Welcome to my second eco-build story that is in sharp contrast to the 15-year long adventure to build my own Earthship home! This is the first in a new series that I am very happy to be sharing with you. It is an unusual story that brought together people from all over the world, in an attempt to build a small roundhouse whilst training and teaching everyone involved. It was a brave en-devour that brought together several elements that would make this challenge very challenging. Building anything in 2 weeks is a challenge, but doing it in India and with mostly totally unskilled people made it even more so. After spending so much time and money building a luxurious home, it was always a desire of mine to be able to demonstrate that it can also be done on a shoe-string budget and very quickly indeed if the design was simple enough.
What really drove me to take on this crazy challenge was that I kept getting SO many emails and requests from people to join another workshop. I personally knew of hundreds of people who were very keen to get some hands-on experience if they could only join a group who were building. Unfortunately, I didn't know of any builds happening and was always surprised at how few people took up the challenge of self-building. In my view the great limiting factor was confidence and lack of experience, and that if I could just expose people to the entire process, that maybe some of them would be able to do it themselves. One of the issues of leaning whilst building an entire house is that there is so much going on, and over such a long period of time, that most people miss out on many of the details; especially if they have been delegated a specific task and they don't have any time to see what else is going on. So my plan was to build something so small and so quickly, that everyone involved would see all the steps, and I would take the time to explain EVERYTHING as we went along. Well, that was my plan!
It was during a visit in December 2012 to a special place called Puttaparthy that this whole idea was born. I was visiting a beautiful new forest called Ananda Farm that is near the Ashram. My partner and I loved to walk around Ananda Farm during the sweltering heat of the day. This forest and farm was created by an Australian lady called Joan, and she had spent at least 15 years and most of her savings creating it under the guidance of Sai Baba (her Guru) who would tell her in letters what she needed to do in order to be successful. She created a new forest in almost desert-like conditions with almost no water and almost empty wells. By a miracle, she pulled it off and when I visited it was a gorgeous landscaped 20-acre area with ponds, gardens, and several small houses. Joan told me that they brought a water douser who just came with a wooden stick and found her three spots to dig and find water. Amazingly he was right and they found enough water to nourish 70,000 trees over many years. Joan and I got talking about Earthships and eco-building and she seemed very receptive to the whole idea. She was quite tired of the traditional type of build using concrete, cement, and highly skilled and expensive labour. So when I explained the many benefits of Earthship Biotecture she really got it! We talked and talked over many teas, and I learned of her whole story and many amazing tales that brought her to where she was today.
Watch A Short Movie And See Ananda Farm And How One Lady planted 70,000 trees and transformed a desert into a forest!
By the end of a few hours of intense and intimate chatting and sharing ideas we seemed to be hatching a plan. It was really quite spontaneous, but any chance for me to build an Earthship and teach whilst doing it was music to my ears! We agreed that we would build a very small meditation space for anyone to use, and on a maximum budget of just $3,000 - 4,000. Joan could barely even afford that, and so this budget had to be really strict. We chose the perfect spot, where her son had been making fires and performing his own ceremonies since a few years. The spot already had a clay tile floor and was a simple 12 foot round raised area. Joan was quite happy to have volunteers doing the work and she could also supply some mainsoners for some of the skilled jobs. She was a bit concerned about having random people running around, and for several good reasons! The forest was home to hundreds of poisonous snakes, and a million other creatures that were taking refuge in the cooler and more hospitable climate of Ananda Farm. Also, the entire place was considered sacred space and there were very strict rules about smoking, alcohol, and even eating meat. It definably sounded tricky as heck, but my passion and love of sustainable building gave me the determination to say YES, I could do it!
I went home thoroughly excited and went straight into action! I made a poster and started advertising for this new workshop. Being a web developer helped, and I made a little website with some sign up forms and linked everything to it. At the same time I started coming up with a plan for this build. The main question was how we would make the roof, and I decided to opt for a ferro-cement dome roof that we would make on site. I had never made a roof like this before and was keen to try it. I made a very rough idea of the room using 'Sketchup' which is a very easy to use 3D modeling program. Below is the basic plan, raw and unfinished, just to give you a sense of what my plan was.
It's interesting how having a plan makes things feel that much more real! I had something to look at, and it was really quite easy to plan as it was so small and simple. The main ingredient was of course tyres, and Joan and her helpers went out looking nearby whilst I worked back at home to organise everything. I was, again, doing this solo! I organised every aspect of this workshop and build and all the planning and coordination. The logistics of the build itself were way less difficult to plan than the logistics of organising a workshop and ... People!
I got a wonderful response from my adverts! I charged enough to cover a cheap hotel and some materials and invited anyone who was interested to sign up. Within a few weeks, I had around 50 people who had submitted their application. It was a bit of a headache dealing with all the emails, questions, undecided people, last minute people, sudden cancellations, and all things in between! What I could see was that I had people from all around the world coming as well as a healthy number of Indians. Almost none had any building experience and most wanted to stay the whole two weeks. That was SUCH amazing news to me as really wanted committed people who had a real desire to build and just wanted some experience.
The way I organised the event was to allow some people to come for a week, and around half to stay the whole 2 weeks. We had a bit of a swap around after one week which I felt was good and would bring in more people and new energy to the group. I wanted to teach everyone as best as I could and so I also decided to have the first entire day to be a lecture given by me to attempt to explain EVERYTHING about Earthships and how they work. I am so passionate about this that I knew it would be easy for me babble on all day long about the science behind it all as well as the many other things that are related to eco-building.
Within two months I had finalised everything that I could and even had pre-payments from the confirmed people so that I was sure people would come and not cancel at the last minute. I was told the site was ready with materials, and labour would be available. Tyres were still not found at a good price and so they continued looking. The event was due to happen in July 2013, and we had few months until we started. Joan was super excited and very happy that I had found so many people who were willing to build for free. I explained to her that people were 'chomping at the bit' to have this opportunity, especially since the whole 2 weeks would cost no more than about 200 USD to attend. It was basically an option for everyone, which is a special thing with all the high priced courses and other workshops that people do.
So I hope you are excited to follow this workshop as we begin in the next part and. Find out IF we managed to roof it in 2 weeks! I have some lovely video footage and many great stories to share with you. This can be a great opportunity for you to learn a bit more about eco-building from our experiences and tales. I always learn so much when I do any kind of building work, and this was surely going to teach me so much as I was trying out a few things that I had never done before. My desire was to show that we could not only build something for peanuts, but that it would also perform well in the 45-degree scorching heat of Puttaparthy. This was a very different climate and build to Earthship Karuna, and I was totally ready for action by the time that we began.
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