Project Leader Biographies: Village Design Institute

E. Christopher Mare has been pursuing self-designed, fully accredited education since 1994, in effect setting an academic precedent for the emerging field of Sustainable Community Design and Development. Through a B.A. entitled “Village Design: Ekistics for the 21st Century,” an M.A. in Whole Systems Design, and now transversing a Ph.D. with the theme Human and Organization Development, the strategy has been to employ a broadly holistic, transdisciplinary, multidimensional approach, coupling deep theoretical exploration with heuristic practical application. Learning at the home site has been augmented immensely with educational sojourns to key sites around the globe. All this effort has been coming to fruition recently: Mare was appointed Program Development Coordinator for Gaia Education, he’s been hired for consultation and design work at a development corporation, and his non-profit Village Design Institute has been offering design courses and charrettes. Mr. Mare advocates the key to sustainability as mastering design at village-scale – ecovillage, urban village, traditional village – with all that implies.