“O nobilissima viriditas, quae radicas in sole…”
O noblest verdant life-force, rooted in the sun…
Hildegard von Bingen ·
Symphonia · c. 01150
An institution for the living city,
founded for millennia:
to grow enduring
ecosystems
benefiting
all.
city outlasts the people who build it by centuries or more. The seeds we plant in one age come to fruition in the next. The act of tending passes from our hands to our posterity’s.
Verdanward starts from a simple idea:
cities can be made alive.
Walls can be gardens; streets can harbour canopies;
water can be held in common reverence, sacred to us all. A living city is never finished. It requires nurture, balance, growth. The very same craft that helps our cities thrive on Earth will, over time, encourage life extending far beyond it:
into the high frontier.
That is the work this institution was founded to do.
Four words bloom from one.
A verdant ward:
a green quarter of the city,
and the duty of keeping it.
A Latin root for new growth;
the life-force quickening within all things.
An Old English suffix for guardianship;
its
meaning unbroken for twelve hundred years.
The name is a promise, as well as a map.
Our work is to follow through with both.
One trunk, four branches.
Listener. Thinker. Builder. Speaker.
Conversations with people who tend and cultivate living communities, from old growth mother trees to rising seedlings, from the sunlit canopy to fervent grass roots. Wisdom recorded slowly and preserved for future generations.
Strategic counsel for sustainable abundance. Patient research & active guidance for civilization-scale work: verdant cities, healthy systems, symbiotic evolution. Written for those who govern growth, on Earth and the worlds that follow.
Commissioned projects, R&D, and events in service of community. Regenerative urbanism, circular economies, and biophilic big ideas. Breaking ground for habitats that propagate beyond our gardens.
Books, music, films, and more. Many rooms within one house.
A living record of growing souls.
Our family of Creators.
Four principles, held in heartwood.
Structure supporting growth.
We plant the trees beneath whose shade
we do not plan to rest.
We aim to leave a legacy that far outlasts ourselves.
A work is measured by those who inherit it.
We build to last, and keep honest ledgers.
A city is more than humanity.
We design for soil, water, air,
and every life that depends on them.
The gardens we help to flourish on Earth
are just the first of many.
Their seeds will root wherever we can
rise above ourselves.
Verdanward stands in Luxembourg.
A third of the country’s land is forest.
Europe’s highest court still sits atop
the historic fortress city.
It is a good place to keep promises from.
With sturdy roots in solid ground, we pledge to be good gardeners.
Together, we can all reach higher.
A verdant cosmos awaits…
Founded for the long arc :
for the benefit of all sentient beings,
for all those present and those still promised,
and for every new world that life will call home.
Verdanward ·
Luxembourg · MMXXVI
