In the rolling hills of central Italy sits Honeydew, an eco-community created as a direct response to the isolation of the Covid pandemic, enabled by modern technology and aiming to address the profound changes the climate crisis looks set to bring.
With stated aims to spread the project globally, the Guardian visited Honeydew to see how founder Benjamin Ramm's vision for the future is playing out, and to learn how sustainable such eco living projects really are.
Ritorno alla comune "Nell'eco villaggio i nostri figli crescono lontano dallo smog"
Tra gli ospiti della piccola comunità cosmopolita sorta a Maiolo
«Ci deve essere per forza un’altra soluzione, forse la comune», lo cantava Giorgio Gaber negli anni ‘70 e forse ci ha pensato anche Benjamin Ramm, 41 anni, ex documentarista londinese in fuga alla Bbc, che nel 2023 ha fondato una comune 2.0 sotto forma di eco villaggio a Tagliata, frazione del comune di Maiolo, in alta Valmarecchia. Gli ospiti che arrivano qui per brevi soggiorni, a volte si portano anche l’intera famiglia. La ‘Honeydew community’ – questo il nome del progetto di vita alternativo – si rivolge a chi sogna di vivere lontano dalla frenesia della metropoli e vorrebbe vedere crescere i propri figli lontano dallo smog delle città.
IL FONDATORE «Tutti insieme cerchiamo di dare una risposta alla pandemia e allo smart working»
In alto il fondatore della comunità Benjamin Ramm con alcuni ospiti A sinistra alcuni momenti di vita di Honeydew.
Ecovillaggi, formula in crescita con ricadute su borghi e territorio
Forme dell’abitare. In Italia 30 progetti negli ultimi tre anni che portano queste realtà a quota 100. Più opportunità dal via libera alle comunità energetiche. Proposte per uno status giuridico su misura.
Fra i modelli di società possibile, quello degli ecovillaggi – formati da persone che scelgono di vivere insieme, immerse nella natura (ma senza le varianti urbane del co-housing), secondo principi di sostenibilità ambientale e sociale – appare come uno dei più arcaici. Nelle sue declinazioni più legate alla comunità essenziali, da conviviale con basso impatto economico, prevede una vita quasi autosufficiente.
ALL TOGETHER NOW: From hillside eco-communities to urban co-living spaces, in the wake of the pandemic a desire for increased connection is fuelling new ways of living
They live together in this beautiful converted factory, but they’re not really housemates: each person has their own private studio as well as access to the communal areas. Welcome to co-living, billed as an instant community and an end to the anonymity of urban life.
‘We think of the pandemic as a kind of radical break. But, in hindsight, it was really more of a magnifying glass,’ says Benjamin Ramm, a former BBC journalist who set up Honeydew, an ‘eco-commune’ in Maiolo, a mountain village in northern Italy. ‘The loneliness that was already in society was radically magnified: the sense of discontent, the anxiety about modernity and the removal from nature.’
On a hot and sunny afternoon in late June, hundreds of Italian locals gathered at Honeydew, a newly formed eco-community that’s looking to combine old tradition and modern ideas into an ecological paradise for everyone to enjoy.
Founded under many of the same principles that defined intentional communities during the 1970s, Honeydew is looking to change the movement’s track record by actively engaging with the local communities where they set foot.
From the get-go, founder Benjamin Ramm was cognizant of the fact that many spiritual communities have historically held local people in disregard and is calling for a greater level of humility and engagement.
Anonymous urban life has left many of us millennials struggling with loneliness. I went looking for a solution
As a child, I knew that the inner-city, activist community I grew up among in Cleveland, Ohio, was quirky (and as a high schooler who just wanted to be normal, I was even embarrassed by parts of it). People left their doors unlocked, popping in with a knock to announce themselves while out running errands or walking the dog; we spontaneously gathered for potluck dinners in someone’s backyard; loud conversations about counter-cultural movements like pacifism and leftwing Catholic “liberation theology” seemed, to me, just the way of the world.
Now “community” is something my generation, the millennials, are increasingly seeking out.
Ever dreamed of abandoning the city to live in the bucolic landscapes of central Italy? It’s easier than you think.
“I just felt something was wrong,” says Lucilla, a teacher who lives in the small Italian city of Mantova.
Together with her husband Stefano and two children, Dario, aged eight and Leila, six, she had moved to Mantova to escape the frenzy of Milan. But they still felt unfulfilled and anxious, and were worried about how their children were growing up.
Constant rushing and stress, feelings of isolation and entrapment, lack of community and alienation from nature. The symptoms were clear. And the cause, they reasoned, was the urban lifestyle itself. “The city is killing us,” says Lucilla.
