Sieben Linden, Poppau, Germany

Situated in former East Germany, Sieben Linden has a far-reaching vision and philosophy of community living, trialling building systems and educating for sustainability. The pioneering group first came together in 1991, and in 1993 established a project centre from which they did a lot of preparation work and research into systems and land. They approached several local authorities, and unlike most of the others, the council of the small village of Poppau was enthusiastic about their establishing an ecovillage in that area. In 1997 they purchased an old farm 1 km from the town, and proceeded to put their vision into being.

The community now consists of 85 adults and 35 children, with various long and short term volunteers, and their goal is to grow to 300 people. Several large buildings have been completed including a large community building with kitchen, dining, meeting and short term sleeping quarters, a renovated former farm building which houses various businesses, a shop, disco, and more sleeping quarters, and several large multi-person residences.

The community is made up of several “neighbourhoods”, the idea being that each would have a strong sense of identity and form their own character and philosophy. In practise only some have developed in this way. The most radical is “Club 99”, where until recently all houses were built and inhabited without machinery or power, gardening was done with horses instead of tractors, and all food consumed was vegan and raw. This stance has since softened a little and residents now use power for some tools, laptops, etc, but their philosophy is still to experiment and see how far they can go to provide for themselves without the use of machinery.

Most neighbourhoods have built at least one permanent building to house individuals and families. Facilities vary from fully self-contained units with separate facilities for family groups, to separate bedrooms with shared kitchen and bathroom. Many residents still live in caravans with little external privacy, but sometimes these are seen as more desirable due to greater separation from others. Construction of new buildings is ongoing, with 2 under way at the moment. These are largely built by residents and volunteers, who spend anything from one week to a full year working on the construction in exchange for food and board. The preferred construction method at Sieben Linden is strawbale construction, and they are constantly trialling new methods, learning from one building project to the next, and testing and documenting their finding thoroughly in order to promote this sustainable way of building.


The next project being planned is a large seminar building and more guest accommodation surrounding a central courtyard, in order to increase the educational outreach and workshop programme. One problem that Sieben Linden shares with other rural communities is the difficulty in creating incomes. There are many skilled people living there, but the population is not large enough to support many jobs. While there is a huge range of skills that they could share and that the world needs, from eco-building to permaculture to non-violent communication and consensus decision-making, their distance from population centres makes this difficult, and providing facilities will allow them to increase these programmes.

My 3 days at Sieben Linden were a haven of peace and tranquility. They are far from any major roads and the lack of traffic or most other machinery noise was heaven. Bicycles of all shapes and sizes are the preferred mode of transport, with some towing trailers, others with large children-carriers in front, reclining, upright, folding... The language was a challenge for me and it was an uncomfortable experience to be illiterate and largely deaf around other people because I didn't understand the meaning, but in other ways it allowed me to feel the place without the distraction of words, and I left feeling very peaceful and awake to a deeper level.