Excerpt from Stuff

Eco community

Lindsay Wood’s home at Nelson’s Braemar Eco Village is an experiment that’s never been finished.

The former eco-architect designed it himself, wrapping the home in recycled cladding and insulation, powering it with photovoltaic panels on his roof. He’s still honing the passive heating system, but the composting toilet works fine.

“You always have things you want to try but don’t want to inflict on a client.”

Born in 2008, Braemar is now a fully fledged community of people in nine homes arranged over a sloping 4.4 hectare plot beneath the Grampians.

The residents are a mix of tenants and homeowners, young families and retirees.

“We share core values, but we’re not all the same,” Wood says.

Their common ground is the land, which everyone works on together. Once a month, they meet for a working bee, a chance to put a dent in a big job and catch up.

Their “light but fairly regular social calendar” includes potluck dinners and Christmas parties, Wood says.

With more than three hectares of common land to work, there's always plenty to do at Braemar Eco Village.
BRADEN FASTIER / Stuff

“There’s a low level of socialising. We get on well together, we look out for each other without being in each other’s pockets.

“But if someone’s having a tough patch the word gets around: can we give a bit more support to so and so.”

Wood is keen to point out that life at Braemar isn't a group of people pottering about in the country.

“There’s a lot of physical work.”

Wood gave up his work as an architect a decade ago to concentrate on climate change strategy: he researches, writes, gives talks and consults.

Climate change resilience was front and centre of Wood’s desire to help grow Braemar.

“We need to think about how we will live as communities. I don’t necessarily mean a bunch of us like this, but having strong communities will be more and more important as things get tougher.

“I thought, I owe it to my grandkids to do everything I can.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/retirement/122243444/how-older…