Kula Applied Research Institute
An Austin, Texas based 501(c)(3) public charity. Kula holds the legal and financial structure behind a small number of place-based projects, so the people running them can spend their time on the work rather than on paperwork.
Derived from Sanskrit, Kula loosely refers to "part of a village" and conveys a deep sense of belonging and trust. The institute exists to make that possible somewhere specific, not to be a brand of its own.
Balcones Tejas Bioregional Club
Bioregional education, community organizing, and a growing archive of stories from the Texas Hill Country. A project of Kula Applied Research Institute — and the public face of nearly everything we do.
balconestejas.com →Library of publications
Field publications and toolkits from projects Kula has supported, offered free of charge. If they are useful to you, please consider a tax-deductible contribution toward the next one.
6 of 6 publications
| Publication | Type · Place | Year | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Bioregional Club Theory and Practice
How a decentralized network of neighbors becomes indigenous to a place — The Design, Structure, and Ethos of the Balcones Tejas Bioregional Club.
|
Publication
Austin
|
2026 | View → |
|
The Camera is Ours!
Four years of storytelling in urban settlements, photographed by residents rather than about them.
|
Publication
Dhaka
|
2026 | View → |
|
Neighborhoods by Us
Working with residents to design and develop their own neighborhoods.
|
Toolkit
Dhaka
|
2025 | View → |
|
Hosting Community Conversations
For anyone open to facilitating the kind of conversation a place needs.
|
Toolkit
Erie–Niagara
|
2025 | View → |
|
Blue Zone Principles
Agricultural neighborhoods designing for healthier, longer, more connected living.
|
Toolkit
Austin
|
2025 | View → |
|
Community Storytelling
A hands-on guide for communities telling their own narratives through participatory art.
|
Toolkit
Dhaka
|
2024 | View → |
Direction
Kiran Topiwala
A visual anthropologist and bioregional engineer. Deeply inspired by patterns of regeneration, he tinkers at the intersections of self and story, memory and myth, and individual and ecology.
Lamia Anwar Shama
A collector and weaver of bioregional stories. An incredible navigator of uncharted waters, keeping one eye on the land of today and the other on the horizon of tomorrow.
Zane Porterfield
An educator, advocate, and naturalist with a career in groundwater and spring protection. Her work enmeshes intuition, systems thinking, research and strategy, with a deep taproot in the Texas Hill Country.
Board
Randy Martin (Chairman) · Rohit Topiwala (Treasurer) · M Beth Martin · Don Locke · Anna Castonguay
Advisors
Subham Chaudari · Caroline Dunn · Marc Pierson · Annie Spade · Tex Jude G. Albert · Pliny Fisk III (in memoriam)
Funders and inquiries
Contributions to Kula Applied Research Institute are tax-deductible. For questions, partnership, or anything else, write to us directly.