What specific practical examples can you help me find to help a remarkable group of elderly nuns to build a new home? These sweet, bad-ass ladies are really really into 'Integral Ecology.' They want to build sustainable, holistic place for their community to live their later years that will 'combat poverty, restore dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protect nature.' Think convent, community center, city park, wildlife preserve, and spiritual respite for the poor" rolled into one. Can you help with a bunch of cool ideas? (see snowflake details inside)
They aren't engineers, architects, urban planners, landscape designers, anthropologists, etc. so they'll need some help establishing a "menu" of possibilities to spark and inspire their imaginations envision and plan their new home.
These ladies aren't scientists, but they are smart. So we need ideas that would not already be obvious to a well-informed octogenarian who taught school all her life (e.g. solar energy? Got it.) The idea is to expand the menu selection, so to speak.
These ladies live in Houston and are committed to serving that community.
These ladies are older and many have issues with mobility, so we need to keep stairs and steps to a minimum. They'd want anything they build to be accessible anyway.
If you can point to sources for them to read, that'd be ideal. They're Dominicans, and "Study" is one of their four pillars. Future visions are okay, but actual working examples elsewhere would be great.
Bonus if you can integrate the spiritual aspects and benefits of nature into the mix. A la Pope Francis' encyclical 'Laudato Si.," of which they are big fans. |
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