Together with the Aardehuizen, The Dutch department of the Global Village Network (GEN NL) is also celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

To mark the occasion, GEN NL will be present at the Aardehuis Feestival, right next to the Aardehuizen, with its own Network Weekend on the 'Ecovillage Field' in the Olst Food Forest.

Co-founder, food pioneer, and internationally active eco-multitalent Monique Wijn will give a colorful presentation on the current ecovillage movement in the Netherlands and abroad. What can we learn from real-life examples? What kind of perspective do ecovillages offer Dutch society?

Marjolein ‘in miniature’ Jonker is the pioneer of Tiny House living in the Netherlands. With her first small home in Alkmaar, she paved the way for what has now become a fully-fledged movement. She now lives in Olst, on the new residential development site 'Olstergaard' right next to the Aardehuizen.

Marjolein shares the story of the Tiny House movement and the many beautiful housing projects that have emerged. Ask her all your questions about the possibilities, red carpets, hurdles, and stepping stones you may encounter throughout the Netherlands when it comes to living small but beautifully!

Clay plaster has many benefits. As an indoor finish, it provides a beautiful natural solution for a balanced indoor climate: regulating moisture and buffering temperature changes. It's also easy to learn. Learn the basics of clay plastering and see how quickly you can create a beautiful loam wall!

Cycle Coach Fedde Jorritsma knows his stuff and, through his company Local Wise, is one of the pioneers in the Netherlands using valuable raw materials that many people turn their noses up at. Time for a reappraisal.

In “Holy Shit! Humanure,” he gives a presentation on safe composting and closing the loop of human consumption.

At the ‘Ecovillage Field’ next to the Aardehuizen, there will be a compost toilet trailer he built. After the Feestival, he processes the output himself. Thank you in advance for your contribution!

Join an Edible Nature Walk with experienced forager, kitchen garden coach, and caterer Willy Boogaard and food (forest) pioneer Fransjan de Waard. Stroll through the edible greenery in and around the Aardehuizen gardens and the adjacent developing food forest, located on a small hectare of municipal land managed as ‘adopted greenery’ by the Eetbaar Olst-Wijhe Foundation, and discover what wild food you can cook and eat.

Always wanted to know more about maintaining a bonsai? Then don’t miss this! A small-scale technique with a big result. Pruning trees and shrubs is a universal skill anyone can learn. Master the fine art of pruning bonsai trees. Once you can do this, you can scale up, two birds with one stone.

With Superuse, 'waste' as a high-quality building material is given a second life without energy-intensive processing.

The Earth Houses, with their car tire walls and second-hand woodwork, were built according to similar principles. Architect Césare Peeren has extensive experience in 'harvesting' and applying construction-usable waste material. He also guided the first Earthship in the Netherlands, a tea house in Zwolle, through Dutch building regulations.

In this lecture, he will show how he arrives at integral designs, listening carefully to what the future users, flora and fauna, but also the materials, energy and water need to form a living ecosystem together.

How do you make fire without a lighter or matches? Bushcraft expert Leen Smit will teach you how to make fire using only a (safely used) good pocketknife and natural materials.

Get to know the broad energy concept of the Earth Houses: heat (passive solar energy, solar boiler, wood heating, underfloor heating) and electricity (solar panels, consumption, production, district energy profile). Does that really lead to self-sufficiency and what does that actually mean?

Ferdi is a consultant and installer for solar energy systems and the driving force behind a multi-year international collaboration project with universities and colleges, the results of which will be presented at the end of June.

Using an interactive card game, Aardehuis initiator Paul Hendriksen explains how the design principles of (social) permaculture have been successfully applied in the Aardehuizen project. If you’re thinking “Social perma-what-now?”—this is your chance to join in!

More than 5000 old car tires were used to build the load-bearing walls of the Aardehuizen. Did you miss your chance during the 2012–2015 construction phase? Here’s your second chance in this tire-pounding workshop! Also great for past build volunteers wanting to see if they still have the skills. We’ll be making a lovely bench near the pond in the Food Forest next to the Earthships.

This educational theatre piece is an introduction for young and old to the theme of biobased building, presented by eco-construction veteran Wilco Machielse. At the age of 77, he not only installs floor insulation for TonZon but also pursues a career as a cabaret performer. Machielse is also an (ex-board) member of the Association for Integral Bio-Logical Architecture (VIBA). He is currently seeking sponsors to help realize his mission: 'Healthy Building, Living & Life'!

The Aardehuis Feestival hosts the premiere presentation of the year-long Self-Sufficient Living training, which will begin next January. In 5 modules, you'll learn all aspects of living self-sufficiently. Is that even possible in the Netherlands? Come and discover it with no obligation. Plus, a great opportunity for early birds to sign up!

Zoning plan for an 'ecovillage'? It now exists!
The municipality of Westerwolde paved the way together with the ecovillage Land van Aine. Ecovillage initiatives and aldermen from three municipalities share the opportunities—and sometimes major challenges—they encountered in establishing an eco-housing community on municipal land.

Reflection on 3 case studies of collaboration between ecovillage initiatives and municipalities, based on the layered/successful practice of the realization of the Aardehuizen in the municipality of Olst-Wijhe.

With Katja van der Valk (BuildingCommunity), Hans van Vliet (former spatial planning officer for the municipality of Olst-Wijhe), Ans Ripperda (former alderman), and Estella Franssen (Aardehuis Olst).

In light of climate disruption, biodiversity loss, and other global crises, it's more important than ever to assess the resilience of your local community. Ecodorp Boekel participates in a global project where ecovillages evaluate their capacity to withstand external shocks in a structured way.

Discover for yourself! Ecovillage founder Ad Vlems presents an interactive session using a beautifully designed set of educational cards.

You can grow shiitake mushrooms at home. Within a short time you already have a delicious meal. But you have to know what to do and what not to do. Pieter de Jong learned it by trial and error and tells you about the intricacies of the trade from his personal experience!

Most ecovillages and residential communities start with a collective idea and then look for a place to realize that idea. But it can also be the other way around! Sarah gives two introductions about Olstergaard, the new neighboring neighborhood of the Aardehuizen.

In a kitchen table setting, she explains how her eco-residential community is gradually becoming closer, while in the beginning only a building plot offered by the municipality was the common denominator.

Workshop for 2x maximum 10 people, from 13:30-14:00h and from 15:15-15:45h, and by way of deepening from 18:45-19:30h we'll take a 45-minute stroll to Olstergaard, giving us time to let the food settle and the new information sink in.

Let yourself be taken along by Michel, who, as the architect of the Earth Houses, took on the challenge of creating a Dutch version of the American Earthship concept, which was originally developed to function in the semi-desert of New Mexico. Besides technical and spatial challenges, he also had to deal with an assertive association of inexperienced builders/aspiring residents and a municipality that dared to experiment but also had many questions.

Thomas can now safely call himself a veteran in eco-construction. In 1998, as a 19-year-old, he was already working with clay plaster in the first straw bale house in the Netherlands. He is now busy with the successful cooperative "Groene Bouwmaterialen", a household name in organic construction in the Netherlands as a supplier and knowledge platform. Like no other, he can give an outline of how slowly but steadily the undercurrent of eco-construction is emerging. 

Rainwater is precious and free, and yet in many cases we let it drain away to the sewage treatment plant. Is that also the case with you, that the water from your roof disappears through the downspout? Then you can consider disconnecting that pipe, and thus keep the water in your garden, or even use it for washing machine or toilet. You will learn how to do that in this session, including design workshop. Estella Franssen has been organizing help and advice to residents on rainwater disconnection for many years on behalf of the municipalities of Deventer, Olst-Wijhe and Raalte.