Big tings a gwan at Dignity Village this Spring and Summer!! As this article goes to press, the Village is putting the finishing touches on five new dwelling spaces started during this year's 4th Anual Village Building Convergence. Led by natural builder Lydia Doleman, Villagers and volunteers together demonstrated their commitment to ecological sustainability and affordable housing by constructing 5 new enviro-friendly dwellings using natural building techniques and mostly recycled lumber, straw, sand, clay and water. The biodegradable light straw clay mix used in place of conventional insulation is packed in removable forms which dries rock hard and takes the place of conventional insulation. Villagers are taking what they've learned from the Convergence and plan to build 5 more of the structures before the Autumn and the rains. Coupled with the strawbale house built last year, Dignity Village will have one of the largest concentrations of natural buildings in the Pacific North West!
Also as part of The City Repair Project's Village Building Convergence, Dignity Village formed a theater troupe and after months of rehearsal performed "The Fillmore Hotel" to a packed Pine Street Theater on May 29th. The specially commissioned play, written and directed by playwright Helen Hill, was a slightly fictionalized story about the gentrification of the Sylvia Beach Hotel and had the crowd in laughter and tears as the difficult issues of class, gentrification, and homelessness were addressed. The review calls "The Filmore Hotel" "superb," "powerful performance art" and you may read more about the play and future performance dates in the next issue of the Alliance.
July 10th found Villagers and the good people from City Repair under the T-Horse wing at Sunnyside Piazza on SE 33rd and Yamhill to jointly receive this year's prestigious Lewis Mumford Award for Socially Responsible Development from architects/designers/planners for social responsibility (ADPSR). ADPSR has a 20 year history of advocating arms reduction, protection of the environment and socially responsible development. With the award, the Village and The City Repair Project join a list of previous winners including Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Julia Butterfly Hill, Al Gore, David Brower, Natural Resources Defense Council, Habitat For Humanity, Project for Public Spaces, and Center For Neighborhood Technology.
Dignity Village is located at 33rd and Sunderland, just west of the airport between Marine Drive and Columbia Blvd. Check our website at http://outofthedoorways.org. More details about The City Repair Project can be found at http://cityrepair.org.