Abstract
Ecological villages should be designed not only for simply reducing environmental impact such as energy saving and alternative energy use, resource conservation and circulation, harmony with surrounding environment and nature, but also for encouraging social contact and community activities with the residents, especially the aged people. The aim of this paper is to find the ecological and social design elements for the ecological village planning derived through case studies. The case studies are selected from the environmental Co-housings in Western America, surveyed in the years of 2008 and 2009. The results are as follows; 1. The ecological design elements, although there are some differences in size and type, were found to be basically applied in every ecological villages. 2. The community activities are actively conducted with the participation of the residents based on a variety of programs. The two main purposes of the community activities are strengthening the residents' familiarity with each other and the volunteer services to the local community where they belong.