The Knowledge Production of Ecovillages and the Issues With Contemporary Regenerative Architecture

In January 2024 MOMA NYC featured a large exhibition entitled Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism. The exhibition displayed architecture works from the 1970's and the motivation was that their ideas and technologies, while perhaps forgotten, actually held a promise. An important element left out from the exhibition was the work of self-made ecovillages. The aesthetics of self-built ecovillages in earthen and strawbale technologies, have to a large extent been rejected by architectural canons. While architects, engineers and building codes have turned down their applicability due to aesthetic reasons and difficulty in technical assessment, these built experiments still stand soundly and have been carefully maintained by their inhabitants. In the light of the current ecological crises which values and lessons can be learned from +20-year-old ecovillages? This paper examines two cases, a self-built house in an ecovillage and a contemporary regenerative centre designed by architects. The two examples present the difference in ideas and values of what regenerative can mean and do, and to whom.