Ecotopia is a Social Cooperative Enterprise based in Kalochori, a small rural community in Epirus, north-western Greece. We work on community-led rural regeneration by connecting the reuse of existing buildings and land with social inclusion, cultural heritage, local knowledge, environmental stewardship and new forms of rural living.
Our work responds to challenges common to many peripheral and depopulating rural areas in Europe: vacant and deteriorating traditional buildings, population decline, loss of local skills and knowledge, underused agricultural land, weak local services and the increasing disconnection of younger generations and diaspora communities from their places of origin.
Ecotopia develops practical, place-based responses through several interconnected initiatives:
• Ecotopia | Homes — a developing model for identifying, documenting, restoring and bringing vacant or underused traditional rural houses back into social use. The initiative combines adaptive reuse, heritage conservation, traditional building skills, owner and diaspora engagement, community participation and pathways towards rural repopulation.
• The Living House pilot — our first prospective demonstration project: the restoration of a deteriorated two-storey traditional stone house in the centre of Kalochori as a non-commercial social, cultural and educational house. It is intended to host volunteers, trainees, researchers and people exploring a transition from urban to rural life, while providing practical learning in household stewardship, traditional skills, food production and community life.
• Traditional building and skills transmission — we aim to use restoration processes themselves as learning environments, involving local craftspeople, architects, engineers, educational institutions and civil-society partners in the transmission of skills related to stone masonry, lime mortars, timber structures, traditional roofs, courtyards, terraces, water systems and other elements of vernacular rural architecture.
• Social Agropark of the Kalamas Valley — a community-based agroecology initiative combining food production, traditional crops, seed knowledge, biodiversity, practical education and land stewardship.
• Community infrastructure and social economy — Ecotopia operates the village community café as a local meeting point and social hub, and develops activities around community services, cultural events, learning, volunteering and cooperative rural development.
• Cultural and environmental documentation — our work includes oral histories, family and diaspora archives, local heritage, citizen participation and environmental action connected with the Kalamas Valley.
Our approach is strongly aligned with the New European Bauhaus values of sustainability, beauty and togetherness. We are particularly interested in projects addressing the adaptive reuse of vacant buildings, rural and territorial regeneration, circular and regenerative approaches to the built environment, vernacular architecture, cultural heritage, participatory governance, social innovation and innovative models for bringing underused assets back into community use.
Ecotopia can contribute to European projects as a rural pilot and demonstration site, community-based implementation partner, social-economy actor and local stakeholder connector. We can provide access to real rural contexts, buildings and land, relationships with property owners and diaspora families, community participation, local implementation capacity, qualitative documentation and testing of place-based solutions.
We are particularly interested in joining transdisciplinary consortia involving universities, research organisations, municipalities, architects, engineers, cultural-heritage organisations, social-economy actors, rural communities and civil-society organisations.
For the 2026 NEB Facility, we are especially interested in cooperation around the reuse of vacant or underutilised spaces, sustainable repair and maintenance of existing and heritage buildings, community-led regeneration, rural neighbourhood transformation and new social or financial models for adaptive reuse.