Valley of the Commons

Valley of the Commons is a four-week immersive pop-up community held in Höllental, in the Austrian Alps, an hour south of Vienna. The event unfolds across four themed modules: Foundations, led by Michel Bauwens and Adam Arvidsson, covering the history and theory of the commons; Economics, focused on local production, cosmo-local manufacturing, and value accounting; Future Living, exploring cooperative housing, land stewardship, and architectural retrofit concepts; and Governance & Funding, addressing participatory decision-making, cooperative legal structures, and long-term investment models. Participants move from theory into hands-on prototyping, fieldwork, and collaborative design throughout their stay, with on-site accommodation included.

The program is designed for digital workers, post-corporate professionals, remote-friendly entrepreneurs, researchers, architects, and community builders seeking grounded, cooperative alternatives to conventional urban and corporate life. Attendees should expect an experiential, workshop-driven format built around peer production, mutual credit systems, commons-based land trusts, and multi-stakeholder governance. The event is worth attending for those wanting to move beyond theoretical discussion of the commons movement into practical, sited proposals for permanent community living, economic resilience, and shared stewardship, alongside a network of practitioners already active in regenerative systems, DAOs, and cooperative economics.