The Spokane Hillyard Village Project is an experimental community designed to be off the power grid, growing food in greenhouse gardens and edible forests, low-impact housing built with recycled materials and recycling water on site. A three and a half minute video of the project is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci_VvUS5ePI&feature=youtu.be

This spring, Washington State University landscape architecture students in Spokane, led by Bob Scarfo, associate professor in landscape architecture within the school of Design and Construction, helped plan a self-sustaining community in the Hillyard neighborhood, a Spokane neighborhood just northeast of downtown.

Hillyard Village Project (HVP) is inspired by the Earthships concepts of New Mexico architect Mike Reynolds. Earthships is about building environmental and people-friendly homes and communities that are off the power grid, e.g., use solar panels for electrical power and tap into geothermal resources for heating. Structures would be built from recycled materials, what Reynolds calls "biotecture." Area residents would volunteer to live in the community for five years, using and monitoring the energy systems, waste systems and food and water systems.

HVP began in 2010 after months of discussion between Prof. Scarfo and Hillyard community members about developing green industries in the area. Richard Burris, the executive director of the not-for-profit HVP, is a retired city and land planner.

Burris' goal is to collect data associated with daily life in a semi-off grid, food producing residential environment. This data will help to assess outdated building codes and land use regulations, but also reveal what households would gain by reducing their costs in five areas by at least 10 percent. The five areas are on-site energy production, alternative housing, gray water retention, local transit with electric carts and on-site food production.

Burns has approval for the venture from Spokane City Council, city planning, and the health district. He has been trying to lease a site currently owned by the school district, but they are not "on board," says Prof. Scarfo.

Burns estimates the cost of HVP at about $2 million, and hopes to acquire that sum from grants, loans, rents and food production.

The first run at developing a design for the "village" and the life support systems involved Washington State University landscape architecture students, Eastern Washington University (EWU) School of Business students, and On Track Academy students. EWU students did a market analysis and surveyed local restaurants. They concluded the rental of the residential units at market rates would pay for themselves in the five-year test period. They also determined the estimated food production, and willingness of local restaurants to purchase prepackaged salad mixes would allow HVP to show a profit in the first year.

WSU landscape students worked on sites designs. The On Track Academy students developed the systems that could be introduced into existing prefab structures. The second design run of the project did not include the EWU students.

"Our hope this last go around was to acquire at least one if not two prefab units (identified by the On Track students as most appropriate), and see how well we could retrofit them with environmentally-friendly systems (energy, waste, water capture). We were not able to do this," explains Prof. Scarfo.

Prof. Scafo says the project has contributed to city officials and staff thinking about the future of housing and neighborhood life in different ways, and has given the landscape architecture students experience in design development with community members.

"We're going to reach a crossroads, given current energy issues, so it would be nice to know the kind of construction that will reduce certain energy needs and strain on the power grid," added Prof. Scarfo.