Highest Good design is about setting aside our differences to work towards positive transformation of all life on Earth. From our perspective, this should be seen as non-controversial, non-political, and simply being common sense. More specifically, when One Community uses the term ‘Highest Good of All‘ we mean: non-dogmatic, good for people, good for personal and group economy, and good for the planet. We’re developing open source and free-shared resources that apply this to food, energy, housing, education, for-profit and non-profit economic design, social architecture, fulfilled living, global stewardship practices, and more.
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 December 19th, 2021 edition (#456) of our weekly progress update detailing our team’s development and accomplishments:
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One Community forwarding highest good design 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:
This week the core team communicated with Dr. Bai and Rhonda from the University collaborating with us on the compression testing, and put together a next-steps experimental plan for the Compression Team to contribute to achieving highest good design. The same team member also responded to comments on the Walipini and Aquapini design work. Pictures below relate to this work.
Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 74th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis completed creating the rainwater barrel priming section of the Net-Zero Bathroom Instructions/Tutorials. The section provides clear instructions on how to prepare rainwater barrels before installing them into the rainwater storage system to reduce labor time and accurate dimensioning.
The priming of the barrels involved installing a spigot, a tee, a threaded cap and other components that could be difficult to add once attached to the system. All components were rendered and installed in Solidworks to capture images of the processes. The images provide the user more details and facilitate the visualization of the process. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. The pictures below show some of this work.
Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 57th week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week Stacey updated many pages in the instructions. Some of the comments received from the team are aesthetic and deal with the layout. Other comments deal with confusing graphics and inconsistent icons and drawings. There are a few comments per page and it’s taking some time to resolve all of them but every week is progress. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.
Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 25th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, mainly focused now on the Earthbag Village components. This week Daniela added to the cost analysis of the water catchment/drainage of Earthbag Village. She remeasured and confirmed the lengths of the pipes along with finding the amount of wye connections and junction boxes there were. Small alterations were made to the drainage plan during this time as well. Daniela then added the new information to the cost analysis excel sheet.
This included researching and finding an accurate cost estimate for the materials. She then used CAD to draw a diagram of the section view for the Earthbag Village road. This CAD was made to show how some of the materials in the excel sheet were planning to be used. Previous calculations on the excel sheet were analyzed, but because some of the values were not explained properly, new calculations were included based on the design of the CAD image. Daniela also wrote a small narrative for the wye and junction boxes, in addition to a paragraph explaining the section view. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below are related to this work.
Becky Xin (Volunteer Web Editor) completed her 7th week helping with web design, now focused on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial. This week, Becky worked on adding more photos to this 150-page webpage. She figured out a way to keep the best quality as well as a way to resize and optimize simultaneously. Next week she will progress even further. Additionally, Becky revised certain parts of her first webpage on solar panels. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below are related to this work.
Karla Ulloa (Front end Developer) completed her 4th week helping with website design. This week Karla focused on the formatting of the new Tools and Equipment page. This included figuring out the appropriate placements of tables and proper layout for sections on said page. Karla finished off the week by finalizing corrections on the Dome-Home Site Clearing, Preparation, and Maintenance page and backing up all resources used into a separate folder. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. See below for pictures related to this work.
One Community is forwarding highest good design 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:
This week the core team completed the 2nd-to-last review of the Solar Incentive Rates and Net Metering Research page. We added and updated graphics, further improved formatting, SEO, and other details. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. The page is now live. Pictures below are related to this.
Luis Manuel Dominguez (Research Engineer) completed his 31st week helping with research related to the City Center Eco-spa designs. This week Luis focused on an older layout of the City Center Hot Tub design and compared it to the team’s current model. The purpose of this was to generate ideas for the lighting component of the system, while also validating the systems efficiency by comparing components.
He discovered that the optimal power for the pump’s performance in the system was consistent with the old model, as well as the lighting component being one of the most efficient on the market. While Luis has not confirmed a lighting source for the design, it will be selected in the near future and implemented into a wiring schematic being developed through LTspice. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below are related to this work.
Frank Roland Vilcapaza Diaz (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 24th week helping, now with content related to the Solar Microgrid sizing. This week Frank worked on the tutorial of the SAM program. He specifically worked the technical data inputs necessary for the program to simulate the situations for the example project. This information was analyzed and the concepts behind the data were explained. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. The pictures below relate to this.
Venus Abdollahi (Architectural Designer) completed her 22nd week helping finish the Duplicable City Center designs. This week, Venus completed the roof and sent the Revit file to her supervisor for more feedback. She worked on section B_B and changed the position columns and furniture and corrected various other parts of the section according to the latest plan updates. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. See pictures below.
And Carlos Lillo (Engineering Technician) completed his 19th week helping with the pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms. This week Carlos modelled the springs for the Folding Door Hardware, corrected cameras, and finally added the fading-in effect. So far, he has produced two segments for this final part of the render, which took about one day each. Carlos calculates that he should produce about two more next week and, depending on feedback, will then be wrapping this up. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below are related to this work.
Xuanji Tang (Architectural Designer) completed her 15th week working on Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week’s focus was working on updating the sub-area floor plan and total floor area detail drawing on the master AutoCAD file. She also updated the tables in the “City Center Project Specification and Design Basis” document according to the new floor plan. She will continue these tasks next week. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below are related to this work.
Huiya Yang (Volunteer Architectural Designer) completed her 12th week working on the Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week, Huiya continued to work on SketchUp model updates. She started to work on adding the walls and doors of the second-floor Living Dome according to the latest CAD drawing. Huiya also found that there is an extruded wall in Room 8 that looks strange, so she will discuss it with Xuanji to see if there is any other way to design it. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Yuxi Lu (Architectural Designer) also completed her 10th week working on the Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week Yuxi went over items with the team to reverify before editing in CAD areas like the duct reroute and kitchen appliance offset from the wall. She re-centered and recalibrated floor slab angles of the Dining Dome overall because the dome orientation has shifted.
Yuxi also made adjustments for the staircase opening and adjusted the furniture arrangements while checking for placement clearance for sitting and standing. The Dining Dome second floor door wall (window and door) were changed to match the drawing too. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures of some of this work are below.
And George Koshy (Design Engineer) completed his 9th week working on the Duplicable City Center connectors we’ll use to build the domes. This week George completed the assembly for the center hub connectors. He fixed errors with meshing and ran stress and displacement tests. George then completed a static study to assess the amount of stress on the 0.2″ thick steel bracket. This bracket design had a higher amount of stress and the model failed under full load. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. The pictures below relate to this work.
Yuran Qin (Volunteer Web Editor) also completed her 6th week helping with web design. This week Yuran had a Zoom meeting with Jae to learn and practice how to SEO a web page. She also worked on creating the Most Sustainable Lightbulbs and Light Bulb Companies page. Yuran also made the table of contents on this page, completed the content of the article, and made spreadsheets for the page.
One Community forwarding highest good design 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:
This week the core team continued the comprehensive review and final edits and additions to our Sheep research. This week we worked on more edits to the Sheep doc, researched “Water Rights” hoses, created introductions for 3 sections including vaccinations and sheering, and added new details after researching the necessary vaccination for the orf virus that encompasses the CDT vax for overeating and tetanus. This is the only universally required vaccination, but there are others. See below for the pictures related to this work.
The core team additionally worked on updating the Chicken Coop Building Instruction document. We updated sections for the entry door installation that included updated images and text for building the door, installation of the door stops, and attachment of door hinges, door handle and door latch. Pictures below are related to this work.
Qiuheng Xu (Landscape Designer) completed her 63rd week volunteering, now helping with the Aquapini & Walipini external landscaping details. This week Qiuheng worked on the design plan of the Aquapini Walipini project in AutoCAD. She adjusted the text size and locations so people can read them better, added and fixed hatches for different plants, and did some color management to make the drawing more readable and beautiful. Pictures below are related to this.
Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student), as part of her 25th week helping, also added a paragraph on plumbing for the Aquapini & Walipini report and worked on labeling the plan views of the detailed Aquapini and Walipini layout. Lastly Daniela tried to make alterations to a 3D CAD in order to accurately show the swales, a process that is still a work-in-progress.
And Brian Storz (Culinary Project Manager) completed his 13th week helping lead the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan, Transition Kitchen designs, Food Procurement and Storage plan, and related menu and meal plans. This week Brian worked with Anna on developing her recipes. Brian also had an interesting phone call with Chef June Pagan, who is willing to help out with recipe development and can provide advice but cannot commit 10 hours a week right now. Brian also worked on developing his own recipes and took pictures of Smoked Andouille Eggplant Ratatouille with Tomato Sauce. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Below are some images related to this.
Jennifer Lee (Graphic Designer) also completed her 3rd week working on the open source Permaculture Design staging page. This week Jennifer developed the sections “Research and Analyze Outside Influences” and “Sun Sector Example”, optimizing images, adding content and formatting. Jennifer focused on providing detailed alternative text when it came to page images and tracking down current content for any outdated links. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. See below for pictures related to this work.
Anna Cheal (Culinary Nutritionist) completed her 2nd week helping with the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan and related menu and meal plans. This week Anna created eight new recipes: Kale and Butternut Brown Rice Pilaf, Summer Vegetable Pasta Salad, Nutty Sweet Potatoes, Cheesy Grits, Cashew Fig Chia Pudding, Strawberries & Cream Chia Pudding, Tropical Green Smoothie, and Beet, Apple, Carrot Smoothie. Several of these were created for the ‘speciality breakfast food’ and ‘beverages’ categories. Many of these recipes are still in the review process. Anna is also in the early stages of developing the Tuscan White Bean Pasta recipe. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. The pictures below relate to this work.
One Community forwarding highest good design 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:
One Community forwarding highest good design 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:
This week the core team completed 22 hours managing One Community volunteer-work review not included above, emails, social media accounts, web development, new bug identification for the Highest Good Network software, and interviewing and getting set up new volunteer team members. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below show some of this.
Aidan Geissler (Sustainability Researcher) completed his 30th week helping with 2nd-to-final review, feedback, and content editing that is now focused on the Health Insurance research and page. While the webpage is now live, there are still sections that he is completing/revising. In particular, he is focusing on developing the conclusion section.
Aidan has been writing sections about premiums, deductibles, the trade-off between the cost of premiums and deductibles, medical emergencies, the importance of prevention, the importance of having an insurance plan, and cost savings by opting for a bronze plan. He has also been working on the spreadsheet demonstrating the level of cost savings by selecting a bronze plan. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.
Aleksandra “Alex” Gorkovenkø (Graphic Designer) also completed her 18th week working on images for our open source social media strategy. Alex created 7 icons and also an additional 3 versions of the icons. Images were changed in procreate and illustrator and simplicity and bright colors were the focus.
Navya Madiraju (React.js/MongoDB Full Stack Developer) completed her 6th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This Week Navya started working on the Featured Badges bugs including the broken “Save Changes” button, this button not closing the window, and a problem where clicking the “x” to leave the window then gives a blank screen. Also a delete badge issue. Her focus was checking the code, logic implementation, api calls, etc. Navya mostly completed working on this but has one more issue and then full testing for any other dependencies or blockers. Contributing in the motive to achieve highest good design. Pictures below are related to this work.
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