The Ecocathedral: a lesson in time, nature, and regenerative thinking

In August, we visited the Ecocathedral by artist Louis Le Roy. What a wondrous place! A site that impresses not only through its towering stacks of stone, but through the way time, nature, and humans together form a living artwork.

A project for eternity

It all began in the 1970s, with an empty meadow and a visionary idea: a project with no endpoint, built in the spirit of so-called cathedral thinking — creating something with a horizon that stretches beyond your own lifetime. From the recognition that what you do shapes generations before and after you.

There is no fixed design, no control, and no final goal. Instead: spontaneity, freedom, and unpredictability. Anyone can contribute. Leftover stones from construction projects are stacked, and then nature decides what happens next. The most important design element? Time.

The power of moss time

The towering stacks, overgrown with trees and moss, reminded us of Mayan temples hidden in the jungle. While wandering through the site, we thought of The Heart of Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, in which she describes four time horizons:

• human time (short)

• geological time (centuries)

• divine time (timeless)

• and moss time (decades): the quiet yet unstoppable force through which moss transforms stone and reshapes landscapes.

Here, in Mildam, you can see moss time at work.

Part of a greater whole

The Ecocathedral reminds us that we are not the designers of the greater whole, but participants in a cycle of growth, decay, and renewal. We do not stand above nature — we are part of it.

It’s a place that asks for humility and patience. An exercise in letting go, in collaborating with natural processes and time.And precisely in that lies an important lesson for the future of our cities and landscapes:regenerative thinking and design begin with the awareness that we build in partnership with time and nature — not against them.