倉地マキ子、高木敏郎
協 力: ピエトロズカフェ百道浜店
主 催: BeGood Cafe Fukuoka
お問い合わせ: fukuoka@begoodcafe.com
090-3071-5377(常冨)

ゲストプロフィール

トークゲスト
BeGood Cafe 福岡 Vol.9

■ 設楽清和さん
パーマカルチャー・センター・ジャパン事務局長

 
新潟で4年間農業に従事した後、ジョージア大学大学院で環境人類学を学ぶ。帰国後、神奈川県藤野でパーマカルチャーの日本型モデルを確立するために、センターを設立。様々なワークショップを行っている。身の回りのあらゆる動物・植物・建築・エネルギー・コミュニケーションなど多種多様な要素を活かす生活スタイルのデザインを提案している。
http://www.pccj.net/

BeGood Cafe 福岡 Vol.9

■ 松下修さん
パーマカルチャーネットワーク九州代表理事

 
熊本市在住。現在熊本大学大学院公共社会政策学博士課程在学。熊本大学非常勤講師、鹿児島大学非常勤講師。松下生活研究所代表。NPO法人パーマカルチャーネットワーク九州代表理事。宮崎県諸塚村の山村政策に14年ほどかかわり、産地直送住宅の企画開発推進、地域資源の利活用のコンサルティングなど地域づくりをする。現在は、森林認証を生かした流通システムの構築、推進。また有機農産物生産者の流通プロデュースなどにかかわる。また、農山村に於ける生活産業とコミュニティの自立的形成を研究中。
http://www.pcnq.net/

BeGood Cafe 福岡 Vol.9

■ 山田信行さん
NPO循環型たてもの研究塾理事長

 
一級建築士事務所、自然空間設計室主宰。「木と土の家をつくる会」代表、「NPO法人循環型たてもの研究塾」理事長を務め、毎週末に開催する「家創り塾」や「農ある暮らしのデザイン塾」などを主催。それらの塾からできた平均60歳の「匠楽の会」の方々と共に、佐賀県武雄市若木町を中心に「エコ・ヴィレッジ」建設に取り組むなどの活動を行っている。
http://junkan.info/

ライブゲスト
BeGood Cafe 福岡 Vol.9

■ Leilani/レイラーニ

 
2001年ポールマッカトニーの音楽学院を卒業。2004年4月コロムビアM.E.より、1stALBUM『ほしのしずく』を発売。2006年2月よりLOVE FM(福岡)にて、レギュラー番組『レイラーニのWelcome to my little cafe』スタート。2007年2月2nd ALBUM『ひかりのわ』発売。6月3rd Album「Towa no kuni」発売。2007年11月に初のドイツ・ポーランドツアーを行う。伸びやかで強烈な歌声とファンタジックなメロディが独特の世界観を創り出している。

http://columbia.jp/leilani/

“Forest” Cohousing in Japan, Pt.II

by Diana Leafe Christian (for Cohousing Journal online, February, 2008)

After the Japanese Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo in late November, 2007, I and one the conference hosts, Akemi Miyauchi, visited three “collective housing” projects in Tokyo. At the conference I first heard this term for high-density housing projects with various kinds of common space—but it sure sounded like cohousing to me!

A few days after touring Kankanmori no Kaze Cohousing (See Part I in the February, 2008 issue), Akemi and I visited developer Tetsuro Kai, who at the ecovillage conference had described three beautifully designed and landscaped “collective housing” projects. We met in his offices at one of his projects: the 12-unit Kyodo no Mori (“Forest of Kyodo”) in the Setagawa district of Tokyo. Kyodo no Mori is three-story building on a tiny, fifth-acre lot, with vine-covered balconies, passive solar heating and cooling, solar-powered water pumping, and a constructed wetlands for greywater treatment on a rooftop terrace. Units average at about 970 sq. ft. Unlike Kankanmori, most units are not rented but owned by Kyodo no Mori’s residents. Common house features were not included in the building, however residents have shared outdoor space in a ground-floor courtyard, small second-floor terrace, and rooftop garden, which has a small barbeque grill surrounded by built-in seating for cook-outs. Completed in 2000, this project was described as Japan’s first cohousing community in Graham Meltzer’s 2005 book, Sustainable Communities.

Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - Kyodo no Mori (Forest of Kyodo)

Mr. Kai, a charming and gracious host, seemed inspired and passionate about his collective housing projects, and the participatory design process he developed for them. He and the architect met with future residents of Kyodo no Mori to learn what they’d ideally like in their individual apartments. He and the architect met first with individual households, then in small groups of several households, and lastly as a whole group. A problem for concern for any one household was considered an issue for the whole community, and solutions were applied to all residences. Mr. Kai realized that this process would not only help the project to better serve the needs of its future residents, but would also help create a sense of community before everyone moved in. Although similar to the participatory process used by the Danish architects who developed cohousing in the 1960s, Mr. Kai’s method is not based on the cohousing process and was created independently.

Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - Keyaki House

Mr. Kai also told us about the 15-unit Keyaki House project, completed in 2003, which we were about to see. The original owner of the __-acre property had a one-story traditional Japanese house and a relatively large garden. To reduce future inheritance taxes for his heirs, the owner sold part of the property to Mr. Kai for high-density housing development. Because Tokyo needs more housing, they reward urban landowners who sell their property for this purpose with inheritance tax breaks. The owner didn’t want to leave the site and so built a new two-story house for himself on the part of the property he retained. Mr. Kai suggested a win-win arrangement in which his traditional one-story house became the meeting hall and common space for Keyaki House residents and himself, who together form a small community. Everyone shares the garden courtyard formed between the three buildings.

The owner’s favorite tree, which he had climbed as a boy, is an 80-foot Japanese Zelkova tree (Keyaki in Japanese). But it was in the wrong location for the site plan to work, so Mr. Kai’s company dug up the huge tree and moved it 30 feet!
We saw a scale model of Mr. Kai’s newest project, Kaze no Mori (“Wind in the Forest”), which has the same kind of site-use arrangement as Keyaki House with the original property owner. Like Kyodo no Mori, most residents of Kaze no Mori and Keyaki House had input into the design of their units via the participatory design process, and meet regularly to make community decisions.

Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo 2007 - Kaze no Mori (Wind in the Forest)

When we arrived at Keyaki House, a short distance away, we saw the magnificent Keyaki tree, with a trunk diameter of about three feet. It was truly the centerpiece of the courtyard, nestled in the inner corner of the L-shaped building, with a network of lacy-looking open-mesh metal stairways and walkways curving around it. Next to the base of the Keyaki tree and under the overhead walkways was an enchanting sight—a Japanese-style fishpond with large stepping stones leading across to the stairway and elevator leading to the apartments above. Before you encounter concrete, metal, and high-technology, you move through a beautiful natural environment. On the second floor landing Mr. Kai pointed out how moveable screens of closely spaced wooden lattice strips on the outside “wall” of each unit’s wide balcony create a privacy gradient between each apartment and the wide curving metal walkways, which also serve as common space. We saw the rooftop vegetable garden on the four-story wing, and the tiny grassy park on the roof of the five-story wing, where in summer community children sometimes put up tents and camp out.

The traditional Japanese love of nature, gardens, and especially forests and trees, was quite evident in the projects I visited as well as in similar projects described at the conference. I saw this only in their vine-covered trellised balconies and tree-filled courtyards, but also in evocative names such as “and “Forest of Kyodo” and “Wind in the Forest. (And the name of the cohousing project we’d visited earlier, Kankanmori no Kaze, means “Winds of Kankanmori Forest.” )

What the projects I visited have in common are residents who had input into the design, hold community meetings, and live in projects in which the site plan and shared common space help induce a sense of community. However, Kankanmori has the same kinds of common house amenities as you’ll find in any cohousing community in North America, but the other projects have minimal common space. And perhaps because Kankanmori has slightly smaller units and looked like any concrete high-rise anywhere, it seemed more affordable. Mr. Kai’s three projects seemed more upscale because of the somewhat larger units and the level of beauty and attention to detail in design and landscaping.

While Japanese people seem to love using English terms for concepts arising in the West (like “bioregional” and “ecovillage”), I wondered why the term for these communities in Japanese is “collective housing” rather than the English word “cohousing.” However, Hiroko Kimura, founder of Kankanmori, did describe the project as “Tokyo Cohousing” when she presented at the first Japanese Ecovillage Conference in 2006.

Also, while in any cohousing community tour in North America people are routinely invited into homes to see the interiors of a typical units, I got the impression that this will not happen in Japan because of significant cultural differences—the important distinction made between the “public face” and “private face” in Japan, and the fact that in Japan one’s home is an exceptionally private place. Hence, as gracious as our hosts were, we were shown only the courtyard and rooftops of Keyaki House, the courtyard and Mr. Kai’s offices at Kyodo no Mori, and the interior common spaces and rooftop terraces at Kankanmori.

Given the tendency in Japan to adopt and master useful innovations, I wouldn’t be surprised if cohousing takes off in a big way in this country. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future we’ll be meeting at an international cohousing conference . . . in Kyoto!

Diana Leafe Christian is editor of a free online ecovillage newsletter, “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities.” (Diana@ic.org). Author of Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community, and Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, she was editor of Communities magazine for 14 years. Diana lives at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina. www.DianaLeafeChristian.org

DianaLeafeChristian.org

“Forest” Cohousing in Japan, Pt.I

by Diana Leafe Christian (for Cohousing Journal online, February, 2008)

As cohousing is increasingly becoming a global phenomenon, I’ve become curious to learn how different countries mold the concept to reflect their cultural, financial, and regulatory realities. I learned that firsthand after I had a chance to see three cohousing projects in Japan recently.

After the Japanese Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo in late November, 2007, three of us visited the 28-unit Kankanmori no Kaze Cohousing project in Tokyo. My two friends were Giovanni Ciarlo from Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Mexico, and Akemi Miyauchi, one of our wonderful conference hosts. Giovanni and I had given presentations about intentional communities at the conference, and we were eager to see similar projects in Japan. There appear to be relatively few intentional communities in that island nation, and perhaps only four cohousing communities so far—depending on how one defines the term.

We first learned of Kankanmori at the conference through presentations on what the Japanese call “collective housing” in Sweden, Denmark, the US, and Japan. I was quite surprised to learn that the first example one conference presenter could find of collective housing in modern times was in Sweden before World War II, where single mothers organized shared apartment buildings with common kitchen/dining rooms and shared childcare.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007 - Kankanmori

Kankanmori no Kaze (which means “The Winds of Kankanmori Forest”) is located in the 12-story Nippori Community House in the Arakawa section of Tokyo. The second and third floors contain the apartment units, common spaces, and rooftop terraces of the multi-generational Kankanmori Cohousing. However, the other floors are not part of the cohousing project: the ground floor is a restaurant, a nursery school, and a medical services station staffed by nurses for residents and neighbors, the higher floors contain a nursing home and independent-living apartments for mobile seniors, and the top floor offers furo bath facilities all residents can use.

Kankanmori differs from most cohousing projects in the West in that it is entirely rental units. The studio and two-bedroom units (no one-bedroom units), which range from 270 to 645 sq. feet, rent for between approximately $640 to $1550 a month, plus about $65 a month for each unit’s share of utilities for the common spaces. The Kankanmori project was considered quite an experiment, as its future residents gave their input into the design, and provide the cleaning and maintenance of the common spaces—unusual for Japan.

Giovanni, Akemi, and I entered Kankanmori through an outdoor stairway to the second floor entrance, where we met architect and project founder Hiroko Kimura, who gave us a tour of the common facilities. On the first cohousing floor we saw the common kitchen and pantry, which looked like every common house kitchen I’ve ever seen but for the row of rice cookers, a bamboo vegetable steamer, and Japanese rather than English on the labels of every package, bottle, and can. We toured the spacious dining room, the small living room off the dining room, and the outdoor dining terrace with a living “wall” of trellised vines on the balcony. We visited the children’s play area, bathroom, laundry and ironing rooms, the indoor/outdoor woodworking/crafts terrace, and the flower garden and vegetable garden terraces. Located on the roof of the first floor, the gardens had deep raised garden beds in wooden frames, wooden walkways, and rows of plastic compost bins. On the next floor of the cohousing complex we saw the group’s office, library shelves, woodworking shop, and guest room.

Located on the roof, the flower garden and vegetable garden terraces had deep raised beds in wooden frames, wooden walkways and rows of plastic compost bins. The Japanese had an ancient, even sacred, sense of connection to nature, especially trees and forests. (They’ve preserved 66% of their island nation in forest, which is impressive, given the pressure to cut forests to get more arable land to feed a population of 127 million.) But nowadays most Japanese in urban areas live in small box-like apartments in concrete high-rises, with little connection to neighbors or nature. Land is so expensive that few housing developers include gardens or landscaping. So Kankanmori’s connection to neighbors and to nature once again is quite exceptional.

Ms. Kimura also showed us the community’s bulletin-board systems for cooking and cleaning schedules and using the laundry facilities, and described how they worked. People write their names on small brightly colored circular magnets, which they place on a large wall calendar on the dates on which they’d like to cook and clean. In the laundry room they affix small paper tags to their washer or dryer they’re using to let the next person know how to dry their wet loads or where to put their dried loads before they put in their own. Ms. Kimura also described community meetings, and told us that when residents have differences, “We just talk together until we can come to agreement about what to do.”

The most moving part of the tour, for me, was that while I was 5,000 miles from North America, visiting a culture significantly different from my own, the common spaces and description of Kankanmori’s cooking rotation, laundry use, and interpersonal process were so familiar. Giovanni and I told Ms. Kimura that the kinds of conflicts and topics she described in their meetings also came up at Huehuecoyotl and Earthaven as well. Whether in Mexico, Japan, or North Carolina, communitarians seem to evoke the same set of living-together issues!

Before we left Kankanmori, Ms. Kimura invited us to participate in one of their common meals the next time we came to Tokyo. We said we’d love to!

Part II will examine two additional high-density housing projects in Tokyo that combine individual units with unusual methods for creating common space.

Diana Leafe Christian is editor of a free online ecovillage newsletter, “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities.” (Diana@ic.org).
Author of Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community, and Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, she was editor of Communities magazine for 14 years.
Diana lives at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina.

DianaLeafeChristian.org

“Going Green” in Japan

By Giovanni Ciarlo, Diana Leafe Christian

The 2007 International Ecovillage Conference was held in Tokyo, Japan, November 23-24, 2007 with a packed crowd of Japanese environmental activists, progressive university professors, enthusiastic students, and the “green press” in Japan. The second such event held in Tokyo, the conference was hosted by BeGood Cafe and the Permaculture Center of Japan, two nonprofits dedicated to promoting ecological sustainability throughout the country.

Ecovillage Conference 2007
The conference was kicked off by Koji Itonaga, Professor of Biosource Sciences at Nihon University and conference co-host, who urged Japan, among other tasks, to protect and revitalize its remaining 135,000 villages through permaculture design and ecovillage projects, ecologically sustainable housing, bioregionalism, and eco-tourism. Yasuhiro Endo, Professor at Aichi Sangyo University, called for more collective housing projects in Japanese cities, showcasing the very successful “U-Court” collective housing project in Kyoto, to much laughter and applause. Ms. Ikuko Koyabe, Professor at Japan Women’s University and author of Let’s Live in a Collective House, presented case studies of collective houses in Sweden, Denmark, and the US, and how this has been translated to collective housing in Japan, especially in the Kankanmori collective housing project in Tokyo. Other Japanese presenters described collective housing communities in Tokyo, ecovillages in Denmark, a Japanese aid project providing wind generators to communities in East Africa, sustainable forestry and building with wood products to create better home environments and revive the economy of Japan’s mountain villages, and plans to revitalize Japanese villages in the Goshima Islands and Hokkaido Date city, respectively.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Overseas guests presented as well. Diana Leafe Christian, author of Finding Community and Creating a Life Together, former editor of Communities magazine, and editor of the new online ecovillage newsletter, Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities, introduced the ecovillage concept with examples worldwide. In a second presentation she focused specifically on the ecologically and financially sustainable aspects of three projects: Earthaven in North Carolina (where she lives), Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, and Kommune Niederkaufungen in Germany.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Environmental scholar Penny Velasco, director of the GEN-Oceania/Asia in the Philippines, directing manager of Earth Day in the Philippines, and author of Are You the Forest King?, described how a new ecovillage project, Pintig Cabio in Manila, is being cofounded by three nonprofits: Happy Earth, which produces environmental education materials; The Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning (CELL), a Creation Spirituality-oriented environmental education center; and the Cabiokid Foundation, a fully developed permaculture demonstration site immediately adjacent to the ecovillage site. Giovanni Ciarlo, cofounder of Huehuecoyotl
Ecovillage in Mexico, representative from Mexico to the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA), and member of the Board of Directors of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), gave a presentation about ecovillage projects in Latin America, including
Huehuecoyotl and Las Cañadas in Mexico, Sasardí Nature Reserve in Colombia, IPEC and ABRA 144 in Brazil. Giovanni also played guitar and sang, getting the crowd clapping and singing along to songs, including his original songs, in Spanish. Kyle Holtzetar, an American Ph.D. student at Nihon University, described the ecologically sustainable aspects of Camphill Kimberton Hills community in the U.S.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007 - Helena Norberg-Hodge
The ecovillage conference was also blessed by an unexpected visit by renowned sustainability activist Helena Norberg-Hodge. Founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, co-founder of the International Forum on Globalization, director of the Ladakh Project, author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh,
recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, and longtime GEN activist, Helena, in Japan on other business, stopped by the ecovillage conference to help encourage ecovillage activism in Japan. She also described her new video project about measuring a country’s progress in terms of its happiness levels.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Professor Yasuhiro Endoh of Aichi Sangyo University in Nagano showed slides of U- Court, a successful 22-year-old collective housing development in Kyoto. The project, completed in 1985, consists of 48 units in three buildings, each three to five stories tall. The buildings are arranged around a south-facing U-shaped courtyard containing tall trees and a patio. U-Court doesn’t have a common kitchen or dining room, but in many ways it resembled cohousing. It boasts a shared meeting hall, stairwell entries that face into the courtyard, shared ivy-covered balconies running like outdoor hallways along the courtyard sides of the buildings, and hidden parking in one corner of the property.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
At the end of each day the presenters took part in a panel discussion moderated by Koji Itonaga, Professor in the College of Bioresource Science at Nihon University.

The conference was widely reported on through print media by Bio-City magazine editor Hiroki Sugita as well as by Yukihiro Noda of the The conference was widely reported on through print media by Bio-City magazine editor Hiroki Sugita as well as by Yukihiro Noda of the television program “Green-Power TV,” who will post a video of interviews and conference highlights in January at www.green-power.tv

Official conference sponsors included Bio City magazine, several Japanese sustainability-oriented corporations, and the Japanese Ministries of the Environment and of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. Emcees were Jun Shikata of BeGood Cafe and Koji Itonaga.

The first International Ecovillage Conference in Japan was held in October, 2006 in Tokyo. Overseas guests were Lois Arkin of Los Angeles Eco-Village and West US representative to ENA, Liz Walker of EcoVillage at Ithaca in New York state and co-creator of GEN’s EDE program, Max Lindegger of Crystal Waters in Australia and director of GEN-Oceania/Asia, and Marti Mueller of Auroville community in India.

CONTACT:

BeGood Cafe: begoodcafe.com, Contact Form

Diana Leafe Christian: DianaLeafeChristian.org, diana@ic.org

Penny Velasco: happyearth.info, penny@happyearth.info

ena.ecovillage.org
gen.ecovillage.org

Giovanni Ciarlo: sircoyote@aol.com
– Ecovillage Network: http://www.ecovillage.org
– Ecoaldea Huehuecoyotl: http://www.huehuecoyotl.net

Ecovillage Activists in Japan

By Diana Leafe Christian

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
The Japanese audience was singing along with ecovillager Giovanni Ciarlo—in Spanish! It was the second International Ecovillage Conference, held in Tokyo in November 2007. The packed crowd included environmental activists, progressive university professors and students, and Japan’s “green press.” Speakers included professors of architecture and engineering, innovative housing developers, environmental activists with special projects in rural areas of Japan, and three overseas guests—Giovanni, Penny Velasco, and me.

The conference was a wonderful opportunity for the three of us to learn about Japanese culture. We were told that people in Japan once had a powerfully developed sense of community and connection to neighbors, in thousands of rural villages as well as in city neighborhoods. They also had an ancient, sacred sense of connection to nature, especially trees and forests. But nowadays most Japanese in urban areas live in tiny apartments in concrete high-rises, with little connection to neighbors or nature. Land is so expensive that few apartments include gardens or landscaping. So the Japanese projects presented at the conference, while not “ecovillages” perse, were nevertheless inspiring to the audience because they made the connection with neighbors and nature once again.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
They were inspiring to us overseas guests, as well—we enjoyed learning about Japanese colleagues doing projects similar to our own. For instance, Ikuko Koyabe, architect and Professor at Japan Women’s University, presented case studies of what the Japanese call “collective housing”—what we would call cohousing. She described projects in Sweden, Denmark, and the US, and then introduced us to the Kankanmori cohousing project in Tokyo.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Housing developer Akinori Sagane spoke of his work supporting the economic revitalization of remote mountain villages by encouraging sustainable forestry practices and a return to using wood as a building material.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Professor Yasuhiro Endoh of Aichi Sangyo University in Nagano showed slides of U- Court, a successful 22-year-old collective housing development in Kyoto. The project, completed in 1985, consists of 48 units in three buildings, each three to five stories tall. The buildings are arranged around a south-facing U-shaped courtyard containing tall trees and a patio. U-Court doesn’t have a common kitchen or dining room, but in many ways it resembled cohousing. It boasts a shared meeting hall, stairwell entries that face into the courtyard, shared ivy-covered balconies running like outdoor hallways along the courtyard sides of the buildings, and hidden parking in one corner of the property.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Housing developer Tetsuro Kai showed slides of two collective housing projects in Tokyo: Kyodo no Mori and Keyaki House. Each is a concrete multi-story apartment building with rooftop gardens and vine-covered vertical surfaces and balconies. The three-story Kyodo no Mori features passive solar heating and cooling, a rooftop wetlands for greywater recycling, and a solar-powered water pump. It was described as Japan’s first cohousing community in Graham Meltzer’s 2005 book, Sustainable Communities (and in the Winter 2005 issue of Communities magazine). Keyaki House is a five-story building whose residents use the original traditional house on the property as their shared common space and meeting room.
Other presenters described ecovillages in Denmark, a Japanese aid project providing wind generators to communities in East Africa, Camphill Kimberton Hills in the US, and plans to revitalize Japanese villages in the Goshima Islands and the city of Hokkaido-Date.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Giovanni, a cofounder of Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage, is Mexico’s representative to the Ecovillage Network of the Americas and a Board member of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). His first presentation at the conference was a slide show about successful up-and-running ecovillages in Latin America, including Huehuecoyotl and Las Cañadas in Mexico, Sasardí Nature Reserve in Colombia, and ABRA 144 in Brazil. When he played guitar and sang some of his original songs, he had everyone tapping their feet and moving to the music.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
Environmental scholar Penny Velasco is director of GEN-Oceania/Asia in the Philippines and director of Happy Earth, a nonprofit that produces environmental education materials. She showed slides of Pintig Cabiao, the ecovillage she is helping to start in Manila. Pintig Cabiao is being cofounded by three Filipino nonprofits: Happy Earth; the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning, a Creation spirituality-oriented environmental education center; and the Cabiokid Foundation, a fully developed permaculture demonstration site adjacent to the planned ecovillage site.

Ecovillage Conference Tokyo 2007
I gave an overview of the concept of ecovillages, with statistics from GEN, quotes from well-known ecovillage activists, and photos of Damanhur in Italy, Tlholego in South Africa, IPEC in Brazil, and Auroville in India. My second presentation focused on ecological and financial sustainability in ecovillages, highlighting Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, Kommune Niederkaufungen in Germany, and Earthaven in North Carolina, where I live.

The conference was hosted by BeGood Cafe and the Permaculture Center of Japan, two nonprofits dedicated to promoting ecological sustainability. Sponsors also included the Tokyo-based Bio City magazine, several Japanese sustainability-oriented companies, and the Japanese Ministries of the Environment and of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. On-stage hosts were Jun Shikita of BeGood Cafe and Koji Itonaga of the Permaculture Center of Japan and the College of Bioresource Sciences at Nihon University.

Giovanni, Penny, and I grew very fond of the folks at BeGood Cafe, who hosted us royally with Japanese dinners every night. The organization’s founder and director, Jun Shikita, is a former fashion industry executive who started the cafe in 1999 to share and promote practical environmental information. We were also impressed by Akemi Miyauchi, the ever-helpful, untiring coordinator, who took care of everything we needed.

After the conference the BeGood Cafe folks helped us foreign guests visit several Japanese intentional communities—a wonderful treat. Penny traveled to the Konohana Family, a 14-year-old organic farming community near Mt. Fuji. The goal of this vegetarian community, which produces nearly all its own food, is to live in harmony with the Earth and with each other. “You could feel the love among the members there,” Penny later told us.

Giovanni, Akemi, and I visited Kankanmori Cohousing in Tokyo, which is located on the second and third floors of a 12-story apartment building. We were given a tour of the common facilities by the project’s architect and founder, Ms. Hiroko Kimura. Even though we were in a culture quite different from ours, Kankanmori felt familiar—especially its common kitchen and other shared facilities, and our guide’s description of the cooking teams, common laundry use, and interpersonal process in meetings. Giovanni and I told Ms. Kimura that the kinds of topics she described in their meetings came up at Huehuecoyotl and Earthaven as well. Whether in Mexico, Japan, or North Carolina, communitarians seem to face the same kinds of issues.

Akemi and I also briefly visited Tetsuro Kai and his two beautifully designed and landscaped collective housing projects, Kyodo no Mori and Keyaki House.

I believe we in the communities movement can learn much from our Japanese colleagues—architects, developers, professors, and environmental activists like the folks at BeGood Cafe. It was an honor to meet them.

Diana Leafe Christian, author of Finding Community and Creating a Life Together and former editor of Communities magazine, is editor of the new online ecovillage newsletter, “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities.” She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage in the US.

Contact info:
Diana Leafe Christian: dianaleafechristian.org; diana@ic.org
BeGood Cafe: begoodcafe.com/archive-bgc/main/archives/ecvc2007_report (in Japanese, with photos); Contact Form
Giovanni Ciarlo and Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage: huehuecoyotl.net; sircoyote@aol.com
Penny Velasco: happyearth.info; penny@happyearth.info

BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2

素敵ないいことはじめよう
BeGood Cafe は、21 世紀型ライフスタイルを考えるコミュニティカフェ。地球環境や社会についてみんなで語ります。ライブやオープンマイクもあります。ご一緒にピースな一歩を踏み出してみませんか?

テーマ
『お弁当でココロもまんぷく ~くらしの時間を見つめよう~』
日々のくらしでなんとなくやり過ごしていたことをちょっぴり意識して見つめると、すごく大切なものがあったことに気づきます。今回のビーグッドカフェでは、日々のくらしに欠かすことのできない“食” のあり方を“お弁当” という視点から見つめて皆様とシェアしていきます。

BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2

思い出のお弁当大集合!

お弁当のおかずを一品持ち寄り、その思い出を語りながらみんなで頂きましょう!おかずが持ち寄れなくても、自然食屋さんのお弁当のおかず販売がありますよ~。

スケジュール 2007年2月3日(日)10:00〜17:00

10:00〜 開場
10:30〜12:00 BeGoodトーク
12:00〜14:00 ワークショップ&ランチ(思い出のお弁当大集合)
14:30〜15:30 ライブ
15:30〜17:00 オープンマイク& サロンタイム
(お買い物したり、おしゃべりしたり自由な時間)

日 時: 2月3日(日)10:00-17:00
会 場: コンパルホール4 階・集会室および視聴覚室
大分市府内町1-5-38 Tel 097-538-3700)
料 金: 前売り1,500 円 当日1,800 円 学生500 円引き 高校生以下無料
思い出のおかずを作ってきてくれる方は300 円引きします。試食できるように少し余分にご用意ください。用意できる方はご予約時に詳しい説明書をお渡しします。
持ち物: おにぎり(ランチ用)、マイ箸、弁当箱(空のもの) 、お弁当のおかず一品(用意できる方のみで結構です)
お問い合わせ: BeGood Cafe Oita http://oita.begoodcafe.net
主 催: Tel:097-582-1741(伊藤)/097-551-3001(神田)
メール:prgpx012@ybb.ne.jp
協 力: NPO法人 BeGood Cafe http://begoodcafe.com/archive-bgc/
後 援: 大分合同新聞 朝日新聞 読売新聞 西日本新聞 TOS テレビ大分 FM 大分
協 賛: くつろぎの温泉宿山田別荘 自然食のやおやニコニコ村 竹工房野や 福祉工場サンフラワー
実行委員: 竹工房野や Re空間 ボンズバンブープラス

ゲストプロフィール

トークゲスト
BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2

■竹下和男さん
香川県高松市立国分寺中学校校長

 
“親は決して手伝わないでください”
食材の買出しから弁当箱に詰めるまで、子どもが自分で取り組む「弁当の日」を小学校で初めて導入した。子どもたちの「心の空腹感」が問題化している中で、お弁当を作る(家事に取り組む)ことにより「くらしの時間」を生み出していくこの試みは全国各地に広がり、現在西日本を中心に小中学校等で実践されている。
http://www.ruralnet.or.jp/ouen/meibo/326.html

ライブゲスト
BeGood Cafe 大分 Vol.2

■森山由希華さん
津軽三味線森山流師範

 
幼少の頃より父に和太鼓と三味線を習い、4歳で和太鼓の初舞台を踏む。津軽三味線奏者として活躍する傍ら、歌や芝居など活動を広げている。豊かな表現力の中に、力強くも繊細な音色が聴く人の心を打つ。宮崎県延岡市在住。

http://www.geocities.jp/music_yukiaki45/yukikatop.html

エコプロダクツ 2007レポート

エコプロダクツ2007

ナチュラルフード・カフェ

ナチュラルフード・カフェ

今年も大盛況のうちに3日間のエコプロダクツ2007でのレストラン営業が終了しました。足を運んでいただきお食事やドリンクをお買い求めいただいた皆様ありがとうございました。

今年ナチュラルフード・カフェでは「フードマイレージ」を各メニューに表記しました。ご用意したお食事の原材料はお野菜はほとんど全てが国内産の有機や特別栽培による農産物だったので、もし全ての原材料を主要生産国から輸入した場合より、メニューによっては1割程度のフードマイレージのメニューもありました。お客様の中にはこの数値を参考にご注文をされる方もいらっしゃいました。予想外に車麩の入った「たっぷり野菜の八丁味噌丼」が大人気で毎日一番に売り切れました。この八丁味噌丼がメニューの中では一番フードマイナチュラルフード・カフェレージの数値も低く、安心で安全なお食事を召し上がった上にエコにも繋がるメニューにお客様の関心の高まりを感じるレストランでした。

スタッフの皆さんも本当に忙しいキッチン、ホールでのお仕事ありがとうございました。

また来年もエコプロダクツで美味しいお料理をご用意してお待ちしています。

ナチュラルフード・カフェナチュラルフード・カフェナチュラルフード・カフェ



エコプロマーケット BeGood Village

エコプロマーケット

こだわりのエコグッズやサービスをもつ38ブースが展開したエコプロマーケット。出展者から提供された素敵な賞品が好評だった「エコ抽選会」も、3日間通して多くの方にご参加いただきました。

また、ワークショップエリアでは、スキンケアクリームやバスソーダソルトづくり、伝統の技が生きた箒制作の実演などのワークショップを実施。実際に材料や製作過程に触れてみたり、スタッフの詳しい話を聞いたりとそれぞれの出展ブースで足を止める方も多く、マーケットにあふれる来場者と出展者の暖かい会話や笑顔が印象的でした。

事前から当日まで制作にご協力いただいたみなさま、ご来場いただいたみなさま、どうもありがとうございました。

BeGood Village出展者一覧はこちら

エコプロマーケットエコプロマーケット
エコプロマーケットエコプロマーケット
エコプロマーケットエコプロマーケット
エコプロマーケットエコプロマーケット
エコプロマーケットエコプロマーケット
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エコプロマーケットエコプロマーケットエコプロマーケット



エコプロ会場内ツアー

エコプロ会場内ツアー

出展団体も600社団体を超えますます充実するエコプロダクツ展。でも「どこから回ったらいいかわからない」「自分の気になる分野だけを効率的に回りたい」という希望者も多く、毎年会場内ツアーは大人気です。

今年は「エコ入門ツアー1」「エコ入門ツアー2」「農とガーデンツアー」「ゴミゼロツアー」「やさしい食ツアー」「女性のためのエコライフツアー」の6つのテーマで展開し、昨年を上回る参加数でした。

ガイドさんの丁寧なリサーチにより、見逃してしまいそうな小さなブースの素晴らしい活動、チャレンジ、物語を知ることができ、参加者の方々も大変満足されていたようです。皆さんそれぞれ、非常に熱心にメモをとったり質問をしながら、日常をエコライフにシフトチェンジするために情報を収集している姿が印象的でした。

自分の生活環境をエコにしていくためのヒントがたくさんみつかるようなますます充実したプログラム構成にしていきたいと思います! 来年も皆様のお越しをお待ちしております。

エコ入門ツアー1
エコプロ会場内ツアー エコ入門ツアー1エコプロ会場内ツアー エコ入門ツアー1"

エコ入門ツアー2
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農とガーデンツアー
エコプロ会場内ツアー 農とガーデンツアーエコプロ会場内ツアー 農とガーデンツアー"

ゴミゼロツアー
エコプロ会場内ツアー ゴミゼロツアーエコプロ会場内ツアー ゴミゼロツアー"

やさしい食ツアー
エコプロ会場内ツアー やさしい食ツアーエコプロ会場内ツアー やさしい食ツアー"

女性のためのエコライフツアー
エコプロ会場内ツアー 女性のためのエコライフツアーエコプロ会場内ツアー 女性のためのエコライフツアー"