Bright Green Futures is a self-build developer with a track record of delivering community-led housing projects. All UK community-led projects that exist today currently are shared and documented in retrospect. This leaves a huge gap for anyone wanting to create their own project: they have to imagine the steps from the most challenging early stages as they have never been recorded and shared!
We are in the very early stages of a creating new 29-plot community in Bristol. We would love to film and document the community's journey, from start to finish, which is due for completion in 2020 so we as a group we can pay our experience forward to many others.
Globally, less than 1% of housing developments are community-led with sustainability and community at the forefront of all decisions. This needs to change! We are here to change the way housing is built and to put people at the core of all decisions. We want to document our next project with this film to inspire others to follow suit. Join us! Pledge! Together we create a living movement! Together we reclaim our right to good housing and beneficial livelihoods!
It is our hope and wish that by truly documenting the whole journey and creating a detailed account of this process, many more individuals and groups will have the direct knowledge and confidence to create their own project.
Bright Green Futures has created a unique and original model that is the only one of its kind in the U.K.
As a developer, we provide experience and leadership expertise to deliver sites to market backed by design standards that have a strong emphasis on sustainability and community inclusion. With our consultancy, training and mentoring offerings, we also support individuals and community groups to run their eco-community self-build project.
We already have a site in West Bristol and have just completed our first phase of plot sales. (Phase two will happen in 2018).
After engaging with over 400 people locally through a campaign, application process and a series of events and workshops, 14 people have stepped forward to commit themselves to this site. With great appreciation, we refer to them as "The Pioneers"' for their visionary ability to see the opportunity of co-creating a new home for themselves and the wider benefits this opportunity brings to all.
The brownfield site already has residential planning permission, but we will apply for a far more sustainable design, aiming to be on site early next year. We have already secured a lending panel through Buildstore, the leading self-build mortgage broker to ensure everyone can truly afford their self-build.
The management team for this project includes Bright Green Futures founder, Dr Steffie Broer, who as single mum built her first home in the Yard in St. Werburghs. She has lived in communities in Spain, Chile, Germany, the UK and Sweden and led several eco-construction projects in Germany, Portugal, Spain and the UK. In recognition of her achievements, Steffie won the 2016 South West Energy Efficiency Champion of the Year Award.
Working alongside Steffie are Dr Larch Maxey and Martin Schofield.
Larch is also a director of Bright Green Futures. Since 1988 Larch has co-founded over twenty sustainability social enterprises, including the pioneering Lammas Ecovillage while teaching, researching and practicing sustainability and writing over 50 academic and popular publications.
Martin Schofield oversees business development and communication. With a BSc in Business / Urban and Cultural Studies, he has a strong interest for many years in macroeconomics impact on urban migration. He was previously a director for Ecomotive, an award-winning training and consultancy social enterprise for community-led housing.
With your support, we can a create a film that shows more than the drama of TV snippets that show a crisis point and its resolution. This film will provide more than just a story but the inner workings of how individuals came together to commit, design, build and live together.
We have already invested in filming our early stages of forming the community "Pioneers" group.
With your help, we will commit funds to:
- Continue shooting the community individual and collective self-build journey in 2017 - 2019
- Use a milestone to attract further funding to complete filming and editing in 2020
- Commit ourselves to provide a broad range of distribution channels so many more projects can happen
The project offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to capture and record all the decisions and processes of a community-led self-build project. There's no reason that you have to wait til 2020 to discover what makes our model different though. Our selection of rewards offers you the opportunity to pre-order our first "how to" book or join an immersion course to see what designing and building your home could mean for you!
Thank you for your support, we really appreciate it and could not do this without you! - The Bright Green Futures Team. www.brightgreenfutures.co.uk
Thank you to Anthony L Tjandra and Sean Chew for the video filming, sound, and editing. Thanks to Laura Kriefman, James Wormell, Martha Locke for answering our questions on camera, thank you to the residents of 125 Courtyard for allowing us to film and finally thank you to everyone who supports our vision.
