Cottagecore typology - a manifesto

[Third in a short series of posts, this one inspired by a conversation with Aga P]

Typology: "In planning and architecture, typology is the classification of characteristics found in buildings and places, according to their association with different categories, such as intensity of development (from natural or rural to highly urban), degrees of formality, and school of thought (for example, modernist or traditional). Individual characteristics form patterns. Patterns relate elements hierarchically across physical scales (from small details to large systems)" - from Wikipedia.

In writing about my ongoing move to a more rural environment, I would like to expand upon the 'why' and the 'where' and how this could be part of a trend that reshapes the way we live. A way of life that rebalances human priorities.

Where

I started looking for a place outside the capital's economic orbit. Beyond the exurbs, beyond what is normally considered commuterland. Two and only two criteria mattered, and mattered equally. One - I had to fall in love with the landscape, the spirit of place. Two - it had to be within easy reach by train to the centre of Warsaw.

Spirit of place is crucial to me - I am highly sensitive to it, to the lie of the land, how it changes across the seasons. I spent three years to November 2017 scouting for a place that would appeal to my emotions. I feel that suburban life in Jeziorki has reached a tipping point - traffic has become unacceptably heavy now that the S7 extension runs through, bisecting my rambles across fields that are in any case filling up with new housing developments and logistics centres. Yearning for peace and quiet beyond the farthest fringes of Warsaw, I began my search.

I found what I was after in Jakubowizna, surrounded by apple orchards and pine-and-beechwood forests, a gently undulating landscape on sandy soil that reminded me of two favourite places from childhood, Oxshott Common, Surrey, and Stella-Plage in northern France.

Proximity to the railway line is key. On Thursday, after our big gala dinner, I left the centre of Warsaw, catching the last train from W-wa Śródmieście to Chynów at 23:34 to be back on my działka at 00:45. An entirely acceptable witching hour. 

Now, W-wa Jeziorki is around halfway from the city centre and Chynów (nine stations from Śródmieście to Jeziorki, eight stations from Jeziorki to Chynów). My search for a działka began closer to home - around Ustanówek, four stations from Jeziorki. Yet the spirit of place at Ustanówek failed to click with me. It's a hugely personal thing, this. You can aesthetically prefer one road home to another, parallel road, choosing it even though it's slightly longer. The lie of the land, the effect a given landscape has on our consciousness, is hard to quantify - but I feel it. It's about wanting to be there. There is a spiritual aspect to this, metaphysical almost - that sense of atavistic familiarity and preference. And it was around Chynów that I deeply felt that sense of place. "All that's missing is the sea" - or indeed any water feature (the Vistula is 10km from my działka - too far for a casual stroll there and back, there are no lakes or even ponds nearby). That's the only aesthetic drawback for me - not a major one. Otherwise - here's a place I won't get bored of, and that's unlikely to be drowned by a wave of development as Warsaw inexorably spreads outward.

How

This is not a return to the land. This is not even the move of a suburban child to the countryside of his father - for my father grew up within a mile and half of the centre of Warsaw. If anything, this is a move to the countryside of my paternal grandmother, who was born some 20 miles south-west from Chynów. 

This is a move enabled by technology. Without the 'information superhighway' (as today's online world was first envisaged), I would not be here in Jakubowizna. In daily life, I am instantly connected to the global pulse; I do 90% of my work online (if I don't have to have a physical meeting I won't); I have typically around ten Teams or Zoom or Skype calls a week. I am in touch, up to date, despite being far from the urban centre. This is revolutionary; I have spent nearly all of my life (with the exception of four student years) within ten miles of a capital city, and have commuted into to its centre every working day for 40 years. Until the pandemic - and that sudden realisation that for many categories of work, physical presence is not a prerequisite. And now - time to take stock.

The online world has transformed many aspects of human life, but the geographic transformation effect will be enormous. Distance no longer has meaning. Full-remote workers take their laptops to the Canary Islands or Tenerife and work from there. For those not tied to a factory, building site or surgery, service-sector work has been liberated from the tyranny of having to show up at the office from nine to five, Monday to Friday.

A crucial aspect of life on the działka is my regular walk to Chynów and back to buy food. Shopping at Top Market means buying what I can carry (in practice up to 11kg in my rucksack). It's a five-kilometre round trip, so there's no food waste, as I don't like carrying stuff all that way that will end up as compost. This means planning meals, keeping tabs on what's in stock, what's about to run out and what's urgently needed. Yes, I could ride into town on one of my motorbikes - but that's not the point. Walking 10,000 paces a day is central to my way of life, and the 8,000 paces or so to buy food is an intrinsic part of my lifestyle.

What

The minimum of house, the maximum of land. A big house means big maintenance and heating costs. So the answer is a small house, powered exclusively by solar-generated electricity. The eight panels (maximum power 3.4kWh) have been calculated to balance out over the year, giving enough power for light, hot water, oven, fridge, laptop, device chargers across the year plus heating from late September to early May. No gas other than an 11kg propane-butane cylinder for cooking. My house is connected to the sewage system, so there's no septic tank. Also important is the fact that my street is paved - I have asphalt all the way to the station, freedom from muddy feet.

Finally, the aesthetics of the land. Here, I'm going wild - literally. I am opposed to the petrol-powered lawnmower, chainsaw or leaf-blower. An entirely organic approach to gardening - let it grow. With the exception of the lawn immediately surrounding the house, the rest of the grassland is returning to meadow; new trees are sowing themselves, giving me the chance to decide which to leave and which to prune back or remove. Meadow means meadow flowers which means bees and butterflies in profusion. Longer grass, greenery, means I am allowing more photosynthesis to occur than had I kept a neatly-mowed lawn. We will all have to get used to this - unkempt gardens will develop as an aesthetic unto themselves.

Surrounded by trees, by nature, I have rebalanced to a calmer existence where focus on spiritual matters can be achieved more readily.

This time last year:
Ego, Consciousness and Soul

This time two years ago:
Samopoczucie, Joy and the Sublime Aesthetic

This time four years ago:
Autumn, with a railway theme

This time five years ago:
A few words about coincidence

This time eight years ago:
Hello, pork pie [my week-long pork-pie diet]

This time ten years ago:
The meaning of class - in England, in Poland

This time 11 years ago: 
First frost 

This time 15 years ago:
First frost 
[no frost forecast for at least the next seven days]