Village Building Convergence - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Village Building Convergence (VBC) is an annual 10-day event held every May in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The event is coordinated by the City Repair Project

City Repair Project

The City Repair Project is a 501 non profit organization based in Portland, Oregon. Its focus is education and activism for community building...

and consists of a series of workshops incorporating natural building

Natural building

A natural building involves a range of building systems and materials that place major emphasis on sustainability. Ways of achieving sustainability through natural building focus on durability and the use of minimally processed, plentiful or renewable resources, as well as those that, while...

and permaculture

Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...

design at multiple sites around the city. Many of the workshops center around "intersection repairs" which aim to transform street intersections into public gathering spaces.

Background

In 1996, neighbors in the Sellwood neighborhood

Sellwood, Portland, Oregon

Sellwood-Moreland is a neighborhood on a bluff overlooking the Willamette River in Southeast Portland, Oregon, bordering Westmoreland to the north, Eastmoreland to the east, and the city of Milwaukie to the south...

of Portland at the intersection of 9th and Sherrett created a tea stand, children's playhouse and community library on the corner and renamed it "Share-It Square". Community organizers founded the City Repair Project that same year, seeking to share their vision with the community. In January 2000, the Portland City Council passed ordinance #172207, an "Intersection Repair" ordinance, allowing neighborhoods to develop public gathering places in certain street intersections.

Sites

The first Village Building Convergence took place in May 2002, then called the Natural Building Convergence.
During its history, the VBC has coordinated the creation of over 72 natural building and permaculture sites in Portland, including information kiosks, painted intersections, cob benches, and a strawbale house

Straw-bale construction

Straw-bale construction is a building method that uses bales of straw as structural elements, building insulation, or both...

at Dignity Village

Dignity Village

Dignity Village is a city-recognized encampment of an estimated 60 homeless people in Portland, Oregon, United States.In the days before Christmas of 2000, a group of homeless people in Portland succeeded in establishing a tent city which garnered a great deal of both opposition and support, and...

. The sites are primarily located in the southeast quadrant of Portland. Natural builders from around the world have coordinated the activities at many of the construction sites at the Village Building Convergence. Most of the labor taking place at the sites is done by volunteers.

Workshops

The VBC hosts a series of workshops, many of which are free to the public. Topics of the workshops are usually related to sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

and natural building

Natural building

. Past workshops have included aikido

Aikido

is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to...

lessons, outdoor mushroom cultivation, bioswale

Bioswale

Bioswales are landscape elements designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water. They consist of a swaled drainage course with gently sloped sides and filled with vegetation, compost and/or riprap...

creation, and nonviolent communication

Nonviolent communication

Nonviolent Communication is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. NVC often functions as a conflict resolution process...

Speakers

The VBC also hosts speakers and entertainment during the evenings of its convergences. Presentations for the 2007 convergence were made at Disjecta

Disjecta

Disjecta is a not-for-profit arts organization in Portland, Oregon that was founded in 2000 by Bryan Suereth. In their first location, Disjecta held over 500 shows, showingcasing 3,000 artists and hosting 30,000 patrons. In 2008 Disjecta announced the public opening of their new 16,000 sf arts...

by Starhawk

Starhawk

Starhawk is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion...

, Michael Lerner

Michael Lerner (rabbi)

Michael Lerner is a political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue of San Francisco.-Family and Education:...

, and Paul Stamets

Paul Stamets

Paul E. Stamets is an American mycologist, author, and advocate of bioremediation and medicinal mushrooms.- Research and advocacy :...

. Prior years' presentations have been given by Malik Rahim

Malik Rahim

Malik Rahim is a former Black Panther, and a long-time housing and prison activist in the U.S. state of Louisiana. He gained publicity as a community organizer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina....

, Toby Hemenway, and Judy Bluehorse.

Background

Sites

Workshops

Speakers

Further reading