The Line of Goodwill – An Urban Hillscape for Coexistence

Auroville 50 Years – A Next Step

A New Way of Collective Living

The Line of Goodwill Project is committed to develop in alignment with the ideals of Auroville and the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Based on all Auroville has learnt over the last 50 years the Line of Goodwill Project is committed to embody best practices in all fields.

The Project

The Line of Goodwill Project has brought together three broad strands of collaboration based on three broad requirements that need to be addressed in the near future, while making a planned next step for Auroville’s future urban growth as it reaches its 50th year: Habitat, Gateway, Matrimandir Visitor Reception and Access.

The Line of Goodwill is a project to build Line of Force 1

According to the Master Plan, Line of Force 1 extends from the outer ring road near to the Visitor Center main parking and arrives at the border of the Matrimandir Lake facing the West Gate of the Matrimandir.

This is the only Line of Force which marks Auroville’s full radius from the outer ring to the Soul of the City.

It marks the boundary of the Residential Zone and the International Zone.

The profile of the Line of Goodwill can be envisaged as a rising urban hillscape, where one can walk through rooftop gardens from the lowest level, G+1, by the Lake to the highest level, G+17, at the Gateway.

The Line of Goodwill, including the Gateway, will be light and airy and full of open spaces.

The Line of Goodwill project aspires to apply cutting edge alternative energy technologies, minimizing the carbon and social footprint from the very beginning including the construction phase. It aspires to be a green building in every sense, including the integration of nature (winds, water, plants) into the design and fabric and to be fully integrated into the surrounding nature.

The Gateway

“New Forms are needed for the manifestation of a new Force” The Mother

The Gateway aspires to receive and interact with the ever increasing numbers of visitors to Auroville from India and all over the world in a holistic way and to share Auroville’s spiritual and material adventure in human unity and unity in diversity.

The Gateway aspires to create space for Auroville to energize and transform its economic activities in accordance with the vision given by the Mother.

The Gateway will be located at the highest and most westerly end of the Line of Goodwill near the existing Visitors Centre main car park.

According to the Master Plan it is G+17 high.

Here visitors to Auroville, whether daily visitors, already approaching 1 million a year, or longer term guests, will find a richly interactive learning space where Auroville will share knowledge and participation in its creativity, research and application in all the various fields combined with a showcase for Auroville’s products, design and innovations of all kinds.

There will be information on Auroville, its history and purpose.

There will be exhibitions spaces to be used to convey the wide approach of Integral Yoga in all its aspects from the spiritual to the most material.

There will also be a wide variety of collective facilities for all Auroville’s units and activities to build contacts for Auroville through multi-media interactive exhibitions, conferences and workshops.

There will be collective facilities dedicated to conscious retailing in alignment with Auroville’s ideals.

There will be varied hospitality facilities including various kinds of guest accommodation, catering to different needs and representing the diversity of Auroville and its visitors.

Habitat

“A simple, rich and beautiful life for all.” Sri Aurobindo

The Residential area within the Line of Goodwill aspires be a prototype for the City and will be a living research laboratory for a new way of collective living in accordance with the ideals of Auroville.

According to the Master Plan, the Lines of Force in the Residential Zone are intended to manage the city’s growing density in balance with the environment.

Development of Line of Force 1 would bring a phased growth of 2000 to 8000 people, bringing Auroville to a first critical mass.

The current intention would be to develop accommodation for 2500 people in 5 phases of 500 people each between the Lake and the Crown.

Housing will be provided pro bono for people living and working in Auroville to help remove the sense of ownership and reinforce the sense of responsibility of stewardship. The project will cater for different ages and different family constellations and integrate different approaches and needs related to choice of lifestyle.

The ratio of open spaces to built-up area will be 45%, incorporating both social spaces and more private and quiet spaces.

Within the built up area 40% will be allocated to common faculties such as

Community eating spaces

Laundries

Food and Sundries outlets

Playgrounds, crèches, kindergartens and other educational facilities

Recreation and sports facilities

Health and Healing facilities.

Unlike current housing developments and particularly high-density ones that are often mere ‘dormitory’ spaces where inhabitants return at the end of the day to retire, this development deliberately includes a range of collective facilities and public spaces to create alive neighborhoods that are not deserted during the day. These areas contain activities for the residents while allowing an easy ‘coming together’; just as streets and plazas in the past were convenient meeting places of active contact and dialogue.

Though the built forms are contemporary, the spaces and enclosures will retain the spatial intimacy and hierarchy of small to large spaces as found in old traditional cities. The project aspires to demonstrate that high-density living need not compromise on human scale and intimate human interaction.

Matrimandir Reception and Access

“There will be a time of the week or the day ... when visitors will be allowed to come...” The Mother

The aspiration is to create different levels of access for all the visitors to the Matrimandir in such a way as to give all of them the opportunity to experience the deeper meaning and inner significance of Matrimandir while minimizing the impact of their presence on the daily life of Auroville.

It will include:

Viewing Points for the Matrimandir on different levels of the Line of Goodwill.

Access to the Viewing Points will be designed in such a way as to create a quiet atmosphere conducive to a meaningful experience for each visitor. Access to the Viewing Points will be from the Gateway and will be separated from the habitat area in such a way that the visitors presence does not intrude on the lives of the people living there.

A Visitor Reception Center in the vicinity of the Gateway specially designed to meet the complex needs for Matrimandir Booking and Reception.

A silent, non-polluting transport link from the Visitor Reception Center to the planned Reception Pavilion, near the Lake at the West Gate, to convey visitors for the Inner Chamber.

A Reception Pavilion at the West Gate of Matrimandir as specified in the Master Plan.

According to the Master Plan, there is a radial that runs the whole of the length of the Line of Force 1, from the outer Ring Road across the Crown and to the West Gate of Matrimandir.

This will form the Ground + 1 levels of the Line of Goodwill.

This area is envisaged to be a beautiful, green and quiet space creating an atmosphere which will prepare the visitors for their time in the Inner Chamber.

As well as walkways there will be a noise and pollution free vehicle system, for about 100 people, transporting visitors from the Matrimandir Visitor Reception Centre to the Reception Pavilion at the West Gate.

The aspiration is that this system will become a model for an all Auroville mobility system which is noise and pollution free, including collective and individual transport and, as a first step, that the Crown between Cirhu and Solar Kitchen would be free of all polluting traffic.