Building a Sustainable Future – One Community Weekly Progress Update #414

Let’s talk about the steps for building a sustainable future. Step 1: Design a replicable way of living that is sustainable. Step 2: Demonstrate it as better and more affordable than how most people are living now. Step 3: Open source and free-share everything so it can be replicated and also adapted and improved upon to provide a solution as diverse as humanity. Step 4: Repeat until we reach the necessary tipping point where we can say we’ve truly achieved global sustainability. This is what One Community is doing.

• Here’s our project overview
• Here’s our world-change methodology
  
• Here’s how this becomes self-replicating
• Here’s how we are open source and free-sharing all the do-it-yourself designs

OUR MAIN OPEN SOURCE HUBS

Click on each icon to be taken to the corresponding Highest Good hub page.

One Community’s physical location will forward this movement as the first of many self-replicating teacher/demonstration communities, villages, and cities to be built around the world. This is the February 28th, 2021 edition (#414) of our weekly progress update detailing our team’s development and accomplishments:

Building a Sustainable Future
One Community Progress Update #414

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ONE COMMUNITY WEEKLY UPDATE DETAILS

HIGHEST GOOD HOUSING PROGRESS

One Community is building a sustainable future through Highest Good housing that is artistic and beautiful, more affordable, more space efficient, lasts longer, DIY buildable, and constructed with healthy and sustainable materials:

• • • Learn about: Our Upcoming Crowdfunding Campaign
    • Learn about the different village models: 7 Sustainable Village Models
    • Visit the open source portals for the first two: Earthbag Village OS Hub | Straw Bale Village OS Hub

This week the core team continued the editing and creation process of the Earthbag Village “Earth-Dome Loft Structural Engineering and Calculations“ page. This week we focused on improving aesthetics of tables, transforming them into the correct size photos and placing them in the WordPress site, improving formatting of the “Earthbag Village Loft Design Calculations” spreadsheet to make it easier for others to use, and also editing and adding some pictures to clarify technical terminology and make it more understandable for non experts.

Continued Editing the Earth-Dome Loft Structural Engineering and Calculations Page – Click for Earthbag Village

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 31st week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis updated the Net-Zero Bathroom cost analysis to include aircrete and the tools necessary to make it. The aircrete was added due to it being chosen as the material of choice to seal the rainwater storage room. To add the solution to the Net-Zero Bathroom tutorial/instructions he began drafting an insulation section. He added all the possible types of insulation that could be used in the structure to either keep it cool or to keep it warm. The strengths and weaknesses of the listed insulation types were included. The fabrication and uses of aircrete were researched in order to gain a better understanding of the material and its fabrication process. After becoming more familiarized with aircrete, Jose Luis added an insulation application section. The section gave a general overview of how the insulation types listed would be used and positioned for max effectiveness. He then began adding an insulation installation section where he will include PVC pipe insulation, insulating the rainwater storage room with an aircrete mold and insulating the ceiling with an aircrete layer. The pictures below show some of this work.

Updated the Net-zero Bathroom Cost Analysis to Include Aircrete and the Necessary Tools – Click for Net-zero Bathroom Page

Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 29th week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week she created a semi-final PDF of all current pages. There are currently 107 pages so far and we have to account for additional wall lumber cutting pages which are not done yet. In a digital format the number of pages does not matter very much, but the components section shows only 1 item per page and this is where we could reformat to reduce the amount of pages. All sections have been looked over this week except for the wall section. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.

Created a Semi-final PDF of All Current Pages – Click for Earthbag Village Furniture Page

Hannah Copeman (Structural Engineer) completed her 26th week helping complete all the Earthbag Village tutorials. This week Hannah continued the development of the Earthbag Village dome construction by continuing work on the Footer, Foundation and Flooring tutorial. She completed Section 5 (Foundation Construction) of the tutorial document by writing the remaining sections for installing the waterproofing membrane and vertical interior insulation around the foundation, as well as backfilling the foundation area. Hannah also began writing the tutorial for Section 6 (Floor Construction) by writing the introduction, information about leveling the floor, and how to lay the gravel base. You can see some pictures of this work below.

Continued Work on the Footer, Foundation and Flooring Tutorial – Click for Earthbag Village

Mark Wambua (Civil Engineer) completed his 7th week working on the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping guides. This week Mark’s focus was centered around restructuring his water catchment tutorial, researching alternatives to asphalt, and exploring water catchment options for the road and walkways. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Continued Working on the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Guides – Click for Page

Zhiheng “Samson” Su (Civil Engineer) also completed his 7th week on the team and woking on the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping guides. This week Samson worked on research about “Porous Asphalt” and “Decomposed Granite”. He also worked on the discussion of different types of pavements, including the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. See pictures below.

Worked on Research About Porous Asphalt and Decomposed Granite – Click for Sustainable Roadways Page

Vicente J Subiela (Project Management Adviser) completed his 6th week working on the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Vicente updated the solar sizing tool incorporating previous detailed analysis on the energy demand (Pareto Charts) for the City Center and the Earthbag Village in order to review and update the data, mainly times of use of each power need and the associated power required. This will allow a better connection between the demand and generation. Energy needs have been divided into different types for a better understanding of the demand. Vicente also extended the description document explaining the energy and economic balances, an ongoing development process. Pictures below show some of this work.

Continued Working on the Solar Microgrid Design, Sizing, and Cost Analysis Specifics – Click for Page

Dan Alleck (Designer and Illustrator) also returned to helping with 3D render work, completing his 1st week as a volunteer now helping with the Earthbag Village 4-dome cluster renders. This week he added and received feedback on initial people and tree additions to the first of his latest renders to work on.

Returned by Helping With the Earthbag Village 4-dome Cluster Renders – Click for Earthbag Village

DUPLICABLE CITY CENTER PROGRESS

One Community is building a sustainable future through a Duplicable and Sustainable City Center that is LEED Platinum certified/Sustainable, can feed 200 people at a time, provide laundry for over 300 people, is beautiful, spacious, and saves resources, money, and space:

• • • Learn about this building and it’s function: Duplicable City Center Open Source Hub

This week the core team used the the architect’s AutoCAD plans to begin modeling in SketchUp 3D the window framing for the dormer windows of the second floor of the Duplicable City Center Living Dome according to the latest AutoCAD drawings. This is a challenging task because of the angle of the dome walls and non-traditional framing structure.

Began Modeling the Window Framing for the Dormer Windows in SketchUp 3D – Click for Duplicable City Center

And Ksenia Akimov (Plumbing Engineer) completed her 22nd week working on the Duplicable City Center plumbing designs. This week Ksenia began working with Christopher, collaborating on a solution for the piping above the food storage, seeking the best solution via the codes, and answering other design questions from Christopher. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working on the Duplicable City Center Plumbing Designs – Click for Page

Quiheng Xu (Landscape Designer) completed her 21st week helping with the Duplicable City Center, now focused solely on the landscaping design. This week, based on the feedback from last week, Qiuheng adjusted the pond area and moved the pond to the west side of the planting design area. She also added the herb garden model to the planting design model. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Continued Helping With the Duplicable City Center Landscaping Design – Click for Page

Ian Oliver Malinay (Energy Modeler/Analyst) completed his 10th week helping run the energy analysis calculations to help us achieve LEED Platinum status for the Duplicable City Center. This week Ian integrated a new high-performance wall with a higher R-value for us to minimize the penetration of extreme weather conditions from outside, resulting in lower energy consumption from the HVAC system and overall energy savings. Ian revised the R-value, C-Factor, F-factor of walls, floors and slab in Energy Modeling Software. He also checked the ASHRAE Baseline requirement if the parameters meet the standard. The pictures below relate to this work.

Continued Helping Run the Energy Analysis Calculations  – Click for Duplicable City Center Heating and Cooling Page

Haozhen “Andrew” He (Civil Design Engineer) completed his 8th week as a member of the team helping with the City Center Water Catchment Designs. This week Haozhen designed the 3×4 to 2×3 Gutter Downspout Connector. The purpose of it is to connect the downspout and gutter correctly. Haozhen also designed the sharp edge downspout elbow to connect the sharp turn between zone CR-4 and CP-8. He finished the detail of the gutter and downspout connection implementation for all zones except for Zone D-3 because the downspout design is in progress for that one. After finishing the design of Zone D-3’s downspout, the whole City Center 3D design will be wrapped up by a week from now. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Designed the 3×4 to 2×3 Gutter Downspout Connector – Click for City Center Water Catchment Designs

David Na (Project Management Adviser/Engineer)  completed his 3rd week helping with input and management of the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, as well as the City Center Water Catchment Designs. This week David looked into different temporary parking lot alternatives, specifically Grasscrete, Turfblock, and Grasspave2. “Turf” pavement was recommended from Trish, another engineer who believed it could be a potential possibility for the project. These pavements typically utilize concrete or recycled materials to form a grid that sits directly under the turf. It is a unique alternative to the common gravel lot and is environmentally friendly as well as aesthetically pleasing. They are also very easy to install and can be DIY, although a contractor’s help is recommended. Some downsides to these options include increased costs, maintenance (because of weeds), may not be ADA compliant, and that it has a lifespan that greatly exceeds the needs for a temporary parking lot. David has also began mark ups for the ground design for the City Center project. This was done so that once the temporary parking lot tutorial is finished, Mark or Samson can help with the AutoCAD design by implementing the changes David has made. David has also prepared what action items he would like to see finished from Mark and Samson for his next zoom meeting with his team. Pictures below are related to this work.

Looked Into Different Temporary Parking Lot Alternatives – Click for Parking Lot Page

Saffet Kilçer (Structural Engineer) completed his 2nd week working on the Duplicable City Center beam and column designs using SAP2000. This week, due to an AutoCAD version incompatibility, the snow load could not be determined exactly, but the system that can calculate the snow load was created and all parameters were determined. Picture below are related to this.

Continued Working on the Duplicable City Center Beam and Column Designs Using SAP2000 – Click for Duplicable City Center

Christopher Kinney (Environmental/Civil Engineer) also joined the team and completed his 1st week working on the Duplicable City Center plumbing designs. This week Christopher started by jumping into all the aspects of the Duplicate City Center design which also included review of the relevant plumbing code publications, review of Ksenia’s work up-to-date, design status, water heating system alternatives and talking with the local building code department for questions about plumbing design (more specifically if there exists any local provisions that govern the exposure of plumbing over a storage area). Pictures below show some of this work.

Joined the Team and Began Working on the Duplicable City Center Plumbing Designs – Click for Duplicable City Center

Lauren Siegel (Impact Analyst) joined the team too, completing her 1st week taking over research for the Most Sustainable Windows and Doors page. This week Lauren read the document of previous research to get her mind wrapped around the progress and work that had already been done. She clicked on all the links to see where the research came from to see where the research stood right now. Lauren sees a strong start but needs some new research in the coming week of companies that aren’t primarily sky lights. Pictures below are related to this review.

Joined the Team and Took Over Research for the Most Sustainable Windows and Doors Page – Click for Windows and Doors Page

HIGHEST GOOD FOOD PROGRESS

One Community is building a sustainable future through Highest Good food that is more diverse, more nutritious, locally grown and sustainable, and part of our open source botanical garden model to support and share bio-diversity:

• • • Learn about the structures: Hoop House Hub | Aquapini & Walipini Open Source Hub
    • See what we’ll be growing: Gardens & Hoop Houses | Large-scale Structures | Food Forest | TA

This week the core team continued working on the Herbal Garden design for behind the Duplicable City Center. We made changes to the Keyhole garden bed for the Herbal Garden, adding a composting center area surrounded by wire mesh for each round bed.

Made Changes to the Keyhole Garden Bed for the Herbal Garden – Click for Duplicable City Center

Jiayu Liang (Landscape Designer) completed her 22nd week helping with the Aquapini & Walipini internal and external landscaping details. This week, Jiayu added more plants to Walipini 1 and Walipini 2. She also worked on last week’s requested edits to these structures.

Added More Plants to Walipini 1 and Walipini 2 and Worked on Requested Edits – Click for Aquapini & Walipini Page

Henry Vennard (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 20th week helping continue the development of the climate batteries for the Aquapini/Walipini structures. This week Henry and Mayur worked on the heat transfer effectiveness of the climate battery code. Henry also ran 3D simulations with the climate battery system that showed the system worked well in the summer but not very well in the winter, this matched with the results Mayur and Henry got with matlab code. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Worked on the Heat Transfer Effectiveness of the Climate Battery Code – Click for Aquapini & Walipini Page

Mayur Rajput (Mechanical Engineer) also completed his 6th week working on the Aquapini/Walipini structures. This week, Mayur continued working on the heat transfer calculations and worked on validating them. He found a spreadsheet calculator for climate battery design and tried validating the duct and fan size calculations. It can also be used to help validate the heat loss calculations done by Henry. There are some changes that need to be done and he’ll keep working on it with Henry. Mayur found a case study of a climate battery where they installed sensors and checked the performance of the system. The case study shows that the system is not able to maintain the inside temperature to the desired value on its own, but it was a case study with a completely above-ground structure. It showed that external heaters would be required to support the system. He checked for the available options for fans and heaters which can be used in the system. There are a variety of options and he is working on finding the appropriate components based on our system. The pictures below represent his work on all of the above.

Continued Working on the Heat Transfer Calculations and Worked on Validating Them – Click for Aquapini & Walipini Page

Itztli De La Torre (Executive Chef) completed his 2nd week working on the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan. This week Itztli began to work through the amazing recipes that another vegan based chef had already amassed for the organization. Then he implemented them into the next weekly meal plan. Chef Itz is looking towards the future in planning the rest of the menu with details like before and organizing the week for best results. In this process he will (after finishing the basis of ingredients) begin to itemize the list so that there’s an active inventory sheet. Pictures below show some of the content he reviewed and integrated.

Implemented Prior Recipes Into the Next Weekly Meal Plan – Click for Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan

HIGHEST GOOD EDUCATION PROGRESS

One Community is building a sustainable future through Highest Good education that is for all ages, applicable in any environment, adaptable to individual needs, far exceeds traditional education standards, and more fun for both the teachers and the students. This component of One Community is about 95% complete with only the Open Source School Licensing and Ultimate Classroom construction and assembly details remaining to be finished. We’ll report on the final two elements to be finished as we develop them.

With over 8 years of work invested in the process, the sections below are all complete until we move onto the property and continue the development and open sourcing process with teachers and students – a development process that is built directly into the structure of the education program and everything else we’re creating too:

• Program Overview: Education Open Source Hub
• How the components work together: How to use the Education for Life Program
  
• Lesson Plans for Life – Lesson Plans How-to
• Foundations of Outstanding Leaders, Teachers, and Communicators
• Curriculum for Life
• Teaching Strategies for Life
• Learning Tools and Toys for Life
• Evaluation and Evolution

Highest Good Education: All Subjects | All Learning Levels | Any Age – Click image for the open source hub

HIGHEST GOOD SOCIETY PROGRESS

One Community is building a sustainable future through a Highest Good society approach to living that is founded on fulfilled living, the study of meeting human needs, Community, and making a difference in the world:

• • • Read the Highest Good society overview: Highest Good Society
    • Learn about the model for fulfilled living and sharing: A Day in the Life
    • Learn about the 4 economic models: RBE | For-profit | Non-profit | Entrepreneurship
    • Learn about our open source community collaboration and management software: The Highest Good Network

This week the core team completed 31 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration not mentioned elsewhere here.

The core team additionally completed our 11th week working on improving the content for all our Values Pages. This week we continued reviewing the Community Contribution page. We also made mind maps for each value: Love/Compassion, Honesty/Integrity, Sustainability, Diversity, Communication, Open Source, Consensus, Community, Freedom, Contribution, Personal Growth, Fulfilled Living, and Highest Good of All. We consolidated how each value feeds into the others, how each is unique/the essences of each, as well as how the infrastructure supports each value and began transcribing handwritten notes using Google.

Continued Improving the Content for All Our Values Pages – Click for Community Contribution Page

Wen Zhang (Software Engineer) completed her 39th week as a volunteer working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Wen worked on the validation and error handling for the new badge data. Success or fail alert was added and she tried uploading some badges to test. It was tested with invalid url links as well. Everything worked as it should and that brought the function to upload new badges to fully complete! The submit button is disabled when badge name, url, or description are missing. Category, project, and ranking are optional fields. Pictures below are related to this work.

Worked on the Validation and Error Handling for the New Badge Data – Click for Highest Good Network

TEKtalent Inc.(a custom programming solutions company) also continued with their 35th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Nithesh and the TEK Talent team implemented the Pause and Resume option inside the user profile so that Administrators can pause or resume a user from the profile page of a user. The functionality is similar to the one in the User Management page, upon clicking Pause a popup shall be displayed to ask the resume date, clicking “Pause the user” after selecting a date will pause the user until that date and automatically resume on the selected date. He also made some style/alignment improvements to the buttons on the user profile page. Pictures below show this work.

Implemented the Pause and Resume Option Inside the User Profile – Click for Highest Good Network

Noor Qureshi (Insurance Researcher) completed her 28th week helping research One Community’s insurance options. This week Noor updated the narrative of what health insurance plan is the final choice. She updated the ranking of the health insurance point system. Following that, Noor created two projected costs spreadsheets. One spreadsheet organized the costs based on the final plan of choosing, and the second plan organized the costs across all plans. She also ranked these plans in the spreadsheet. Pictures below show some of this work.

Continued Helping Research One Community’s Insurance Options – Click for Page

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 23rd week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week, Chris worked on making the Summary Bar Responsive as well as the Bug Report form for the Summary Bar. Chris also looked into how to make the Leaderboard receive the data for the entire organization to be displayed on the first row even for non-Admin. You can see some pictures related to this below.

Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software – Click for Page

Jaime Arango (Graphic Designer) also completed his 22nd week helping, returning to creating images for the One Community Updates Blogs like this one. He created intro images for youtube and the blog for weekly progress updates #440, #441, #442, #443 and #444. You can see all these new images below.

Continued Creating Images for the One Community Updates Blogs – Click for Most Recent Blog Page

Robert Pioch (Graphic Designer) completed his 12th week helping with the new badges for the badges section on the Dashboard of the Highest Good Network. This week he completed the Highest Good Education Badges! You can see pictures of the new designs and development process below.

Completed the Highest Good Education Badges for the Highest Good Network – Click for HGN Page

Vy Dao (Software Developer) completed his 5th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week, Vy worked on reviewing, testing multiple Pull-Requests from both Back-End and Front-End. Vy found a bug where that prevented the user from deleting the task, and he worked with the pull-request author to fix this. Vy also pushes multiple commits up to Github to update unit-test coverage for multiple components TimelogNavbar (97%), Dashboard (100%). Pictures below show some of this work.

Worked on Reviewing, Testing Multiple Pull-requests – Click for Highest Good Network

Yueru Zhao (Software Engineer) completed her 5th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Yueru worked on showing all the data on the project and team reporting page. On the team page, team Name, ID, Active Status, Modified Date time, Created Date time are all showing now. On the project page, Project Name, Project ID, Active Status are also all showing now. She also added the task section and spent time on exploring how to get all the tasks data through API. Pictures below are related to this work.

Worked on Showing All the Data on the Project and Team Reporting Page – Click for Highest Good Network

Aidan Geissler (Sustainability Researcher) completed his 3rd week helping with 2nd-to-final review, feedback, and content editing. Aidan completed his review of the One Community’s current Health Insurance Research, where made several suggestions for clarifying and supplemental information. He also finished editing the Styrofoam Recycling Webpage, where he fixed various formatting issues and improved the text’s readability. To ensure that the webpage’s research was sufficiently comprehensive, he conducted research and incorporated his findings on topics such as the difference between Styrofoam and Polystyrene, and the impacts of Polystyrene on both human health and the environment. Lastly, Aidan began working on incomplete Glass Recycling Research, by collecting, reviewing, and summarizing useful resources on DIY glass recycling methods, such as how to build glass kilns and glass crushers. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Continued Helping With 2nd-to-final Review, Feedback, and Content Editing – Click for Insurance Page

And, last but not least, Jin Hua (Web Marketer and Graphic Designer) finished the “custom sidebar” plugin research and created a new analytics dashboard to see 2-year trends of all relevant metrics. He also shot video explanations and then completed additional analytics analysis and created another dashboard to troubleshoot and get more insights between Jun-Aug 2020. The analytics research is all to help us understand a significant drop in traffic metrics that we experienced during this time. Pictures below are related to this work.

Finished the “Custom Sidebar” Plugin Research and Created a New Analytics Dashboard – Click for Home Page

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