Happy Castle Art Camp

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Forming
  • Ecological
  • Rural

Founding year

  • 2020

What we do

Happy Castle Art Camp is an experimental off-grid eco-village, art space, and festival community located on 160 acres of high desert in New Mexico. Built on principles of sustainability, radical self-expression, skill-sharing, and cooperative living, Happy Castle is more than just a place to live—it’s a place to create, learn, and build a new way of life.
At the heart of our project is the Happy Castle Art Festival, a three-day immersive experience celebrating large-scale interactive art, participatory culture, and communal living. Inspired by the ethos of temporary autonomous zones and the DIY spirit, our festival serves as both a funding model for the commune and a vibrant testing ground for alternative ways of being. We provide grants for artists to construct permanent, semi-permanent, and temporary installations, creating an ever-evolving landscape of creativity.
Beyond the festival, Happy Castle is an intentional community that operates year-round, welcoming residents, artists, and visitors to contribute to our shared vision. Our off-grid infrastructure is centered around Superadobe Earthbag domes, permaculture gardens, and sustainable water and energy systems, offering a real-world model for regenerative, low-impact living. We host workshops, skill-shares, and hands-on building projects in topics such as natural construction, rainwater harvesting, DIY solar, permaculture, and more—equipping people with the knowledge and tools to build their own sustainable futures.
We believe in a participatory governance model, where decisions are made through consensus-based processes to ensure collective ownership of our shared space. Our members engage in a rotating labor system that balances practical needs with personal passions, allowing individuals to contribute in ways that align with their strengths and interests.
Happy Castle is not just a commune—it’s an ongoing experiment in rethinking community, economy, and the relationship between art and sustainable living. Whether you come to help build, create art, attend a workshop, or simply experience life outside the confines of modern capitalism, we invite you to join us in shaping this ever-growing project.
For more information, visit our website or come see what we’re building firsthand!

Our Mission

Mission Statement

Happy Castle is an off-grid high-desert eco-village, art space, and experimental community dedicated to sustainability, creative expression, and cooperative living. Our mission is to build a radically accessible alternative to the isolating and destructive systems of modern society by fostering a self-sufficient, artistically vibrant, and ecologically responsible way of life. Through shared resources, hands-on education, entrepreneurship, and participatory culture, we empower individuals to take control of their lives while contributing to something greater than themselves.
At Happy Castle, we believe that sustainable living shouldn’t be a privilege—it should be accessible, replicable, and scalable. By combining permaculture, alternative architecture, and regenerative technologies with art, communal living, and festival culture, we aim to demonstrate new ways of living that reconnect people to each other and the land.
More than just a place to live, Happy Castle is an evolving movement—a living model of what’s possible when creativity, cooperation, and sustainability intersect. Our vision extends beyond our own community, seeking to inspire and support the wider eco-village movement in reshaping the future of human civilization.

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Community type
  • Cohousing
  • Coliving
  • Student Co-op
  • Sustainability practices
  • Renewable energy systems
  • Water conservation and management
  • Regenerative agriculture or permaculture
  • Permaculture design
  • Activities
  • Farming
  • Education
  • Experiences
  • Networking
  • Services Business
  • Others

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2020
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2025
  • Started living together

Gallery

  • 7 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
7

How to join

Becoming a member of Happy Castle starts with getting to know the community and our way of life. We encourage prospective members to visit, volunteer, and participate in our Build Days and events to experience the culture firsthand. The membership process includes an application, an interview, and a trial residency period, where applicants can integrate into daily life, contribute to projects, and ensure a good mutual fit.
If you’re interested in joining, visit the How to Join page on our website to apply!

Basic expectations or agreements for members

If you’d like to visit Happy Castle, there are a few ways to experience the project firsthand. Right now, our land is mostly undeveloped, but you can camp on-site and support the community by renting a campsite through Hipcamp. This is a great way to immerse yourself in the desert landscape while directly contributing to the growth of the project.
For those who want to get more involved, we plan to soon begin regularly hosting volunteer Build Days, where visitors can learn hands-on skills in Superadobe construction, off-grid infrastructure, and large-scale art building. These events are a great opportunity to connect with the community, gain valuable experience, and help shape the community from the ground up.
To stay updated on upcoming Build Days, events, and visiting opportunities, check out our website, where we post details on how to participate!

Primary decision-making authority

  • Small Leadership Group

A few people (not elected by the broader community) make the major decisions.

Decision-making process

  • Modified Consensus

Generally seek agreement, but have backup methods when consensus isn’t reached.

Governance structure

  • Collaborative/Horizontal

Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.

Conflict resolution approach

Happy Castle operates simultaneously as a commune, educational organization, and cooperatively owned and managed festival business enterprise, blending the typical roles and responsibilities of community life with community-centered entrepreneurship. Our structure includes semi-autonomous committees, called Community Camps, each responsible for different aspects of community life, such as infrastructure, food production, water management, accounting, events organizing, and creative projects. These camps collaborate and coordinate through regular communication and provide updates at our monthly Town Council meetings, where key decisions are made collectively. This system allows for both independence and cooperation, ensuring that the community remains adaptable, participatory, and aligned with our shared vision.

Economic model

  • Partial Income-Sharing

Members contribute a percentage of income to community funds.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • There is a labor obligation

Additional economic information

Labor: Yes (25 hrs/week)
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed
Happy Castle isn’t just a community—it’s also a cooperative business enterprise designed to sustain and grow our shared vision. Our primary source of revenue comes from the Happy Castle Art Festival, a large-scale event that funds the development of our infrastructure while showcasing our creative and communal spirit. Beyond the festival, we generate income through ongoing events, workshops, and classes, including Dome School, where we teach hands-on Superadobe building techniques.
Our campground, featuring rentable cabins and immersive art installations, offers visitors a chance to experience off-grid desert community living while directly supporting the project. Over time, we aim to expand our communal ventures, from permaculture and reforestation efforts to craft and product sales, ensuring both sustainability and financial stability.
To support those who contribute their time and labor, we plan to provide a daily stipend to full-time members, covering basic personal needs while keeping individual costs low. However, in our early stages, most incoming members will be responsible for their own room and board, as we rapidly build housing, increase self-sufficiency, and grow our communal income. Aside from funds raised through our Kickstarter campaign and personal commitments of $100,000 from our founders, which will go toward materials and labor costs, the community’s development relies on collaborative effort and shared investment in our future.

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Greenhouse(s), Vehicle Share, Library, Workshop, Large Scale Kitchen, Tractor & Farm Equipment, Stage or Auditorium, Fire pit, Swingsets & play areas, Gym or sports area

Frequency of communal meals

  • 1-3 times per month

Dietary restriction

  • People can cook and eat what they want in their own residence

Community activities and engagement

  • Transition Town (post-petroleum and off-grid communities.)
  • School, Educational Institute or Experience
  • Volunteer, Internship, or Apprenticeship, or WWOOF’ing
  • Ethical Business, Investment Group, or Alternative Currency
  • Organization, Resource, or Network
  • WWOOF'ing, Guest Farming
  • Festivals, Conferences, Events

Substance use culture

  • Substance use appears in public spaces but no pressure

Gender composition

  • Majority non-binary/gender diverse (over 30%)

Age demographics

  • Mixed adults (few or no children)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Property owner

  • By a Land Trust, Home Owners Association, or corporation

Setting

  • Rural

Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.

Sustainability approach

  • Renewable energy systems
  • Water conservation and management
  • Regenerative agriculture or permaculture
  • Permaculture design

Land practices in our community

  • The community practices permaculture

Self-produced energy

  • Over 66%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • 33 - 66%

Food systems

  • Greenhouse / aquaponics

Source of water

  • Rainwater capture and storage for use (barrels, cisterns, etc.)
  • Land area size
    160 acres

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • New Mexico, United States

Happy Castle Art Camp

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

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Need
  • Forming Communities
3 weeks ago

Looking for: people building relational capacity, with a view to community

What’s here now: An intention, a framework developed over five years, and a programme running in central Victoria to find people to build with. No land, no group, no timeline. The question this is organised around: What makes a community of people living together sustainable over decades – where people enjoy being there, conflict is low, and the conflict that does arise gets handled in ways people value. The distinctive premise is capacity before formation. Most communities form first and build relational skill afterwards, usually under pressure. This one proposes doing it the other way round: people build the capacities first, and the group forms from people who have them. That includes a working idea about collective capacity – that a group has a ratio, and below some threshold it can’t metabolise its own conflict and starts consuming itself. Roughly: in a group of twenty, perhaps three or four with high capacity, most in the middle, and very few without. Untested, and something this project exists to find out. Governance: Sociocracy, with the intention of testing it meaningfully at scale rather than adopting it nominally. What’s actually happening: A three-week residency at a property near Castlemaine, and a practice group running before it. The medium-term aim is twenty to forty people at a rented facility. The long-term aim is a support hub sharing the framework more widely. What I’m looking for: People who want to build this capacity seriously, and who might eventually want to build something together. Not necessarily people who want to live here – the current property probably isn’t the long-term site. Happy to hear from anyone this resonates with, including people already in community who’d rather share what they’ve learned than join anything.
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
5 days ago

Co-housing Unit For Sale in Portland Oregon

Light-filled 976 sq ft, 3-bedroom, 1-bath end unit in Columbia Ecovillage, Portland’sestablished cohousing community in the Cully neighborhood. With windows onthree sides, this ground-floor home gets natural light all day, even onPortland’s grey ones. The open living and dining area has warm hardwood floors and flows into akitchen with solid wood cabinets and granite counters. The dining roomwindows look straight into a native vine maple — a wall of green from springthrough fall. There’s good storagein the unit, plus an extra storage space in the community storage building.A ductless mini-split provides efficient heating and air conditioning, andthe plumbing was fully replaced in 2026. The primary bedroom has a full-width closet behind a sliding barn door; thesecond bedroom’s closet sits behind a pair of French doors. The thirdbedroom has no closet, which makes it a flexible room — guest room, office,or playroom. Step out the sliding glass door onto your own covered patio, which opens onto the community grounds: organic gardens, personal garden plots,greenhouses, a grape arbor, a bamboo grove, native plantings throughout, andtrees everywhere — including a truly massive old black walnut. The orchard alone is a reason to live here — to name a few:apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes,blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, in several varieties each. A75,000-gallon rainwater catchment system keeps it all watered through thesummer. Kids have a playhouse, sandbox, small soccer field, a favorite climbingtree, and a parking loop where bikes can circle but cars can’t; adults havea workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space and big community porches. The common hall is the heart of the village: a commercial kitchen anyresident can use, a kids’ play area, pool table and ping pong, and asoapstone stove that burns every winter evening. Residents can reserve it forevents for almost nothing. The historic farmhouse has guest rooms owners canbook for visiting family (about 30 nights a year). Shared laundry rooms(three washers and dryers) come with indoor drying racks and outdoorclotheslines, and there’s a craft room and a trade room where things you nolonger need find a new home next door. Potlucks, communitymeals, work parties, and acres of safe space for kids to roam makethis a rare chance to own a home and a neighborhood at the same time. Built in 1973 and fully remodeled in 2008–09 for energy efficiency and healthy indoor air — metal roof, HardiePlank siding, and standard community-built finishes throughout. Nothing to update, nothing deferred. The $522 monthly HOA coverswater, sewer, and garbage, plus the roof, siding, exterior paint, and allstructural maintenance — and it’s what pays for the grounds, the common hall,and everything else described above. And it’s close in: Cully’s cafés andparks are a short walk or bike ride away, the rest of Portland’s food,music, and neighborhoods are minutes beyond that, and the commute downtownor to the airport is easy by car, bus, or bike – 3.7-acre grounds with organic gardens, personal plots, greenhouses, native plantings, and mature trees (huge black walnut)- Orchard: apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries- 75,000-gallon rainwater catchment feeds the gardens year-round- Workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space, community porches  
  • Events
3 weeks ago

Restoring Choice - free online practice group, from Australia

Restoring Choice – free sessions and a practice group Many of us are less practised at three things than we realise: making clear requests, saying no when it isn’t a full yes, and hearing no without something getting damaged. These aren’t personality traits. They’re capacities that were trained out of many of us by ordinary structures – families where some needs were allowed and others weren’t, workplaces that reward overstretch. They can be trained back. Why this might interest people here Most communities teach communication after people arrive, once conflict has already surfaced. This works the other way round – building capacity first, and finding out what a group can do when most people already have it. What’s running Free 60-minute introduction, online. Same session each time; come to whichever suits. Register for intro session below: https://events.humanitix.com/reclaim-your-power-with-restoring-choice Four-week practice group, Tuesdays from 15 September, 6:30-8:00pm. One session a week, and at least one short written entry a day about a real situation in your own life. The writing is the actual work; the sessions support it. Sign up by Sunday 13 September. Register for practice group below: https://events.humanitix.com/restoring-choice-practice-group Everything is free. Times are Australian Eastern 6:30pm here is the early hours in most of the Americas. Worth checking before you register. Who it’s for No prior experience needed. It isn’t therapy, and I’m not a therapist. Many people find that looking honestly at how well they ask, decline, or hear a no is less flattering than expected. That’s common, and it isn’t a verdict on anyone. Run by Glenn Russo – 13 years practising this material, seven years co-facilitating an NVC practice group in Castlemaine. If you’re already living in community and would rather share what you’ve learned than join anything, I’d like to hear from you too.
  • Events
2 weeks ago

Harvest Moon Fellowship Fire Circle

Harvest Moon Fellowship Fire Circle WE Network Flagship Village – Clubb, MO Join us under the rising Harvest Moon for our monthly Fellowship Fire Circle as we align with Natural Law, celebrate our monthly birthdays, and hold space for community fellowship. When: Friday, September 25, 2026 (Gathering begins at dusk) Where: Flagship Village Grounds – Clubb, Missouri Who: Pioneers, trade-builders, families, and community supporters Astrological & Lunar Alignments The Harvest Moon in Aries: Sitting opposite the Sun in Virgo, this full moon illuminates Aries, bringing pioneer energy, bold action, initiative, and the drive to build. Virgo Birthdays: At this gathering, we celebrate all village members born under Virgo (harvesting skills, practical service, order, and detail). Natural Law & Elemental Alignment Earth & Water (Harvest & Storage): As the Autumnal Equinox turns the season, we honor the physical yields of our raw materials, soil stewardship, and long-term storage preparation. Fire & Air (Fellowship & Vision): We gather around the flames to heal the body, align with Natural Law, share upcoming trade shop plans, and build our parallel community ecosystem together. Seeking Foundational Elders We are actively recruiting our Four Elemental Elders (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) to help lead and anchor our flagship village. If you feel called to step into a leadership role for land stewardship, eco-upcycling, spiritual/body healing, or community systems, come connect with us at the fire. What to Bring: Camp chairs, blankets, and a spirit of fellowship. 👉 Details & Intake: Visit fffc.wtf
September 25, 2026 00:00 – September 27, 2026 23:59
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