How to Build a Regenerative Village (Book)

Overview

"How to Build a Regenerative Village" is a comprehensive operational knowledge guide that synthesizes practical wisdom from regenerative village practitioners around the world. This book represents a unique collaborative effort, written by a collective of authors who are actively running villages across the globe, all working together at Traditional Dream Factory.

Definition

This book is an intentionally emergent, incomplete, and open-source guide designed for iteration rather than certainty. It provides a framework for understanding regeneration as a practice of relationship—with self, others, land, and planet—rather than a fixed blueprint.

Key Principles

Regeneration as a foundational frame: Regeneration means interacting with people and places in ways that make them better than before. A regenerative village is:

• A living system, not a project
• A commons, not a commodity
• A process, not a blueprint
• A practice of relationship

Personal regeneration first: The village starts inside the villager. Before building a village, one must define who they are becoming through life vision work, self-assessment, and inner alignment.

Context shapes capacity: People thrive or decay based on environment. Sometimes growth requires changing context, not just effort.

People before projects: The village builder's two jobs are to build excellent relationships and keep iterating. Trust leads to safety, which enables iteration and results.

Villages as living beings: Regenerative villages are not built—they are grown. They require inner work, relational literacy, legal imagination, economic plurality, ecological humility, and continuous iteration.

Methods and Approaches

The book is organized into six main parts:

1. Personal Regeneration: Life vision, self-assessment, conscious dogma selection, shadow work

2. Self + Community: Context design, microsolidarity, tools for intimacy, boundaries

3. Community Design: DNA definition, culture as object, membranes, diversity, conflict as growth tool

4. Legal & Governance: Decision-making frameworks, consent processes, fractal governance, DAOs

5. Funds & Capital: Healing money shadow, 8 forms of capital, alternative exchange systems

6. Infrastructure & Land: Vision before land, villages as living systems, iterative cycles

Benefits

This guide provides:

• Practical frameworks for personal and collective regeneration
• Real-world insights from active village practitioners
• Open-source knowledge designed for adaptation and iteration
• Holistic approach integrating inner work, relationships, governance, economics, and ecology

Key Insights

Collective authorship: The book was written at Traditional Dream Factory by a collective of authors who are actively running villages around the world. This ensures the content is grounded in real experience rather than theoretical knowledge.

Emergent design: The book is intentionally incomplete and open-source, recognizing that regenerative village building is an ongoing practice that evolves with each context.

Integration across scales: The guide addresses regeneration at personal, relational, community, legal, economic, and ecological scales, recognizing their interdependence.

No templates, only cycles: Core loop of observe, plan, build, reflect, iterate—repeat forever. Each village must find its own path while learning from others.

Best Practices

• Start with personal regeneration before attempting to build community
• Design for belonging through microsolidarity (crews of 3-6 people)
• Make village DNA explicit to prevent future conflict
• Use consent-based decision-making rather than consensus when appropriate
• Separate legal entities by function (land trust, development company, operating cooperative)
• Design for diversity and difference, not monoculture
• Address conflict early as a growth tool rather than avoiding it
• Create rituals as infrastructure for transformation and meaning

Implementation Guide

To use this book in your regenerative village project:

1. Begin with Part I: Do the personal regeneration work first—define your life vision, assess where you are, choose your dogmas consciously, and meet your personal Moloch (shadow work).

2. Build relationships: Focus on building excellent relationships before launching projects. Trust and safety enable everything else.

3. Define your village DNA: Make explicit your core values, focus areas, and non-negotiables.

4. Design for belonging: Create structures for microsolidarity—small crews where high coordination happens.

5. Iterate continuously: Use the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) at both personal and collective levels.

6. Learn from the collective: Draw on the wisdom of the authors who wrote this book—practitioners actively running villages worldwide.

About Traditional Dream Factory

Traditional Dream Factory is the collaborative space where this book was written. It brings together village practitioners from around the world to share knowledge, synthesize learnings, and create open-source resources for regenerative community building. As Europe's first regenerative village operating under a DAO model, Traditional Dream Factory has transformed a 1972 poultry factory into a functioning community across 25 hectares, demonstrating many of the principles outlined in this book.

External Resources

For deeper exploration of this topic, see:

• Traditional Dream Factory Case Study - Real-world example of regenerative village development
• How to Build a Regenerative Village (Book) - Get the complete operational knowledge guide
• Community Building - Core principles for building regenerative communities
• Ecovillage - Ecovillage model and principles
• Regenerative Commons Economics - Economic framework for regenerative villages
• DAO Governance - Governance models for regenerative communities

Related Partners

• Traditional Dream Factory - Europe's first regenerative village operating under a DAO model, where this book was written

Call to Action

Get the book to access the complete operational knowledge guide with all frameworks, tools, and insights from practitioners actively running regenerative villages worldwide.