Transformation
Transformation is the binding philosophy of the project. Not reform — not fixing what exists — but creating new structures alongside the old ones. The project asks: what if we stopped trying to repair institutions and instead built alternatives?
“We hope to stimulate discussion so that people question the fixation on the accumulation of material goods that is dominant in today’s Western societies due to capitalism, hoping to arrive more at a philosophy of being.”
Four Dimensions
Transformation is not a single axis. It unfolds across four interconnected dimensions, each reinforcing the others.
Economic Transformation
From capitalist accumulation toward commons-based, community-embedded economies. The unconditional basic income is not redistribution from the middle to the bottom — it is an incentive for entrepreneurial activity and social responsibility. Money currently spent on welfare bureaucracy, on ever-expanding diagnostic and intervention systems, could flow directly to people and projects.
The farm demonstrates this in miniature: neighborly exchange (tractor help for field access, firewood for services), shared resources, local production. Not a rejection of markets, but an embedding of economic activity in social relationships.
Social Transformation
Rebuilding what has been lost: cohesion, belonging, identity-promoting narratives. The Irish philosopher John O’Donohue provides the vocabulary — belonging as social and emotional connectedness, thresholds as conscious transitions in life.
The project creates social structures that modern life has dissolved: intergenerational living (elders and youth under one roof), diverse professional communities (roofers and philosophers), male role models present in children’s lives. These are not programs — they are the natural byproduct of people living and working together.
Cultural Transformation
Heritage preservation meets cultural renewal. The 1884 farmstead is not a museum — it is a living space where Wilhelmine doors coexist with modern heat pumps. Polish literature is read aloud in the evenings. Music — from Chopin to heroic film scores — fills the barn. Furniture is restored, jam labels are designed, objects are made.
The Polish-German connection is central. Rooted in the educational exchange legacy of Andrzej Jaczewski, it brings emotional and social geographies from Polish literature into the project’s cultural life. Tokarczuk, Huelle, Gombrowicz, Reymont — these writers open perspectives that German discourse alone cannot provide.
Ecological Transformation
Not as ideology, but as practice. Ecological building materials in the stable renovation. A heat pump instead of a central fireplace — the decision was debated, and ecological honesty won over sentiment. Fallow pastures supporting biodiversity. Fruit trees bearing again. A walnut tree nursed back from a stub.
The farm is not off-grid or self-sufficient — that is not the goal. The goal is reduced mobility, local production, and a relationship with the land that is attentive rather than extractive.
The Interaction
The key insight is that these four dimensions cannot be pursued in isolation. Economic transformation without social embedding produces Silicon Valley. Social transformation without ecological awareness produces suburban sprawl. Cultural transformation without economic justice produces gentrification.
The transformative community project is an attempt to hold all four together — in one place, with real people, across real seasons.
