Urban Sustainability in the Rhizosphere
The Rhizome Collective operates out of a warehouse in Austin, Texas. Their mission is “to build the world [they] want to live in” through community organizing and education.
When the Collective got started, the warehouse where they work was centered on an asphalt courtyard. They pulled together to remove the asphalt and mulch the land. Now, the Rhizosphere Educational Center is home to a garden, rainwater harvesting, a polyculture pond, micro-livestock, and solar and wind energy collection. By designing these systems and living sustainably and through their workshops, they hope to help educate other communities about self-reliance.
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Leading by Example
The Rhizome Collective designs systems that will work specifically in urban areas, showing that it’s really not hard or expensive to live in a sustainable way. A great example is their amazing bicycle windmill. Built with just $30 in materials, it’s constructed almost completely from recycled bicycle parts! They use wind power to supplement their active and passive solar system. Passive solar, as opposed to active solar, has no electric components. Think things like solar ovens or water heaters that use the sun’s energy to heat up rather than collecting any sort of power.
[Courtyard Garden at the Rhizome Collective.]
They want to show that sustainable living is something anyone can achieve:
Our design criteria include: affordability, simplicity, space efficiency, beauty, and the utilization of recycled and low energy materials. Special attention is given to forming a closed loop system, where the yields of one system provide for the needs of another. The systems of the Rhizosphere are based on the design principles of permaculture.
Check out the Rhizosphere’s virtual tour for photos of the site and info on some of their sustainable practices! Folks in Austin can drop by the center for classes and workshops. Thanks to Georgia Organics here in Atlanta, we’re lucky enough to have co-founder Scott Kellogg visiting tomorrow night at Charis Books in Little Five Points! He’s going to talk about sustainable urban living and the book he co-authored with Stacy Pettigrew: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living.
[Image Credit: Creative Commons photos by Chad Hanna]
