Elements of LUPINE

Living community

  • Regular, voluntary shared meals (2x per week?)

  • Consensus-based governance model

  • All expected to participate in community upkeep and operations

Unity in diversity

  • All ages, especially and including families with children

  • LGBTQ friendly

  • Cultural diversity welcome

Pooling resources

  • Shared spaces for children, relaxation, cooking and gardening

  • Systems for sharing laundry facilities, tools, toys, and items seldom used

Intentional design

  • Balance between community and individual spaces

  • Small private apartments of 400-800 SF, 1-3 bedrooms with a small kitchen

  • Re-imagining an existing building: a school, a church, or apartment complex.

Net Zero 

  • Facilities for parking, charging, and maintaining electric cars and bikes

  • Electric efficiency with Columbia River hydropower

  • Aspire to solar power and rooftop gardens 

Ecology

  • Shared recycling and compost

  • Vegan and vegetarian meal planning, omnivore options welcome too

Close-up of purple lupine flowers growing along a dirt trail with green grass and a blue sky in the background.

About the native lupine

Lupine flowers are native to the riverbanks and prairies of southwest Washington. Lupine is a legume, or a nitrogen fixing plant that improves the fertility of the soil for all the plants around it.  The indigenous peoples of this area used fire to manage the landscape and maintain meadows rich with camas lilies, which have an edible bulb that was a staple food.  Native Americans also ate wild onions, berries and other bulbs that grow in camas meadows.  While North American lupine seeds have toxins that make them undesirable as a food source, the lupine is an important contributor to a healthy meadow ecosystem.

We recognize the stewardship and care of the Chinook, Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Stl’pulmsh (Cowlitz), Grand Ronde, and Siletz who lived on this land for millennia.