Incremental Concept

Incremental Community concept suggests forming a collaboration network to enable self-organized community changes. These changes are set to take place step by step and make meaningful impacts on the social, economic, environmental and physical environment on each step. To simplify the process in the Incremental Development process, the thesis research focuses on key development sections to make resilient community development possible.

Organizational Contract - identifying and organizing the resources for initiating and managing the incremental development, and facilitating ownership;

Living Solution - creating flexible individual living and community arrangement solutions by utilizing adaptable components which are made of prefabricated components;

Infrastructure Network - providing amenities for daily living and resource for sharing in the community and lower dependence on the grid and carbon footprint;

These section researches and tools in each of them help streamline an incremental development process and allow an inclusive and innovative bottom-up development.

Organizational Contract

Organizational Contract facilitates the financial and ownership structure in the incremental development process. It suggests forming a limited equity cooperative early in the development process to initiate the project and make quality development possible through collective equity investment and ownership. In the possible Incremental Community scenario, the limited equity cooperative looks into alternative financing tools, such as distributed fundraising - blockchain crowdsourcing to open up certain equity shares to broader social investors outside the community. These tools could help fill the gap between limited equity investment and traditional bank financing without going through heavy public subsidies. Additionally, using sweat equity contributions from professionals to provide additional helps to fill the financing gap of the development.

Through Organizational Contract, a non-traditional community development structure could build on a hybrid of Community Land Trust (CLT) and Limited Equity Cooperative (LEC) to manage the development, as CLT mitigates market behavior impact on community-owned assets and LEC creates long-term stewardship of the properties through collective ownership and management.

Living Solution

With an organized collaborative network, the community could recycle lands through CLT and prepare them for inclusive incremental development. In the development process, LEC provides collective equity investment to apply for loans. After completion of development, LEC will maintain and manage community properties during the organic community growth. Due to the limitation on funding streams, Incremental Community focuses on the factory powered construction technologies which bring possibilities for diverse living solutions.

With factory powered construction is highly flexible, living solution typologies could be highly adaptable. Below are some example incremental living solutions that could adaptable. The topology portfolio provides expandable right-sized living options for coop members or prospective residents to chose based on their current needs and income level. Later on, when these residents need an upgrade for their living space, the resident could add on upgrades through incremental construction technologies. (more details of the wall, roof, and other incremental construction technologies please refer to Module)

Note: Adaptable living solutions in the thesis project were limited and only shows a small range of possibilities. However, the incremental components portfolio would grow and be able to fit a wide range of community locations and meet the demands for diverse housing options.

Live-work Living

Infrastructure Network

Infrastructure network section provides a common ground for community resource sharing. Similarly, in the Incremental Community concept, all community infrastructure will be financed and managed by LEC. It includes district energy components to provide off-grid energy components for residents to live sustainably and lower utility bills; food system to provide local foods and social experience in a community kitchen with other community residents. In an Incremental Community, an infrastructure system will support each other, so each component could benefit other components in the system, for example, the shared electronic vehicle could be charged by off-grid energy source produced locally; greenhouses are powered by geothermal energy.

Although most amenities have high upfront installation cost, through LEC's collective funding stream and government support, community amenities could possibly become collectively owned and shareable resources for residents. Additionally, infrastructure components will adapt to market and technology evolution.

Vertical Wind Turbine

Energy

Vertical wind turbine energy generation saves space and provide an energy solution for small scale business and residential use.

Systems:

Example Name:

Cost:

Dimension:

Theoretical
Coverage:

Advantages:

Vertical Wind Blade;
Optional Solar Panel;
Battery Storage;

Be-Wind EOW-200

~$4,000/unit

Length: 81”
Width: 60”
Height: 96”
Estimated Weight:
475 LBS

Energy for 1 residential customer;
1/2/3 KW options
220-Volt System
112-Volt System

Low wind speed kick of only 3-4 mph;
Suitable for urban environment and small business applications at small scale;
Flexible for off grid and grid tie installation;
Allow for clustering installation

Note: Example Source, Be-wind