The Avalonia Project was born out of a long-term vision: a place to gather people eager to express and deepen their love of Nature in meaningful ways, together as a community, to achieve wellbeing for all humans and non-humans in a symbiotic relationship. Over time, the vision has gradually evolved from a place of community living to an eco-centre with a specific purpose and approach.

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The newest version of the project’s long-term vision drafted in Summer 2026 is offered to you below. I hope it will inspire you…

 

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The Vision 2.0

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An eco-centre dedicated to regenerating

– tending to, repairing, rekindling and celebrating -

humanity’s relationship with (and as part of) Nature

for a paradigm shift at a systemic level.

 

The eco-centre will be located at the French-Swiss border near Geneva in beautiful natural surroundings conducive to both individual and collective transformation for wellbeing and ecological purposes.

 

For a better understanding of the approach behind the vision (and the terms used above), please visit the page Avalonia Today.

To avoid using the rather long term of “humanity’s relationship with (and as part of) Nature”, the increasingly popular term “kinship” is used in this article instead.

 

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The Concept

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Kinship is experienced in many different ways and is specific to each individual and organisation. The eco-centre will address our diverse ways of relating to Nature with a holistic approach based on a four-dimensional model that converges the following existing models:

• Carl G. Jung’s model of the four types of intelligences: thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting;

• The four elements and their symbolism in European indigenous culture, notably associated with the four cardinal points: Earth (North), Air (East), Fire (South), Water (West);

• The four GEN dimensions used in building eco-communities: social, ecology, economy, culture;

• The four steps in the Dragon Dreaming methodology used in eco-communities to birth projects: dream, plan, act, celebrate.

• The four aspects of regenerating our relationship with Nature (invented by myself): tending, repairing, rekindling, celebrating.

 

See below what the associations would typically look like if they were to be layered one atop another:

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*A word on “intuitive intelligence”: the models don’t perfectly fit into one another and it would be presumptuous to pretend otherwise. I pulled together these models to create one that aligns as best as possible to Jung’s model and the indigenous Celtic wisdom of the four elements. Fitting “intuitive intelligence” with Fire might seem counter-intuitive given that intuition is widely associated with the element of Water, the latter relating to the soul and subconscious where it sprouts from. For the sake of our model, “intuition” is explored through the element of Water as a gentle quiet sense of knowing that opens doors of reflection. Instead, the Fire programme will focus on “inspiration”, an energetic spark that catalyses action.

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These four dimensions give the foundation for the four programmes held at the eco-centre: Earth, Water, Fire and Air. Though these are used as an image and basis for design, the interrelationality and interconnectedness of all things from a regenerative perspective inherently means that the emerging practices will likely trigger several intelligences to work together.

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The following image gives an overview of the four key programmes and their sub-programmes, with other proposed activities all in relation to the question: “How do we make sense of kinship?”:

 

 

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Why?

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Why kinship? Why the Geneva region? Why these four dimensions? What is so innovative about the concept? Why bother at all?

 

Ecology and sustainability are dominantly treated with a Cartesian intellectual framework that leaves little space to the other three dimensions, and too often forgets our own inherent place within Nature. Joy, creativity, gratitude and celebrations are regularly diminished and brushed aside, hushed to ensure the business is serious in the eyes of all. Consequentially, these topics rely heavily on scaremongering to draw people’s attention, leaving eco-warriors (a term I keenly cherish for anyone working in those fields) frightened and guilt-ridden, finger-pointing or disengaged, disillusioned and quite frankly, dangerously burned-out and depressed. The overwhelming majority of other people will in turn engage through pro-environmental pride-enhancing behaviours legitimising judgment and condemnation, or look the other way and completely disengage as well. Our disconnection from Nature has been extensively demonstrated as a thick root cause to the polycrisis we are facing, with drastic consequences on wellbeing and our planet.

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I, and others working in regeneration, believe there is another way: one that does not diminish nor exclude the important practical realities of the current state of things, and one that fosters inspired, joyful and creative stances whilst tending to grief through a holistic approach, combining all experiences for collective resilience. Few succeed in proposing such an array of practices that nourish our bond with Nature with yet a practical impact. That is why this eco-centre proposes a concept worthy of consideration.

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The Geneva region is a great place to start, being the home of countless green international organisations such as WWF, UNEP, IUCN, WEF’s Centre for Nature and Climate, Green Cross International, IISD among others. It is also the place I grew up in, with a beautiful lake at its centre, surrounded by the mighty protective mountains of the Alps and the Jura - alas overexploited for destructive tourism. Well linked to the rest of Europe and named the Peace Capital, it seems befitting that a centre devoted to reconnecting with our place in Nature should be planted on these lands.

 

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The Design – Long-term Vision

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Sit back, grab a cuppa and let your imagination paint the following elements that make up the vision…

 

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The Architecture: Biomimicry

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All buildings will be designed and built using biomimicry concepts and natural materials where possible with competent architects. The project’s current design inspiration comes from the Eden Project in Cornwall, strawbale houses befitting the Alpine climate and green roofs.

 

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Note: the above image was AI-generated and we would rather reward an illustrator –

please get in touch if you feel called to draw the eco-centre for us!

 

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The Hearth & Gardens

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Essential to the successful deployment of eco-community projects is having inclusive gathering spaces for the community to come together. Indoors, such a space would have been called a Hearth by our European ancestors.

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It is said to be a good omen to have the kitchen as the central place of a home, and nothing brings people together better than food (fun fact: "company" comes from Latin con pane, meaning with bread). As such, the Hearth will feature a café/brasserie where local, healthy, organic and ethical food and drinks will be proposed.

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The eco-centre will feature herbal, vegetable and forest gardens designed for permaculture workshops, talks and community gardening. Neighbouring wildlands will invite foraging explorations. Food harvested and collected will be used for the kitchen as well as for local communities (schools, hospitals etc.). Little bonus: customers will get to pick their own fresh herbs to concoct their herbal tea by connecting directly to living plants!

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The centre will hold weekly and monthly artisans and farmers’ markets promoting organic food, permaculture, biodynamics, agroecology and local ethical craftsmanship, selling products both from the centre and local collaborators.

 

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The Four Programmes

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Around the Hearth, the four dimensions will be represented by four key programmes offering a range of possible activities, events and practices both indoors and outdoors.

 

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AIR PROGRAMME

The Air Programme will comprise three key sub-programmes dedicated to developing and spreading natural and social scientific knowledge whilst creating synergies:

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• Education: Two types of spaces will be erected to develop the educational programmes:

  • Indoors and outdoors classrooms in beautiful natural settings to make green education a priority for youth, so they may develop a keen interest for - and affection towards - Nature from early on. The classrooms will as well be used for adult programmes in short and ongoing formats, notably on regenerative leadership to help individuals plan and craft their professional journeys with a living systems approach.

  • A Library featuring reading material relating to kinship, Nature and eco-centricity will be available for all to use, with a co-working area for eco-warriors adjacent to the café.

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• Incubation & Research: The eco-centre is expected to be a cornerstone for research on kinship and kincentricity. Entrepreneurs with kinship projects may be incubated through the eco-centre with series of regenerative workshops to drive their projects to success.

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• Synergies: though the eco-centre’s focus is on kinship, the priority is to create connection and share and grow knowledge between people working in the fields of regeneration, sustainable development and ecology. To foster meaningful synergies, the eco-centre will provide the following:

  • Networking events where like-minded eco-workers can meet and assess professional alignment.

  • A conference space large enough to accommodate forums - yet modular to host smaller lectures - to learn, debate and collaborate on various ecological topics*. The centre could welcome not only existing forums and conferences, but also make a link between ecological topics and kinship where this is not always evident.

 

* The topics may include: regeneration, systems change, living systems paradigm, paradigm shifts, green ethics, regenerative leadership, eco-pedagogy, circular and regenerative economy, nature finance, ecological design thinking, holistic science, reforestation, biodiversity and conservation, renewable energy, ecopsychology and eco-therapy among many others.

 

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EARTH PROGRAMME

The Earth Programme will be split among several physical spaces accommodating kinship-triggering activities through the Five Senses sub-programmes with embodied, artistic, experiential and creative practices:

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• Seeing: there will be a gallery for visual arts and a creativity studio for painters, illustrators and other visual artists to create, express and display their art. Indoors and outdoors stages will enable comedians, dancers and other forms of art appreciated through the senses to perform. Artists will get to meet, give and attend workshops through artistic residencies.

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• Hearing: meditative spaces will propose sessions on sound healing and outdoor areas shall include music lessons to learn to weave with Nature songs of the Earth through musical workshops and classes. Musicians with a kinship focus will get to perform concerts on the indoors and outdoors stages.

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• Tasting: in relation to the Hearth, food and cooking workshops will be proposed to learn about different ecological and healthy diets, to do lacto-fermentation, to make sourdough bread or kombucha and other ancestral practices to transform, preserve and appreciate food.

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• Touching: the creative studios will feature repair workshops along with manual crafts such as basket weaving, pottery, sculpture and sewing with natural fabrics. These spaces will also serve for art therapy.

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• Smelling: this sense will be explored through aromatherapy and workshops on essential oils, tinctures, incense and candle crafting. Classes on ethnobotany will help individuals connect to plants – notably with a sensory garden – and learn of their usage for eco-therapy.

 

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WATER PROGRAMME

The Water Programme will offer safe spaces for transformation through therapeutical, introspective and relational practices:

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• Ecopsychology & Eco-therapy: Ecopsychology, studies on Nature connectedness and good sense point to one thing: caring for others, including Nature, starts with a good relationship with ourselves. Through Nature-based practices such as Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing), zootherapy, gardening therapy, dream circles etc., the following will be offered:

  • Therapy: For individuals and groups, there will be therapeutical sharing circles and talks dedicated to healing e.g. addictions, grief, eco-anxiety, trauma etc. – with a specific focus on distressed and burned-out eco-warriors. Awe-inducing practices in natural settings will support individuals in reconnecting to themselves through soft, gentle and grounding methodologies.

  • Training: The programme will deliver training for eco-therapists on ecopsychology and Nature-based practices to widen and deepen their practice by including Nature in the therapy room, with a particularly Jungian approach.

  • Support space: there will be a support space accessible 24/7 dedicated to welcoming individuals in need: a community “love bubble”. This will take the shape of a cosy circular room for one person to seek refuge in, where messages of encouragement on the walls will have been written by community members so that individuals may feel the love and support of their community in times of despair when no one is available to support otherwise.

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• Introspection: The eco-centre will offer moments of quiet inspiration through introspective practices such as contemplation, journalling, poetry writing etc. Regular classes and short, weekend and week-long workshops on personal and spiritual development will be proposed to deepen these practices and further our understanding of ourselves, our world and our relationship to it. Working with dreams and imagination, these practices conducted where possible in Nature will help individuals connect to their intuition to overcome difficulties or find alignment in their personal paths.

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• Relationality: this sub-programme proposes practices that teach us to dive deep into our psyche to improve our relational intelligence amongst humans and with other beings:

  • Human relationships: practices such as NVC (non-violent communication), vulnerability tending, authentic relating etc.

  • Other-than-human relationships: kinship nature-based practices with animals, plants, trees, mountains, waters, landscapes etc. that generate feelings of affection towards Nature.

 

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FIRE PROGRAMME ​

​The Fire Programme will seek to bridge our thirst for knowledge with our need for Action by harnessing sparks of Inspiration and learning to channel our Energy. The space will feature three key sub-programmes:

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• Inspiration: Fire-side sharing and storytelling, notably welcoming indigenous wisdom keepers from around the world to share their kinship and wisdom stories to inspire individuals in their own development. Inspiration is contagious: the eco-centre will make sure to provide the right setting for the spark to spread.

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• Energy: Movement igniting and regulating energy through a wide range of embodied practices delivered in formats of regular classes and sporadic workshops and retreats, such as: dancing, yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, respectful nature-based sports etc.

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• Activism: A gathering place for eco-centric and kincentric activism, where groups from e.g. WWF, Pro Natura, IUCN, UNEP, the Global Regen CoLab, 3rd Horizon Earth and other local and international organisations and charities based in Geneva and neighbouring regions may conglomerate and coordinate their efforts for a stronger impact. A key lesson from regeneration is our need to learn to collaborate rather than compete: this space will be in service to that purpose. Note that this programme differs from the Synergies sub-programme (Air) in the way it will be delivered, with methodologies specifically centred around regenerative collaboration and action rather than intellectual debate and growing collective knowledge.

 

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WILD WISDOM

A note on Wisdom: whilst this attribute is often associated with the element of Earth, it is impossible to practically assign a Wisdom programme to any of the four elements, given that Wisdom is achieved through the synergy of all four elements.

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This topic is important, particularly in a technology-driven age where knowledge and science expand at unprecedented rates at the detriment of ethics, ecology and ultimately, collective wisdom. Inspirational talks of wisdom will be shared by the fireside, with the hope is that through inspiration and a combination of the right practices, individuals and our community will grow in maturity. To that end, Wild Wisdom workshops and retreats will be hosted at the eco-centre to facilitate growth in harmony with Nature.  

 

The  Temple of kinship

In addition to these spaces, a Temple of Kinship will be built outdoors in forested land. This Temple, built with inspiration from all belief systems, will serve as a sacred place of contemplation, honouring our love of Nature through prayer, meditation, music and art. Amateurs and confirmed artists, young and wise, may contribute as they wish through land-art.

 

Eco-Camping

Both for the sake of lodging visitors and reaching a travelling public who would not necessarily be drawn to these places naturally, the eco-centre will have an eco-camping with slots for tents but also ecological lodges for regenerative eco-tourism. Ideally, the centre will be located on the well-travelled path to Compostela for wisdom-seekers.

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Nature Festivals

The eco-centre will not only hold celebrations for Nature-related events (such as Earth hour, Biodiversity, Forest, Soil, Water days etc.), it will also honour the seasons through a Festival of the Seasons during solstices and equinoxes.

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For those curious about the ancestral Celtic indigenous ways of honouring the seasons, there will be Celebrations of the Celtic Wheel for Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain, as has already hosted the Avalonia Project from 2021 to 2025.

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Why not launch a Kinship Festival…

 

The Next Steps

The vision is that of a large project that can accommodate a myriad of kinship-related activities and there needs to be a path that leads there. Up until now, the Avalonia project has hosted over 30 events gathering hundreds to celebrate the seasons and Celtic ways of knowing with the charity Mamajah and the retreat centre Viayoga. The project now needs a new location to deploy the long-term vision.

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To start with, the project must have:

• Indoors and outdoors spaces, including toilets;

• Proximity to Nature (forest, natural water, wilderness etc.) – within short walking distance;

• An outdoors firepit (and an indoors fireplace ideally);

• Parking and public transport connections.

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In addition to the above, starting small would mean having one to two of the following, until all these spaces can be acquired for the long-term vision (some may be modular and combine several activities) – note that numbers are rough indications on the number of people hosted and may be tweaked:

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• Café/brasserie sitting 30-150 (indoors and outdoors);

• Large kitchen for food workshops;

• Conference room (indoors and outdoors) sitting up to 200;

• Classrooms (indoors and outdoors) sitting up to 50 in circle;

• Library sitting up to 30, including research corner and co-working area;

• Crafts, creativity and music studios for up to 30;

• Aromatherapy lab;

• Gallery;

• Indoors and outdoors stages with a public of up to 100;

• Practice room for up to 40 and outdoors deck for up to 100;

• Therapy rooms for groups up to 30;

• Support room for 1;

• Large gardens for growing trees, vegetables and herbs, including sensory garden and herbal tea garden close to the centre;

• Outdoors Temple;

• Comfortable solo or small group spots throughout the outdoor spaces;

• Eco-camping land.

 

A project of this amplitude is a collective project. This is, for now, the vision captured by one person: it is expected to evolve as people join the project. Evidently, the project must start more simply and be broken down in natural steps by those who will engage with the vision together. It is not firm nor rigid and certainly open to transformation. The vision is complex and a lot to compute: I did my best to offer a frame within which I hope you may identify agency for your own projects, providing there is alignment.

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Does the vision inspire you? Would you like to be a part of the adventure? Do you think the vision is missing something?

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If so, please get in touch and let us make this vision a reality.

 

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The Vision’s History

The vision was first born during my studies with the Global Ecovillage Network on eco-community design in Summer 2021. The project was presented to the French incubator InnoVales who selected it for incubation throughout the year 2022. In Autumn 2023, the vision was first written up and the dimension of eco-centre was added. In Summer 2026, the co-living dimension was removed for a more focussed approach.

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See below the archived vision:

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