Philip Rhoades

A "Life Extension Village"

This is a short history of how the idea for “Life Extension Villages” came about and how I would like them to develop. This is my dream, I guess, of how we can live more sustainably in the future with buildings and a local environment that aids health and longevity.

A Health Crisis

I had been interested in Envionmentally Friendly Buildings since I had been at school but a health crisis some years ago forced me to completely re-evaluate my life style and start taking a more practical interest. Basically I had to get out of the “Rat Race” because it was killing me. I started developing the idea of getting out of the city and building a house that would be conducive to my own health and longevity. Then I started wondering whether other people might also be interested in this project. I gradually realised that a community of people would be much more effective at dealing with individual and group health problems than individuals in isolation - the idea of LEVs started to take shape.

It took me some years to actually get organised even after getting an appropriate sized block of land in a town that I thought was ideal for a first development to test out the concept - Cowra - about 5 hours West of Sydney. After dealing with some of the health issues and other things that kept me in Sydney, I finally made the break to Cowra in mid January, 2015.

The General Idea

The first of these villages “Coura Rocks”, will be constructed in Saje Court, Cowra, NSW (Google Map) and is intended to be a model for these villages that hopefully will be built all over Australia. The Coura Rocks Village will have up to 12 free-standing houses on it.

The buildings in this “Eco Village” have been designed using the highest quality, environmentally friendly technology and materials throughout. The buildings are manufactured using advanced engineering processes in a factory, delivered in a flat pack to the site and rapidly assembled (Tektum Design and Engineering).

Each building material selected for the construction will create not only a healthier environment but will also be thermally comfortable without the added use of air conditioning or additional heating.

LEVs will be designed as “Smart Buildings”. If people need medical conditions monitored, the buildings could be completely wired up with systems for monitoring vital signs and transmitting information to responsible professionals. The buildings will be internet ready with access to health and longevity web sites and an expanding virtual community of people in other LEVs. Medical attention could be available much more quickly in LEVs.

LEVs will allow people to get involved in the management of their immediate environment to the benefit of both people and the environment. The village design will help people who want to be more self-sufficient (generating their own power, growing their own food etc). LEVs will encourage people to live in a supportive community where people look after each other.

The people in these villages will have access to professional advice in many areas that help improve the quality and duration of life eg diet modification, food supplements, appropriate exercise and medical interventions - eventually including high tech interventions like gene therapy etc. I intend to run continuous seminars on a wide diversity of topics both on site and via virtual communities ie LEVs on a wide area network or the Internet. I would also like to encourage self-organised, health-related education networking amongst the villagers.

The Coura Rocks LEV is directly across the road from the Cowra Hospital and has many health-related professional practices within walking distance.

A Cautious Approach

I will put up the first house hopefully in September - November 2016. This will allow me to get some feedback on the amount of interest there is for the concept. I intend at the moment that the village will be structured as a “Community Title” project.