ABSTRACT: The stress experienced by most people who live in the big cities of Brazil points to housing solutions that consider the scale of inhabitants per km2 as a major criterion. New forms of housing, which have their projects focused on the well -being of their occupants, must be inserted in housing systems that represent in a rational way people’s day by day. In this context, the ecological communities’ movement represents a new way of man-house-environment integration, with highlights on the search for self sustainability. The aim of this study is to present the Campina community, an ecological housing structure integrated to a forestry recovery process, installed next to the Chapada Diamantina National Park in Bahia – Brazil, since 1991. The development of the community was based in experimentations of organic agriculture techiniques and colective decision processes. The community was formed as a housing project integrating shelters and facilities in a circular organization shape that provides the optimization of internal displacement of its occupants, social interaction and exchange of information. In this work, the community is associated with principles of organization and methods with environmental guidelines, in order to show how to minimize both the impacts of installation and existence of the communities. After the description and analysis of the elements related to the infrastructure construction, rational use of natural resources and self-management procedures, a model was created. This model shows some found solutions to building environmentally adapted housing and a set of practices that are aimed at achieving self-sustainability at various levels.
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