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Building Commons and Community
Karl Linn
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Karl Linn (1923 - 2005) landscape architect, psychologist, and educator, spent the last forty-four years of his life, guiding the transformation of abandoned vacant lots and drab institutional settings into vibrant community spaces. He was inspired by the fact that when people come together to build or transform the places they share, they also build community. Learn more about Karl in the Wikipedia; and learn more about the concept of The Commons, which was a guiding principle and a central theme of importance throughout Karl's life. Watch and listen to Karl reflecting on his life and work in Karl Linn's Journey, a Digital Media Biography by Verona Fonté. We hope that information about Karl's life and work will inspire you to get involved in collaborative efforts to build community through environment. Within this site you'll find links to wiki pages or websites for each the commons projects that Karl shepherded into being in the Westbrae neighborhood where he lived in northwest Berkeley. EcoHouse is now a project of the Ecology Center, and the other projects are being managed and expanded by community residents. |
| Many years in the making, Building Commons and Community by Karl Linn documents the collaborative environmental design and community building work he initiated and inspired - the creation of a variety of commons, permanent and temporary, indoor and out, starting in the early 1960s. Published by New Village Press in 2007. New readings from Building Commons and Community: Download Karl's ten-page final chapter, "The Foundations of Commons Building" or a two-page synopsis of the chapter, useful for sharing with team members in a participatory planning process. |
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