Community-owned living lab for regeneration on a Finnish farm

We envision KORE as a network of community-owned spaces reconnecting people with nature across Europe.

The Kore Project is a community‑owned tiny house located at Wiberg’s Farm (Kuusjoki, Finland), a sixth‑generation family farm roughly 1.5 hours from Helsinki. The house itself was designed and built by Aalto University’s Wood Programme, bringing together craft‑quality timber construction and ecological thinking.

We are transforming this student‑built structure into a shared, living prototype for regenerative living and collective stewardship. The co‑ownership model is simple: 20 to 50 members make an investment to finance the structure and regenerative activities in collaboration with the farm.

To ensure financial resilience and wider impact, the house also hosts overnight stays, workshops, and residencies for non‑members, with revenue reinvested into the growing community, upkeep, programming, and the farm partnership. 

It is the first node in a growing network of community-owned spaces for regenerative living, reconnecting people with nature across Europe. It begins as a tiny house on a regenerative farm in Salo, between Helsinki and Turku, designed from the start as a prototype others can adapt.

A year‑round programme rooted in regeneration Across the seasons, we will host:

• Nature‑rooted retreats and overnight stays that invite people to slow down and reconnect with nature, themselves and each other. 
• Co‑farming days and land stewardship activities in partnership with the Wiberg’s Farm.
• Workshops and learning experiences that build ecological literacy: how soil is built, how food systems can regenerate ecosystems, and how communities can care for a place together.
• Artist and design residencies, drawing on the local creative community and beyond, with outcomes shared back to both rural and urban audiences.

Your Support Helps With…

Equipping structure and site: Your support helps us complete the practical work needed to open KORE as a fully functioning living lab: finalising infrastructure, equipping the tiny house, and ensuring it can operate year‑round in a Nordic climate. This transforms a beautiful prototype into a robust, welcoming space where people can actually live, cook, work, and learn together.

Building a participatory governance model: We are designing KORE as a truly shared space, not just a booking platform. Funding allows us to implement participatory governance with members and local partners; prototype and test democratic decision‑making processes; and document them clearly so they can be reused by other communities.

Tracking Change & Impact

We track change across four areas that mirror our mission: community, land, learning, and replicability. We keep it light and practical, combining a few numbers with short reflections from members, guests, and our farm partner.

A thriving co‑owning community: We measure active co‑owning members, aiming for 20 to 50 within the first 12 months, with at least 80% retention year on year. We also track participation in our programme (retreats, co‑farming days, workshops, residencies) and the balance of member to non‑member visits. Once a year we ask members how they feel about belonging, ownership, and their connection to nature and each other.

Regenerating land alongside the farm: Because we work on a living farm transitioning to regenerative agriculture, we measure ecological impact together with Wiberg’s Farm. We track community labour hours, the area worked through co‑farming days, and a few simple indicators agreed with the farm, such as soil‑health observations and areas planted or restored. The aim is a real contribution to the farm’s regenerative work, captured in a short annual review.

Learning and ecological literacy: We count the workshops, learning experiences, and residencies delivered each year and the people they reach, rural and urban. After each one we gather brief feedback on what participants learned, and we capture residency outputs shared more widely. We also watch who takes part, tracking participation by women, youth, and groups often left out, so KORE stays inclusive.

We bring these together in a short annual impact review, shared openly so our learning stays transparent and honest about what is and isn’t working.

The People behind it

Michael and Didier are the founding duo. They met at Aalto University, where they both studied Creative Sustainability and went on to lead the Aalto Sustainability Club together. That experience, facilitating open, multi‑disciplinary conversations across the Aalto community, is essentially what KORE grew out of: a stubborn belief that good ideas only become real when people gather around them.

Johannes and Steven are the sixth generation on Wiberg's Farm in Kuusjoki, where the farmhouse dates back to the 1700s and the land has been tended continuously since 1873. They are bringing deep expertise in regenerative agriculture, community farming, and direct‑to‑consumer food systems, and a clear vision of cultivating food, forest, and community.