Homefullness

Robin Allison is the founder of Earthsong EcoNeighbourhood in West Auckland, a 32-home, medium-density cohousing community on 1.2 hectares. It is guided by permaculture ethics, eco-building, and social sustainability, with an educational commitment to share learning.

Zola and Robin discuss “homefullness” as individual autonomy plus shared belonging, intergenerational support, accountability, and personal and collective growth oppor...

April Theme: Belonging and the Neighbour Connection Challenge

In this episode, Zola introduces April’s theme of belonging through designing connection with neighbours, linking it to Common Ground’s focus on collective living and affordability via sharing and reciprocity, and permaculture’s people care ethic.

She’s excited to share that she’s making changes to the Homefullness Show to be more practical and announces a Patreon-based ...

Reshaping Aotearoa’s Planning Laws: Regenerative Housing, Community Agency, and Structural Affordability

New Zealand’s housing crisis, like many countries around the world, stems from a system producing unaffordable homes, ecological harm, and isolated communities. 

Zola highlights this “rare opportunity” as the government rewrites the planning and natural resources bills replacing the RMA.

Zola warns of risks in these bills like g...

Zola interviews Lyndall Parris, founder and resident of Narara Ecovillage on Australia’s central, east coast (about an hour north of Sydney), about what it takes to create and lead an intentional ecovillage from vision to reality and what daily life feels like there.

The episode outlines Narara’s cooperative membership model (including the $30,000 buy-in), efforts toward affordability and intergenerational living through CLAN, and ...

In this episode, host Zola Rose interviews Zola Ndimande, a Zulu woman from KwaZulu Natal South Africa about her return to her ancestral land to build her own home using traditional earth building methods, and integrating into that community-focused way of living in relationship with people and relationship with the elements.

The discussion covers a range of topics such as traditional housing construction methods, indigenous commun...

Zola Rose interviews Magda Garbarczyk from Fine Line Architecture about the 'Straw Lines' project, a modular housing system using low carbon materials like straw and timber to address New Zealand's housing crisis, climate change, unhealthy and expensive building materials, and waste from the agricultural sector.

The project aims to reconnect traditional building methods with modern practices, promote community involvement, and redu...

Host Zola Rose interviews Trystan and Stephanie from the Peterborough Housing Cooperative to discuss this housing model that is a rarity in Aotearoa NZ (a more common model in Europe).

They explore how the cooperative structure, owned by a Trust, keeps rents affordable and fosters a close-knit community of families, young professionals, and the elderly.

They talk about the cooperative's guiding principles and their commitment to ma...

Show host Zola shares her personal experience with housing instability through a creative reading of her unpublished article titled 'Homefullness: Recipes for Baking, Belonging, Connection, and Resilience into Housing Futures.'

Zola details her struggles with feelings of homelessness due to the challenge of finding available, affordable accommodation and precarious short-term house and room rentals, despite her professional backgro...

In this episode Zola interviews Steven Liaros to discuss the importance and the roadmap to create a network of Circular Economy Villages (CEV).

These villages aim to integrate private housing development with public infrastructure to alleviate stress on local governments and create sustainable, regenerative rural and peri-urban communities.

Steven delves into the critical barriers that traditional eco-village projects face, such as...

In this episode, host Zola interviews Zahra Lightway about her tour of eco villages across Australia, India, and Europe.

The conversation explore what made the ecovillages she visited successful, mainly a robust governance system, income-earning programmes and opportunities, a shared worldview (values and beliefs), and mission-driven activities.

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In this episode of the Homefulness Show, host Zola Rose engages  with Jo, the chair of the Hemp Builders Association in New Zealand, and Barbara, a resident of a hempcrete home, to explore the benefits and potential of hempcrete as a sustainable building material.

Jo discusses hempcrete's ability to sequester carbon, its role in mitigating the housing...

Zola explores the concept of regenerative real estate with Neal Collins, founder of the Regenerative Real Estate Podcast and Choose Latitude. The discussion delves into transformative housing models that prioritize sustainability, community engagement, and affordability.

Zola shares her personal journey of finding a suitable site for her tiny home, emphasizing the importance of shifting from an ownership mindset to a stewardship a...

In this episode, host Zola Rose discusses what creates successful community-led housing (CLH) with guest Thomas Moore, a senior lecturer in Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool.

They explore the concept of Enabling Hubs, a practical form of advocacy infrastructure, and why these Hubs are so important for overcoming the challenges communities face in achieving affordable and sustainable housing for themselves.  Tom ...

In this special episode of the Homefullness Show, host Zola Rose sits down for an engaging interview with her daughter Oriah, a law student at Otago University in New Zealand.

They explore Oriah's unique upbringing in an off-grid homestead in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

Topics include their unconventional home setup with indoor and outdoor 'loos,' the transition from a suburban lifestyle to a self-sufficient homestead, their meani...

Sophie, a public works advisor at Land Information New Zealand, discusses her PhD in law, focusing on achieving housing affordability through collective housing, and cooperative housing in particular.

The conversation covers various aspects, including the lack of research and public awareness on collective housing in New Zealand, her personal experiences with different housing systems in Europe, and the role of local and central go...

In the latest episode of the Homefullness Show, I interview Trypp West, the founder of an urban community called Springfed in Boulder, Colorado (USA).  He describes the founding of Springfed, a community that started as his thesis project and has continued for the past three years. The community operates on a non-residential model with the meeting place being his rented farmhouse where they hold fortnightly potlucks and Sunday gard...

 Gentle density is a term in Australia for infill housing development in urban areas, to create more housing within existing neighbourhoods, also known as incremental development in the U.S. 

In this episode, I interview Mark and Lynda Utting on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland Australia.  They share about their way of developing housing in their backyard to give a great place to live to the future residents. 

They are able to do t...

The Sharing with Friends housing model was born out of a burning desire for housing justice for single older women who are in the "missing middle"--who do not qualify for social housing but also can't afford market rental or to buy their own home and who are living on the edge of housing insecurity. 

The unique co-housing model provides an affordable, secure, and connected way of living where five women, who self-select, share a sp...