HOW DO SINGLE ADULTS FIT IN TO THE VILLAGE TOWN?

Single Adults

 

The VillageTown is intended to be a complete community, and it is the distinctive character of each village that makes this possible. One village may be for families with many children, with grandparents living next door, but the next village may be completely different. When adults live alone, or live as childless couples, their focus is different. They tend to have more discretionary income, as well as the time and interest to focus on their own pursuits.

Fashion, furnishings, parties, evenings out with friends or at the theatre are all pursuits for which they may have more time. Because they have the time and the resources, they enrich the VillageTown through their support.

Alternative lifestyle refers to different forms of housing for people. A village made of 500 single persons may require 500 residences. Alternatively, twenty of those single persons may chose to build a large facility with privately owned very small apartments and a larger commons area for formal dining, a great hall and even a private library or concert room. Alternative lifestyle also can mean a tribal way of life in which an extended family lives and works in a much larger, somewhat rambling building with home workshops and less clear boundaries between family and work life. This could be one such family in an otherwise mainstream appearing village, or it could be a whole village made up of such extended families. In the New Zealand VillageTown project, for example, the Maori leaders who have expressed strong interest in forming a village said they would do so by bringing in their tribal values, family structure and architectural traditions.

The driving force behind such villages comes from the village coordinator who steps forward and described the sort of village they want. If the coordinator recruits enough buyers to form a village, it happens. The VillageTown encourages diversity to make it a complete community. It makes it easy to happen rather than direct the process or do anything particularly special. It expects the buildings will be designed differently to accommodate different needs, and it incorporates this into the core design concepts.