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The T
House village ‘ethos’ is to live in
harmony with the natural surroundings and the town
of Padangbai, preserving and enhancing the beauty
and integrity of the local culture. The underlying
aim of the T House village
is to improve the life of all participating individuals,
the buyers, guests and villagers and life on the
planet through following eco principals. The T
Village aims to create a co-operative environment
of mutual exchange where all parties benefit.  This
is supported by employing local village people wherever
possible and exchanging our skills e.g.
The residents and guests can provide language teaching,
diving, computer skills, cooking, health techniques,
accounting skills, building skills and the villagers
in their turn teach us their local language, ecology,
customs, craft ways, culture, religion, and smiling
attitude.
We have created a flexible creative environment
which enriches the lives of both the local Balinese
and international guests through right development
and sustainability techniques. |
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This play in words denotes our resolve
to address environmental issues in a multifaceted
way. In the Bloo Lagoon project we are very conscious
of our relationship not only to the “green”
land ecosystem but also the “bloo” ocean
ecosystem below. Decisions that we make on land
can have a big impact on the fish, turtles and living
coral of the Lagoon.
In keeping with our existing practice of doing more
with less and keeping our houses consistently simple
and small - but functional and spacious - we continue
to incorporate relevant new technologies to make
our projects more sustainable.
 All
the lighting fixtures in our project are light emitting
diodes (LED’s) that give good balanced light
whilst consuming only 4 watts each. Their initial
higher cost is soon offset by the saving in electricity
and very long life of the lamp. As they shall not
need replacing for many years we are eliminating
expensive fancy light fittings and building the
lamps directly into the building structure.
Our swimming pool uses ionisation for water purification
and minimizes chemicals use.
To decrease pollution and noise, cars and motorbikes
are parked down the hill and circulation within
and to the site and town is provided by electric
cars.
For excavation and grading of the site we opted
for manual labor instead of heavy machinery to reduce
pollution and distribute wealth more equitably.
Water is scarce in Padangbai and in order to insure
a constant reserve we have constructed water catchment
channels and reservoirs. We are using solar electricity
to pump water and are also testing the viability
of wind generated energy for water pumping.
To conserve water we channel rain and water from
showers and sinks to an artificial lake and ponds
which are planted with aquatic plants and fish giving
us semi cleaned water for irrigation and toilet
flushing.
The solid waste is disposed of in septic tanks connected
to waste water gardens which use gravel and natural
fibers for filtration and these gardens are planted
with plant species that thrive in these nutrients
thereby cleaning the water. The resulting effluent
then flows into the ponds for more cleansing.
We are composting and improving the soil and planting
vegetable gardens in each house and growing vegetables
up the site’s stone walls.
Excavation on our very rocky site enabled us to
reuse the beautiful stones that we unearthed for
building walls.
Our site is designated a forestry conservation zone
and is home to numerous acacias, cashews and other
drought tolerant, shade providing species. We carefully
situated our houses around the trees and integrated
them into the layout, and we adopted landscaping
with these same drought tolerant plants and plants
that have proved to be well adapted to the windy
and dry conditions of Padangbai. The very rich ocean
below is also very rightly designated a conservation
zone which is consciously protected by the local
fishermen, divers and community. The locals teach
us of their ways - their culture, foods, flora and
fauna, and natural medicines and we in turn share
with them our skills and give them little nudges
as to how they might better recycle, conserve energy,
materials and resources to counteract many of the
negative results of industrialization.
It is our obligation to preserve this beautiful
site and its surrounding ocean with pristine marine
life and coral for future generations and we welcome
you to join us and give of your self.
Sincerely
Tony and Marita and the Bloo Lagoon
crew. |
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