Micropolis (village design)

Micropolis is a model for both human incubation and habitat development through a combination of anthropology and biomimicry. Inspired by “Dunbar’s number” of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships, and Doxiadis "ekistics" studies in the science of human settlements, the objective is to develop a truly human experience—free of the false narratives of advertising and unnecessary consumer products. To create biomimetic design and infrastructure to comply and integrate within the environment, and reintroduce humanity back into the wild. 

The Micropolis objective is bigger than the sum of its parts. Although the goal is to create a self-sufficient, sustainable village model based on a functional group size, it is intended to be replicated, but with variation. Image many different villages where the members of each have what they need to survive but also build and maintain their own products and services. Imagine that each village has its own unique personality and aesthetic based on the collective character of its inhabitants, and the resources and life found in the existing location. Image the experience of traveling short distances from one village to the next and experiencing the unique quality of each, and all the flora and fauna within and in between.

Creating a community from the ground up is nothing new. In modern times there have been many groups of people who have broken away from their societies to form their own, with various degrees of success – and in some cases catastrophic failure. Although the culture and outcome of commune experiments differ, they all begin with a sense that something is amiss in the culture they are fleeing. Identifying what in society is unsatisfying can be illusive — and often not what we think.

We live under a constant barrage of advertising telling us what we need to be happy, much of which never does. It was inevitable that a system which needs constant growth would reach a point of saturation and begin churning out irrelevant products and services just to sustain itself. Understanding the history of our evolution helps us understand who we really are, as opposed to who we are told we need to be to keep the GDP growing at an exponential rate.