Eco-place experience • Campus de la Transition

Table of contents

The Transition Campus is a true living-lab which makes daily experience of a happy sobriety. Experiences in the garden, valorisation of a soft mobility, debates on various topics: life at the Campus is rich and as much as possible guided by conviviality and care.

In this living-lab, one adheres to an area of freedom which, far from forcing, allows everyone to take their place. Sovereignty, co-responsibility, benevolent listening... so many principles that cement the collective.

Several key moments are taking place in the weeks of Campusians such as the morning word or the café terrain, which are important milestones for depositing, listening, discussing, circulating information and, above all, connecting.

Shared Existence

Reason to be

The mission of the Shared Existence Center is to organize the on-site life of residents in accordance with the reception mission and the ecological and social values of the place, to ensure the care of the collective life and to bear witness to this experience of common life at the service of the transformation of our ways of life.

Common life is particularly related to the territory, the management of short-term volunteers and the care of people within the association.

The inhabitants of the castle

The community is forcing

9 members of the association made the choice to live and sometimes work on site, serving the Campus. They are called "forjoies", with the same name as the inhabitants of the village of Forges, while bringing a little joy.

The Companion Community

Researcher in residence, civic service or internship: 9 young people chose to experience community life at Campus for a few months. They are called companions.

Intermittents

Each employee can be accommodated on an ad hoc basis if he or she so wishes.

The volunteers

To accomplish our mission of training and welcoming groups in immersion in the eco-location, we need the precious volunteer support. So we offer volunteer stays to help us for periods between 3-6 weeks. An opportunity to come live concretely the Transition and experience life as a collective.

The program: participation in DIY construction projects, cooking, accommodation, forest management, vegetable garden...

Become a volunteer

Join us as a volunteer

Anchoring in the Territory

The anchoring in a place of inhabitants is a great chance for the immersive experience offered to those who come in formation. Together, they seek to embody a sober and supportive life at the service of the Transition Campus project.

The inhabitants of the eco-location voluntarily ensure the link with the territory: the involvement of the Campus in the territory progresses in 2024 on several levels.

More and more employees, civic volunteers and volunteers come from a radius of less than 50 km.

There were three youth group receptions from the Montereau Local Mission in 2024 under the Living Together Transition program.

A partnership agreement was signed with Objective Terre 77, an association of general interest offering manual workshops in connection with the ecological and social transition (crafts, bakery, ...) in Seine and Marne.

In terms of events, the association organizes each month discovery days each in order to present our activities and the field.

In January 2024, a Forges meeting on agricultural issues allowed for dialogue between farmers and farmers, as well as researchers on conventional and organic farming issues.

In terms of network, the association participates in the programming committees of the European Leader fund (programme financed by the European Agricultural Fund and Development of the Rural Area) and nourishes the links between actors and actors of the territory through the meetings of the Community of Communes of the Country of Montereau.

Hospitality

Accomodation

The accommodation team, supported by many short-term volunteers, allowed in 2024 the reception of 2160 nights, spread over 93 different nights.

A total of 65 groups were welcomed to Forges, 51 of which slept on site.

From the garden to the plate

Some 30 species were grown in the vegetable garden in 2024, for a total of 3,000 kilograms of fruit and vegetables, which represents a substantial part of what is thought and concocted by the kitchen team.

Organic, local and seasonal cuisine remains very popular with locals, volunteer learners and learners on the eco-location. Time in the kitchen allows you to familiarize yourself with tasty vegetarian cuisine.

On the orchard side, no less than 1,000 kilograms of apples have been processed into organic apple juice!

The Campus, a committed actor of the Oasis network

This network, led by the Oasis Cooperative, now includes more than 1100 collective eco-locations that experience new ways of living together : participatory habitats, eco-hammers, collective farms, etc...

The Campus is member of the Oasis Cooperative which accompanies those who live or wish to live in collective eco-locations: oasis.

The Oasis of the Transition Campus shares the cooperative's common values :

Sobriety,
sharing,
solidarity,
resilience,
and conviviality.

Thanks to its approaches in terms of agroecology, eco-construction, mutualisation, respectful governance and openness to the world - the five fundamental principles of the Oasis Cooperative - the Campus actively participates in the development of new ecological and solidarity places that shape the world of tomorrow.

Historically, the Campus has collaborated with the Cooperative Oasis to organize study trips to the Oasis for students of the T-Campus. (external link) These trips are now offered throughout France by the Cooperative.

The Campus participates annually in the Oasis festival, the annual meeting of French eco-locations. As such, the members present conduct workshops, describe the project's experience to people who wish to create or join a collective eco-location, and exchange with other people in eco-locations.

Research work

Three researchers from the Transition Campus initiated with Mathieu Labonne, president of the Oasis Cooperative, a research project on the application of the relational capacity indicator in eco-locations.

This initial work, supported by ADEME as part of a grant to the Oasis Cooperative, showed its relevance and a more extensive study was launched in 2021 to see how to apply this indicator in detail to eco-locations.

Further information

Since 2024, the Campus has been an actor in the Observatoire des éco-lieux, whose raison d'être is to:

The principles of action research are based on those developed by Ecodev, the working seminar conducted by Cécile Renouard in connection with the Codev laboratory of ESSEC.

This 5-point definition highlights co-identification:

initial problems,
scientific rigour combined with flexibility,
a shared ethical framework,
indicators of progress
and a reflexive posture.

This observatory, supported by the Cooperative Oasis, is animated by a collective composed of people interested in the research subjects, whether or not researchers, living in an eco-location or not and works in collective intelligence.