c ase stu d i es
Cozy refurbishment: Much of Ashevillage’s interior touches comes from reclaimed materials, from the curtain materials to the earthen paints and plasters. (Pictured: garden coordinator Sunil Patel, left, and Ashevillage founder Janell Kapoor) PHotos By Max CooPeR
Ashevillage a living laboratory By J o - J o J aC k s o n
Push the envelope beyond green living and green building: The Ashevillage Institute and Sanctuary aims to create “resilient” living, says founder Janell Kapoor. She describes Ashevillage as a “living laboratory,” located on an acre in the downtownAsheville area.
“The vision … was to create both a living demonstration of sustainable solutions in action in the urban environment [and] a sanctuary — a place of beauty, respite and inspiration,” says Kapoor.
The Institute is the organization’s nonprofit half, offering workshops, tours and programs. The more recently formed Sanctuary offers guests lodging and accommodations and provides site maintenance, she explains.
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Ashevillage “was originally inspired to be a local model of what I was doing internationally,” says Kapoor. She got her start after attending a 1997 natural-building workshop. Since then, Kapoor has taught natural-building workshops stateside and across the globe in Southeast Asia, South America and Europe. In 2004, she founded the nonprofit Kleiwerks International as an organizational umbrella for her worldwide work; in 2006, she started buying the three adjacent, downtown Asheville properties that would become a home for Ashevillage. “It was the headquarters for Kleiwerks, but really, in time, it’s [developed] its own identity, and it’s less tied to the international work,” she notes. Although Kleiwerks still fiscally sponsors Ashevilleage, Kapoor explains, she hopes to have it financially independent within the next year and gain a board
of directors. She describes the process as an exciting time, saying, “It feels, in some ways, like we’re at the beginning, because a lot of the first years have been developing the site, most of which has come to completion.”
Renovating sanctuary: waste-stream redirection The Sanctuary branch is comprised of two houses that were built in the 1920s, and both were renovated mainly with materials from the waste stream — that is, discarded materials. Kapoor and a revolving team of craftspeople used discarded materials to make their own earthen plasters and paints for interior walls and ceilings, as well as exterior surfaces. Retrofitting “is something that is most important in the green-building world,” she says. “The property WNC GreeN BuildiNG CouNCil & MouNtaiN Xpress