This is a CTP of initiative: Ecovillage Sieben Linden (Germany)
Sieben Linden ecovillage was growing since its beginnings in 1997. The community facilities with canteen and meeting spaces are located in the so called ‘Regiohaus’. This is an old farm house, the only building on the property when bought in 1997, which was renovated part by part over the years. Since the beginnings the community facilities have also been used by the education centre. This was a special and popular style amongst community education centres; The guests were attracted by the atmosphere and came to feel integrated and to experience community life in Sieben Linden. A main part was taking the meals in the same space with the community members with the chance of a conversation.
Already from 2004 on, the dining facilities had become narrow due to the slow but continuous growth of the community. Due to the ecological intention, the system of shared economy for food and the community ambitions, Sieben Linden had developed an extremely high quality of about 50% self-produced fresh organic food and vegan meals by experienced cooks for an unrivalled low price. The canteen is well visited by the members.
Already in 2004 the ‘Freundeskreis’ association as owner of the education centre intended to build a new guest house. The community consulted four external architects with whom they had partly worked together with. Aim was to develop a layout plan for what should be built around the village square. The result which was worked out and decided with the community planned a large guest house and further guest facilities around the village square. This concept is still an option till today.
As the dining situation for the community and external guests has become increasingly narrow, offices and other spaces were moved from the Regiohouse to other places to generate more space for dining and soon, it became too narrow again.
“Still, the situation in the eating spaces was narrow and chaotic with children, community members and guests eating together, as well as the guest reception in the buffet room. We were sometimes getting mad.” (Interview Stefan Althoff)
The popularity of the education centre had grown significantly after the financial crises in 2009 which animated the Freundeskreis to professionalise the management and hire more people to support the voluntary workers.
Finally, in 2010 the manager of the guest house stated that he will commit to take on the project and intended to build new facilities for the education centre, especially a welcoming lobby, a dining room, bathrooms and toilets – wheelchair accessible. He initiated a working group and found out about a state program to support the re-use and rebuild of old farm houses. As a large part of the ‘Regiohaus’ was still not renovated, Sieben Linden re-oriented in their plans for a guest house to use the remaining space in the old farm house and receive the subsidies.
The guest team manager is carpenter at the same time and took the task to manage the project and to plan the new spaces together with an external architect. It was a complex planning process because three organisations of Sieben Linden as owners and users with practically all members were included in the internal decision making: the ‘Freundeskreis’ association as owner of the education centre, the ‘SiGe’ cooperative as the owner of the Regiohaus community facilities and the ‘Naturwaren’ association, who is organising the shared food system.
With diverse side-effects (see further down), the project has been realised: In March 2013 the new rooms of the so called ‘Sonneneck’ education centre were launched on the first floor as well as the new space for the ‘Naturwaren’ store plus storage rooms in the basement. The renovated space on the first floor for the education centre includes a 130 qm dining room, which can be divided into two seminar rooms, a guest lobby with separate entrance, bathrooms and toilets for the guests, everything accessible with elevator and a terrace. Furthermore there is a hallway that leads backwards to some earlier built guest rooms, to the ‘older’ seminar room which is also used by the community, and to the community spaces of ‘Regiohaus’.
In the process of enlarging the education centre, it was intended to combine two different needs: On the one hand, for the community of Sieben Linden, the eating situation is of central importance for sustaining the community life. People can use this time to meet and keep in touch informally with almost every member of the community. It is their recreational time during a busy working day where they want to relax, connect to friends or meet with their children. Having guests approaching community members is perceived as overwhelming. On the other hand, Sieben Linden intends to be a model project with education centre and guests are coming to experience community life, which is expressed also in the dining room situation, e.g. the custom in Sieben Linden to start the meal with a silent circle holding hands.
“How to create coproduction between the need of the community members and the guests was my first priority when planning the new rooms”, states the former manager of the guest house (Interview Stefan Althoff).
The final breakthrough for realising the new education centre facilities came after getting subsidies in 2011 from the state of Sachsen-Anhalt for creating a new using concept for old farm houses including financial support for renovation. Sieben Linden received a grant and could finance the new spaces. Building a new guest house how it was planned in 2008 could not be funded.
Concerning the internal governance, after long negotiation and learning processes (see further down), the three organisations and more than 100 members had developed a satisfying compromise for the renovation plan of the spaces. Furthermore, the conditions for ownership, maintenance and using rules of the ‘Sonneneck’ spaces could be worked out in a co-creational way. The education area can also be used for the community due to special agreements between the ‘Freundeskreis’ association (running the education centre) and the SiGe cooperative, owning the community facilities.
Today, ‘Sonneneck’ is successful and a fully booked out space. It is used mainly for the education centre and the monthly village Café open for visitors from the region. During the three retreat times a year (see CTP 3 of Sieben Linden), it is used by the community. It is the largest space in Sieben Linden and since the community has more than 100 members, the only one that can hold general assemblies. The new space is mainly perceived as enriching for all organisations and members in Sieben Linden.
‘Sonneneck’ as label and as manifested location has significantly fostered the internal image of the education centre amongst Sieben Linden members (see further down: contestation).
2004 Layout plan done by four external architects for what should be built around the village square
2007/08: professionalization of seminar centre
2008 the financial crises causes a raising media interest and raising number of visitors to Sieben Linden ecovillage.
2010 Receiving of subsidies from the state of Sachsen-Anhalt for renovating old houses
2011 renovation of the remaining part of the old farm house into new spaces for the education centre
March 2013 opening of the new ‘Sonneneck’ education centre facilities
There was a number of different internal conflicts and contesting issues before and during the planning process of the new ‘Sonneneck’. Before, the growing community had a lack of space for their dining needs and for their meeting needs.
The use of the community facilities by the education centre was increasingly controversially perceived by the community. The need for more privacy in the dining rooms, which are used for three meals a day by a majority of the community. Even more controversially was the situation of the bathrooms and toilets which are used by community members living in trailer homes and also by the guests. The education centre intended for a high hygienic standard in the sanitary rooms while the members felt exploited by cleaning the toilets on a voluntary base for the profit-making education centre. Members increasingly perceived the guests as a factor of stress and therefore started to criticise the education centre. After ‘Sonneneck’ was opened including the new sanitary facilities, it was releasing for the community, helped raising the image of the education centre again by making the education centre visible in terms of place and space. The education centre had finally become a manifested place. Still, there are different opinions on how many and how close guests should be invited to the community.
Another issue of contestation appeared concerning the relationship between the different internal organisations in Sieben Linden. A long-term community member who has been engaged and working in many different areas, who is today on the board of the education centre Freundeskreis association, concludes:
“After years of community building, we actually had a good fundament of community organisations cooperating between the different growing areas. We founded new sub-organisations to outsource and de-centralise the work and several decisions for the sake of simplification – it worked well. Nevertheless, with the new project of the seminar centre, it seemed that every organisation started focussing on its own sake and a common solution was difficult to create.
We realised that the problem was more fundamental in our community and governance system. We could not blame the new the seminar centre for that. We had to take the step to look at the ecovillage as a whole. The difficulties had emerged over the years since the ecovillage was growing. Before that, the same person had worked in different organisations bridging the neds and perspectives and could easily decide from a broader viewpoint. Over the years of growing, the cooperative and the association started to even behave competitive against each other sometimes.” (Interview Eva Stützel)
The intention when the guest manager planned the new facilities was to release the community dining and sanitary situation by ‘outsourcing’ the guests to a new space. His idea was to provide an attractive dining space for the guests, and the community members are invited to go upstairs and eat with the guests on a voluntary base. This is working to a certain degree. But most of the time, the community and the guest remain amongst their groups. On the other hand, the community facilities are still overloaded:
“I did not foresee and it was not my intention that after opening the new space, many guests still eat in the community facilities! There are several programs about approaching Sieben Linden where the guests eat in the community. Also private guests, working guests and sometimes small seminars eat in the community. The reason is either the kind of seminar that advertises community contact or the kitchen team wants to avoid the work to serve two buffets, taking the food in the elevator upstairs in the education centre dining room.” (Interview Stefan Althoff)
Sometimes for special seminars, it is served only upstairs in the education centre dining room, which is big enough to host the community members plus a seminar. Since ‘Sonneck’ is run by the education centre guest team, there has been some unforeseen problems in ruling responsibilities between education centre and community e.g. concerning the dishes that often get mixed up and have different standards to fulfil.
Another unforeseen aspect has to do with individual motivation, engagement and exploitation. The guest manager as carpenter and experienced ‘expert’ for the need of the education centre and as member of the community and ‘expert’ of the needs of the community had significantly worked out the architectural plans. Still, an official architect was needed to get legal permission for the renovation. He had to be paid more than double than the community guest manager. Additional, the guest manager had to deal with all the requirements in the participatory internal decision making process, and the partly non-professional critique. He felt overwhelmed by the dilemma, on the one hand under pressure to produce something good based on his expertise and experience in the community and at the same time was thwarted by the community with too much critique and too less appreciation and acknowledgement. He left the guest team after the project with a nearly burn-out.
Concerning the internal leadership situation and empowerment of active members, the guest manager and driving force of the ‘Sonneneck’ project has learnt from the process. He recommends for new projects:
“For such a large and complicated project the community should give a mandate to someone who is authorized to take the lead. It does undermine a project, if someone is really engaged and has become an experienced expert in something and then everyone else in the community is adding their opinion expecting that it will be acted accordingly. I recommend also that such an engaged and authorized person should be paid accordingly.” (Interview Stefan Althoff)
“On the other hand, the community of course is still integrated in the participatory planning process through hearing their needs. The method of systemic consent worked well in our case.” (Interview Stefan Althoff)
There was a learning effect in the aspect of internal governance and decision making:
“We have learnt to communicate more between the organisations. One person has engaged deeply in the communication process and experienced a burn out and has withdrawn from all activities.
The community had learnt about the decision making system of ‘systemic consensus’. In their experience the method rather avoids negative decisions than fostering positive once. In the case of the architecture how the room of the education centre and the community spaces should be connected, a very good compromise was worked out which probably would not have been come out when searching for positive solutions” (interview Eva Stützel).
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