00:00 Hello OG, my name is Ronnie. Let me introduce to you our
00:04 regenerative living where we embrace ancient wisdom and frugal innovation.
00:10 Welcome to Maka Forest Villa. Come and let me tour you around.
00:14 This was once a poultry.
00:28 In 2019 we transferred here from Manila to Alfonso Cavite and we built slowly a
00:35 repurposed
00:37 poultry farm into a Maka Forest Villa what you see right now.
00:41 Regenerative living is about getting the resources from around this place.
00:46 Getting the wood, timber, the bamboos and the soil most importantly. And so what we did
00:54 is very important to us because we nurture
00:58 what resources we have here instead of using the finite resources like cement, sand and gravel.
01:06 Which is far more harming to our environment when you extract it.
01:11 So we got the property in 2018. We transferred in 2019.
01:21 We got so in love with the property because of the
01:25 cold and foggy atmosphere of Alfonso Cavite.
01:29 Aside from that you're going to have all the oxygens in the place because we are surrounded with
01:36 lots of trees. And you know what? There is the so-called
01:41 fight on side that you will be inhaled when you do our forest bathing right there.
01:48 Wherein it helps you on your immunity and that's what we've been doing during the lockdown.
01:53 So one of the most important features of our place are
02:00 the brutal
02:03 exposure of these columns. You will see the imperfections, the perfectly imperfect, the wabi-sabi
02:10 aesthetics where we use it on every details of what you will see.
02:15 You can see an antipolo table with a base of
02:18 excess material from our construction materials. Here's an example of one of our
02:24 innovations. This is the kokedama, the Japanese kokedama, which is covered with termite soil. As you can see
02:30 even the facade are clad with reeds. We help the artisans.
02:36 We help people who are creating this to be able to generate jobs.
02:42 Here you can see we were able to develop things which are called frugal innovations.
02:49 Really cheap, about 60% to 80%. You'll be able to save money.
02:55 So here is one of our frugal innovations, which is called the bio pool, which is made of
03:05 termite soil,
03:08 clay, and charcoal. The water is natural. It comes from our deep well.
03:13 We don't use any chlorine at all. About three to five days it becomes mossy.
03:18 We just replace it and give it back to our water table or aquifer. So that's how clean the water is. Look at this.
03:25 It's bluish and
03:27 you can dip on it. It's natural temperature. We
03:31 only spend about
03:34 500 pesos. That's the price of the cement. The rest is free.
03:39 So here is another
03:45 space where we create a lot of ponds where
03:49 you will see a lot of dragonflies, fireflies actually. They roam here. They hover around
03:55 because what we want is to have
04:00 biodiverse places where they can thrive with us. You can see also that we have here
04:08 a yakisugi
04:10 type of wood where we char the wood and then eventually
04:14 if you don't need it anymore, it will rot and become part of the soil where
04:21 lots of things will healthily grow. A healthy plant means healthy humans.
04:30 [Music]
04:32 So here in this place
04:36 we planted 17 endangered
04:39 native and endemic trees. Actually we have here about 75 native and endemic trees, which is very crucial to
04:48 biodiversity at Maca Forest Villa.
04:51 You will see all of the trees here such as balayong where we use as
04:57 ship building during the Spanish period. We have kalumpit,
05:01 balitbitan,
05:03 pili,
05:05 and all the
05:06 interesting endangered trees. You can also see here a
05:10 local technique of building their house. One of my staff built their house out of adobe
05:17 blocks like this. And so we tried it without any reinforcement or shall I say we only use
05:25 bamboo as reinforcement. So with this kind of technique, frugal innovation, you'll be able to build your own
05:33 bungalow house already.
05:36 Okay, so here you will not believe this. This was once hips of manure and haze.
05:46 These are wastes from the polka farm. And so what we did is turn it into a
05:54 waterfall, which is a very relaxing to hear. We're going towards our
05:58 staycation rooms wherein we have
06:01 five rooms in Wabi-Sabi fashion. Come on!
06:05 So we have five rooms all together. Two of them have private heated spa bath. The other one have
06:13 outdoor
06:15 shower vibe. So the other two rooms have forest deck view which have great access to the forest.
06:23 You might be able to
06:25 experience also
06:27 seeing
06:28 civets. So the rooms are all about
06:32 36 square meters to 42 square meters each. We don't have air conditioning because in Alfonso, it's very
06:40 cool. Because of that, we only
06:43 use earth as plastering. We eliminate or reduce the use of paint as much as possible.
06:51 That is because we want to reduce also the usage of chemicals.
06:55 When you use chemicals, you kill the microorganisms of the soil as well.
06:59 Here at Maka, it always rains.
07:04 We'd rather embrace it rather than ask for a sun. The smell of the soil, the trickle of the rain,
07:12 it's wonderful. It
07:14 connects us
07:16 more with our environment.
07:19 [Music]
07:21 We are developing a community of like-minded people.
07:30 Soon, within this year, we will be offering
07:33 house and lot developments using the principle of regenerative architecture.
07:39 Now, you'll be able to enjoy living in harmony with the environment.
07:47 Nature gave us a lot. All that you need is available
07:52 here in your place. So all you have to do is get your resource from there.
07:58 Just do not abuse it. Do not over consume.
08:01 It's very cheap. It's very practical.
08:04 You don't need anything more than that.
08:08 I hope we made an impact and we inspire a lot of people, a lot of viewers of OG,
08:15 living the regenerative lifestyle.
08:17 We hope to see you again.
08:19 You can visit us here at Maka Forest Villa.
08:23 Bye!
08:25 If you have an interesting or inspiring story that you want to share, email us at stories.onlygood@gmail.com.
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