Homelessness is a ballooning national tragedy in the United States.
Homelessness due to environmental sensitivity is much, much more common than you might think. The human body can become ill in such a way that it becomes impossible to be inside modern, conventional buildings, or even near civilization. It happens every day. Especially to women. It happened to us.
Building with Earth creates a locally-sourced, durable, beautiful, affordable home. It has, unfortunately, become only available to owner-builders or wealthy home-owners who build huge homes and can afford to pay dearly for the dwindling number of skilled craftspeople.
We’d like to change that.
By creating a training program, we’d like to see MANY more people become trained in this trade. The homes we create will be created by students who are focused on perfecting 4 home designs. The student-builders will likely be the first owners of these small homes. The home designs will be between 200 and 600 square feet each.
The “product” is the whole neighborhood design– The Biome Village– not just each single house. Students will receive training in all aspects of this neighborhood creation. (Building, plastering, regenerative gardening, water catchment, systems optimization, financial/legal structures, plus skillful communication training.)
New Mexico is ideal. Here’s why:
- New Mexico has its own 2015 Earthen Building code AND its own 2018 Tiny House code.
- New Mexico has a very old tradition of earthen buildings. The Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for over 1000 years.
- An important network of Earth Building enthusiasts already exists here. There is an Earthen building festival every other year, a community college adobe construction degree program and an independent adobe building certificate program already up and running.
For sensitive people, the most important detail to know is that the earth used to make up the walls of the structures, is not just clean, it is an intact, diverse microbial ecosystem. The microbial ecosystem within the structure reflects the microbial ecosystem in a healthy environment. It is intended to be situated in a pristine, high-desert, low-humidity setting, where the lime plaster can also serve to regulate humidity. Again, when it comes to ecosystems, diversity = resilience.
We are experiencing a humanitarian crisis right here in the United States of America. If there is a possibility of creating affordable, clean and elegant homes that won’t mold, won’t burn and are earthquake-proof, out of the clean soil we already have, why not do it? 580,466 Americans need one right now.
Now is the time to think creatively. We are taking stock of what gifts and skills we have. Conventional stick-built structural materials now cost a fortune, and those structures are making people sick. Let’s try something else.
“After I got sick, I couldn’t be inside my house. I couldn’t be inside ANY house. I went camping for a year. Eventually, I felt okay inside an old adobe house. The house was built from earth bricks. It felt like walking into a probiotic.”
Holly Noonan
Inspo
Crooked Forest Institute 