Building a cultural center to host the 

Coliazul Waldorf-inspired Community Project  

Creating a  heart center for our village.

Life - Long  - Learning   with - Head - Heart - Hands

San Salvador de Barú, Diamante Valley, Costa Rica

"It takes a village to educate a child and it takes a school to create a village"

Diamante Valley, nestling in the jungle,  is a place  of exciting social innovation,  encounter and development for all.  However, our geographically scattered community needs a center, a place where people can come together to grow and flourish - particularly important for our children.  A center is needed. 

We have created the non-profit community Waldorf-inspired project “Coliazul” for the children of the diverse international and local community of our villages in Diamante Valley, with a very practice-oriented learning program. 

Our intention is to have a space for building more bridges between the local and international community.

The buildings for this will foster in the most beautiful way

       - community development ,

- creativity and

- encounters and cooperation between the locals and the international people.

It will become a power center, and  the heart of our village.  This project will create a whole new level of community life, cooperation and co-creation.

With this campaign we want to finance the construction of the first three buildings of the center.

— From the Community for the Community —

The vision:  

• A hub where in the mornings children will come together, and the joy of learning will be nurtured, inspiring them and giving them the knowledge and skills to flourish. Academic learning is incorporated into a variety of exciting creative activities, all in a bilingual environment and drawing on the experience of both community members and invited specialists giving project-oriented lessons:
• Sustainability 
• Art
• Acrobatics
• Permaculture

• A hub where in the afternoons, adults and children can come together for community organized workshops: 
• Language lessons
• Circus Arts skills
• Singing
• Cooking
• Dressmaking
• Dance
• Ecology
• Healing Plants
• …..

• A hub where in the evenings the community can come together to enjoy and share:
• Theatre
• Music
• Lectures
• Circus 
• Local talent events 
• Intercultural exchange gatherings, sharing food, stories and ideas.

• A hub where at the weekends people can come together for gatherings:
• Celebrations
• Festivals
• Seminars

What makes us special?

• We are in close collaboration with supporters from the local community on all aspects of creating this project, receiving advice and help in all areas going from pedagogical approaches to harvesting bamboo.
• We have our first local Costa Rican teacher with a loving heart and a big smile to foster the Spanish of our children. 
• We started a “Traveling teachers’ movement“, through which we invite experienced teachers to train our teachers and work with children and parents. We currently have our first Waldorf teacher from the UK. 
• We create our own circus with the artists already working within our community.
• Project-based learning, where children work on individually chosen projects, accompanied by a mentor to develop their skills and knowledge within the field. These may include:
• Building a wind turbine
• Sewing a dress
• Finding the best way of growing tomatoes in this climate
• …
• We are surrounded by already existing permaculture farming.
• We are surrounded by the jungle.

— Think globally, act locally, in communication with Nature —

Learning philosophy

Children need a place where they can experience the different qualities of life and develop.

A place where education of the heart takes place.

Waldorf offers lifelong learning for head, heart and hands, with everything naturally presented in a creative way

A place where they can experience team spirit, but also where their individual abilities are encouraged.

They get to know a variety of personalities in order to be optimally prepared for the future. 

A future for people in harmony with Nature. 

For more information about our understanding of Waldorf education 

<<< click here >>>

The Coliazul Project will provide a center, where the children will have access, not only to learning, but to a safe place where they can play together all day long, to their hearts’ content. 

Coliazul will provide a lively and engaging heart to this community, which will give the increasing number of people arriving in the valley a reason to stay.

Where are we right now?

• We have started a regular ‘Playday’ with creative Waldorf lessons
• We have started to train local teachers by a visiting experienced specialist
• We have harvested bamboo in a community effort to begin the construction of the first classrooms.

Building approach:

— A new time needs a new architecture and we cannot solve the problems of the past with the same means which created them.—

“The only thing that counts is intuition.” Albert Einstein

Our building approach is also pioneering:

– “Intuitive-Holistic architecture“ is connected deeply with the situation, the place and the needs of the people. By this all buildings are naturally supporting new learning, deep encounters between people and a profound contact with Nature.

After a time of imposing our ideas and concepts on Nature, we come in a period of listening and receiving in a more feminine way. 

In our design we have looked for a genuine exchange with the environment, a conversation with Nature, how our architect is naming this, in “partnership with Nature herself“ , rather than an imposition upon it. 

Proven “Intuitive-Holistic” design processes, developed over the last 40 years by architect Reinhard Coppenrath, mean that our centre will grow directly from the energy of the site.

He went with our intention to the land, spent several days there and asked Nature. He receives the wholeness with an empty mind, free of own ideas or concepts.

The building will be constructed by a team of community members, professionals and volunteers. 

As a community project it combines several aspects:

- Reflect the Energy of the place and the Community

- Cost efficient building

- Longlasting, sustainable materials

- Natural beauty

Intuitive - Holistic architecture organically includes this.

Architecture Workshops :

The building process will also provide opportunities for learning, because Holistic design is a deeper way of life and encounter with Nature. While building we will have workshops combining a variety of subjects including building practice:

• “Holistic” architecture 
• Bamboo construction
• Rammed earth 
• Using geotextiles
• Natural ventilation
• Building in the tropics
• Systematic Intuition, safe steps in Intuition
• “Holistic Diaphanie“ on the example of architecture
• The 7 basic Intuitive- Holistic design processes
• Spiral dynamics
• Human development of consciousness and architecture 

The workshop will be a blend of insights from lots of experiences in holistic architecture building sites  in different countries and places, theory, methods, artistic self development and real experience on the Coliazul building site.

For more information about workshops, [click here]

Building

FIRST STAGE:

4 Buildings will be erected  in the coming 6 months

- MULTIFUNCTIONAL WORKSHOP BUILDING

Bamboo construction

• Creative workshop

• Classroom
• Temporary kitchen
• Staff room
• Accommodation for volunteers.   
• Bamboo storage

- CLASSROOM 1

Bamboo construction with rammed earth wall for sound insulation with  natural ventilation

• Creative Waldorf lesson
• as a “second” home for the children

• Water collecting roof

- MALOCA

Bamboo construction

• Gatherings
• Fire and singing circles 
• Ceremonies
• Classes of all kind

- TOILET FACILITIES

The two seasons of our region in Costa Rica, rainy and dry season, set  a special rhythm for our construction campaign.

Now, in the dry season, we have to build foundations and assemble the bamboo construction, so that we can build roofs for the rainy season.

The more roofs we create now, the more rooms, walls and floors etc.  we can build under the roof in the rainy season, which begins in May.

You can help us to achieve this goal!

The most of the bamboo for this first step has already been donated by the known neighboring HOME Farm Community and harvested by our parents and friends.

Intuitive-holistic architecture is a very situational architecture that starts anew at every location and does not design but rather receives new forms and materials from the wholeness of the needs of People, Nature and Function everytime anew, as described earlier.

Thus we already see a diverse formal language here in this small project.

The intuitive-holistic design process makes it possible for the buildings created in contact with Nature to have a profound supportive effect.

Waldorf has been emphasizing a supportive learning environment in all areas for decades.