Taking Shape: Village Co-Shaping Gathering
On 5th of January 2025 we gathered as project members, potential residents, neighbours and community for a Village Co-Shaping Gathering. The Village Circle designed the morning to gather information, explore ideas and share where we’ve got to so far in the shaping of the regenerative village. For this session we focused on the physical and social design aspects of the design.
A Vision Rooted
The village vision has been developing since 2022, through conversations, workshops and deepening understanding of the land and the nature it contains. This session, focused on “the physical and social design,” an introduction intended to help all of us orient to where the project stands now and where it is headed.
We started with our guiding vision:
A Land Centred Regenerative Village that Lovingly and Measurably Honours Life on Earth.
For us, that means a place where people can meet the land with openness, ask what is possible, and face difficult questions collectively. Our ongoing project approach is to live the questions, and today we’re asking ‘How can we create a neighbourhood in relationship with the land, where nature, community and farming grow together?’” And how can this contribute to “the global repair of life.”
Principles at the Heart of the Project
The emerging set of core principles was shared to anchor the discussion. These are regenerative living, reduced carbon footprint; nurturing community, and deep listening — “to ourselves, each other and the land.” These principles form the foundation of how the village will be shaped and how its residents will live together.
Parameters Taking Shape
Much of the session explored emerging parameters that will guide both the visioning process and the planning application. These parameters, we remind ourselves, “will evolve as we go forward,” shaped by planners, funders, viability and the realities of co-creating a village. We emphasised that building a regenerative village is an “organic process,” in which residents will play an important role as the project unfolds.
Context was highlighted as essential: the village will exist within many more contexts, including the wider Bowden Pillars Future project, committed to enabling nature, community and farming to grow together. The community aims to measure and understand its impact and share learning outward to Totnes and beyond, welcoming others for learning and wellbeing.
Social Design and Culture
One of the most engaging parts of the session explored the social fabric of the village. Community life was envisioned and grounded in “deep listening, compassion & empathy,” with an emphasis on collaboration and shared resources. The design of shared facilities — including the Common House — will ensure they are places people want to go, not just spaces they need.
We also spoke about our intention for an intergenerational village with a range of housing sizes and tenures. Some policies, such as how residents will be selected and how diversity and inclusivity will be ensured, remain open for discussion. What is clear is that residents will need to agree to live by the shared principles and practices of the village, evolving them together over time.
Homes: Tenure, Mix and Relationship to the Land
We shared the emerging plans for housing: a mix of types and sizes, with around 30-50% designated as affordable. Options may include rented homes, capital-payment homes, potential self-build opportunities and possibly tiny homes. No home will become a second home, holiday let or investment property.
Some residents will work on the land, and food grown onsite will supply the village.
Physical Design and Planning
The physical vision drew many questions and excitement. Buildings will be highly energy-efficient, using nature-based design and emphasising sustainability and resilience. A cohousing model will guide the layout: smaller private dwellings balanced by generous shared facilities — “private sufficiency and public luxury.”
Most of the village will be car-free, with vehicle access and parking at the periphery. Nature will be woven throughout, with green spaces “around and between the homes.”
We discussed an illustrative layout — not a final plan — demonstrating how 40 homes of varied sizes could fit onto the existing farmyard and bungalow area. Over the next nine months, this layout will be shaped collaboratively.
Low Carbon and Self-Sufficient Living
The village is aligning itself with the Cornish Regenerative and Low Impact Development policy (AL1). We shared and described aims to minimise water use, meet needs through rainwater harvesting and the borehole, treat wastewater onsite, build with natural materials, and generate 100% renewable energy onsite.
Food production is also central: the goal is for 65% of residents’ food needs to come from growing and rearing activities on the land. A significant reduction in private vehicle ownership — by 50% — is planned, balanced by shared vehicles and e-bikes.
A shared target was named: household carbon footprints of 5 tCO₂e per person per year within five years of final occupation.
Governance and Stewardship
The future village will be owned and managed by a new resident-led organisation. Sociocracy has been adopted as the governance model, and residents will steward shared facilities and contribute to service costs.
Many financial details — such as the extent of mutual home ownership or cooperative structures — remain to be decided and will undergo further modelling.
A Timeline Toward Becoming
The timeline shared offered a sense of grounded momentum:
Co-shaping sessions: January 2025 onwards
Pre-development funding: March 2025
Design work begins: April 2025
Design freeze: November 2025
Planning application submitted: February 2026
Possible planning decision: late 2026
Potential start on site: spring 2027
These milestones sketch a pathway from dream into place.
Closing with the Song of the Land
We closed the day with a reading of Song of the Land, a poem offered by poet and project member Sally Shell, and by the land itself. Inviting presence, care and attentiveness, the poem reminds us of the deeper invitation behind the project: a way of living that listens to the wind, the rain, the soil, the more-than-human world — and to one another. To “the singers and the dancers,” of care, touch and community, of fierceness and nurture, and of the courage required to bring the land into “your words and your ideas and your actions.”
A Timeline Toward Becoming
The timeline shared offered a sense of grounded momentum:
Co-shaping sessions: January 2025 onwards
Pre-development funding: March 2025
Design work begins: April 2025
Design freeze: November 2025
Planning application submitted: February 2026
Possible planning decision: late 2026
Potential start on site: spring 2027
These milestones sketch a pathway from dream into place.
Closing with the Song of the Land
We closed the day with a reading of Song of the Land, a poem offered by poet and project member Sally Shell, and by the land itself. Inviting presence, care and attentiveness, the poem reminds us of the deeper invitation behind the project: a way of living that listens to the wind, the rain, the soil, the more-than-human world — and to one another. To “the singers and the dancers,” of care, touch and community, of fierceness and nurture, and of the courage required to bring the land into “your words and your ideas and your actions.”