The village is the campus
In 2027 the Sun Villages Institute opens a new kind of school. It teaches the Sun Villages Institute Model, and all the Institute's work, on live villages, with the people who live in them.
The village is the campus · 3 min · Watch on YouTube
One mark, six parts
The Institute teaches the method. The villages build it. Growers feed it. The co-op holds it.
The Sun Villages Institute sits at the centre of a small network: Young Street in Queanbeyan, the first village; Bungendore on the tablelands; the Narooma project at Kianga on the coast; the growers of the Food Plan; and the Sun Villages Co-operative, owned by its members. The LETS is the shared exchange that links every part. The Living Places Institute leads research and Story of Place.
The Institute holds fifty years of work in trust and gives it away. It licenses and certifies each village. The School of Village Making is how it teaches the method to the whole network.
Stina Kerans
Environmental developer and author. Stina has worked as a social entrepreneur since 1976. She created the model the Institute now teaches, and her question is where this school began.
She designed and built an early stand-alone solar home, co-designed and delivered houses and multi-unit developments including the 74 apartments at Young Street, and shared the International Sustainable Cities Award in Stockholm in 2002. Her book, Can't Buy Property?, is the course's core text, and she teaches Foundations herself.
Why can't the building itself be a centre for regeneration?
Stina Kerans
How this school is different
- The village is the campusLearning happens at Young Street, Bungendore and Kianga: in the hub, the barn, the garden and on the water.
- Learn it, then redo itEvery course is built on a real, finished project. Each cohort works out how it would do that project again, and its answer is written back into the course.
- Place firstEvery program opens by reading the place. A village in the wrong pattern for its place fails, however good the finance.
- Films are the textbooksThe Story of Place films and Sun Villages shorts carry the teaching. Every cohort adds footage and lessons.
- Elders teach, young people buildThe model puts elders at the centre of the village. The school puts them at the centre of teaching.
- The licence is graduationFinishing the pathway means a village is ready to join the Sun Villages network.
Nine programs, one ecosystem
Each program is built from live work in the ecosystem, so learners study what is being done, not what might be.
- Foundations of Village MakingThe Sun Villages Institute Model and the three design principles. Taught by Stina Kerans.
- Reading PlaceThe Living Places Institute method: 12 weeks, 6 phases, 16 steps.
- No Bank Debt DevelopmentStaged building, funds released on quantity surveyor certificates, develop and hold.
- Building for BelongingThe three design principles in built form, in studio and on site.
- Feeding the VillageThe Food Lab, the growers' network and food on the exchange.
- Water and the VillageThe closed water cycle, in the field at Kianga.
- The Village EconomyThe LETS, the SUN and the co-op rules, taught on the live exchange.
- Patient CapitalThe eight principles and protective lending terms. Principles only: no investment is offered in any course.
- Story and FilmThe Story of Place films, the footage library and the film standard.
All programs are non-accredited in the founding year.
From Learner to Teacher
One path for learning and for joining the network. Each stage matches a stage of the Sun Villages licence. Every learner takes one of five roles: Living Systems Advocate, Place Holder, Economic Agent, Designer or Community Keeper. A group needs all five before it builds.
- LearnerAffiliate. Attend a Village Day and complete Foundations.
- PractitionerCandidate. Read your own place in a 12-week cohort and form your group.
- StewardLicensed. A practicum on a live Sun Villages site, then build or convert your village.
- TeacherCertified, each year. Mentor a new group and write your lessons back into the course.
2027, quarter by quarter
Fees, dates and places are published before each program opens.
The School of Village Making
The full picture in 28 pages: the ecosystem, the curriculum, the licence principles, the Dean, the nine programs, the village exchange, the Food Lab, the Food Plan, the villages, the pathway and the founding year.
Download the document · PDFBegin with a visit
- Come to a site morningFriday community sessions run now at Young Street, and Village Days from early 2027.
- Register for FoundationsTwelve places in the pilot cohort, taught by Stina.
- Grow food? Join the exchangeList your food at sunvillages.trading and sell at the weekly market.
- Come to KiangaThe summer gathering at the Narooma project, 11 to 14 December 2026.
- Teach or research with usResearchers, growers, designers and teachers: write about the Food Lab and the Teaching Circle.
Founding-year courses are not accredited and do not lead to a recognised qualification. Nothing taught in any course is an offer of shares or financial advice. Images marked as illustrations are not designs of any site. The background picture on this page is an illustration of the village idea, not a photograph of a Sun Villages site.