Living Ground Collaborative

VISION

Our vision is to present practical, implementable development solutions aligned with Earth Values as expressed in the Living Systems Framework™, principles developed through 20 years of research with scientists, indigenous communities, systems thinkers, poets, and other experts. Two core principles guide our work: First, the Prime Directive—all actions must create conditions that support life. Second, these actions must sustain the health and integrity of the whole system.

As humans step into their role of sustaining Earth’s health, our designs and development must ensure that natures systems, the biotic pump (small water cycle) in particular, become strengthened through our building and development. Every project we touch must make the Earth more resilient, communities cooler and more robust, and individual sites lush and flourishing, getting better with time. Emerging research on biotic pump theory, combined with solar-oriented, energy-efficient design, points toward a promising future: a cooler planet with more consistent rainfall patterns. This integrated approach can address seemingly disconnected environmental problems simultaneously.

We focus on the sustaining health and vibrancy of Earth’s natural systems. The fundamental relationship between sun, water, vegetation, and soil—which creates and sustains all life—can be harnessed to design regenerative communities that create community, provide food and cool the planet more effectively than expensive high-tech solutions. Working with nature we can reduce cost in the building and in the maintenance, nature provides a win, win, win.

MISSION

ENSURE future buildings and cities ARE designed to help the Earth cool itself, as well as reduce resource extraction and support local circular economies by working with natural cycles rather than resisting them. Starting with simple observations—how sun and water move across a site—we design buildings and communities that consume less energy, demonstrate greater resilience, and cost less than high-tech alternatives to both build and maintain. These strategies demonstrate how we can create places that enhance ecological health while improving quality of life for all who live there.