Make Mine of Mud

FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter — building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream.
  
From the FIRST EARTH website: "Because we believe that as many people as possible should have the option of seeing the FIRST EARTH film, regardless of their financial abilities, for a limited time only we are making beta versions of the 12 chapters of the film available over the internet for free! The DVD version of the film has high-quality video and audio and includes extras.
The individual chapters of the film can also be watched separately from one another. It won't have the same effect as watching the whole film from start to finish, but as part of our vision to make the content as accessible as possible, the chapters can be viewed one at a time."

Chapter 1 - What's Wrong With Architecture



Chapter 2 - African Earth
Chapter 3 - American Earth
Chapter 4 - Why Earth
Chapter 5 - Empowering Earth
Chapter 6 - Another Earth Is Possible
Chapter 7 - European Earth
Chapter 8 - Arabian Earth
Chapter 9 - Urban Earth
Chapter 10 - Inner City Earth
Chapter 11 - International Earth
Chapter 12 - Future Earth
Learn more about the resurgence of earthen architecture and Natural Building at the Permaculture Activist book and video catalogs.

Spinning straw into shelter

Be sure to take a look at the video of this amazing invention.

http://www.strawjet.com/

StrawJet Technology is a means for using fibrous cellulose material available from agricultural by-products such as straw or many other post-harvest fiber sources, to produce building construction materials.

The fiber cable is a continuous "rope" or "braid" of agricultural waste fiber such as wheat straw, rice straw, or other widely available fiber sources, bundled into a two inch diameter cable. The cable is held tightly together by a wrapping of very high strength synthetic filaments.

It is the ejection of this cable from the rear of the cable engine that gives StrawJet its name.

The "cable" is then fed into either of two material manufacturing processes where it is cut to appropriate lengths and cast into structural members, i.e., posts and beams, or it is cast into building panels which can be very large or very many as required.

The extremely wide variety of agricultural waste fiber sources that can be used for StrawJet cables and the simplicity and flexibility of the casting formula make it easy to make building materials nearly worldwide. The farmer has the opportunity to produce a "second crop" of building materials every year and builders obtain construction components close enough to almost any building site to minimize transportation costs.

The technology is extremely scalable, from a single braid stationary machine to which fiber material (straw) is transported up to large scale combine harvesting equipment producing wide ribbons of parallel cables. Fiber sources range from rice, wheat, or other grain straw to flax to Jerusalem Artichoke. Casting material is similarly available nearly worldwide and is dirt cheap.

The construction materials are virtually fireproof, have excellent thermal insulation properties, and thanks to the high modulus of elasticity achieved using the straw cable for structural strength, are exceptionally earthquake tolerant. The entire manufacturing process is environmentally responsible and highly sustainable. The structural strength of the material is derived from a resource that unlike trees, is renewed annually.

Bloomington (IN) Permaculture Guild Series

Bloomington (IN) Permaculture Guild Series
Contact Rhonda at 812-320-9136 to register.

March 31, 2007 Introduction to Permaculture
with Peter Bane and Rhonda Baird, $75
Foundation Ethics and Principles.

April 14, 2007 Propagating Plants
with Keith Johnson, $75
Multiplying plants is easier than you think. Topics covered will include:
direct seeding, transplants, planting, divisions, layering, grafting, taking cuttings, and more. Students will take home new plants for their gardens.

May 19 & 20, 2007 Water Catchment:
Building Ferro-cement Tanks
with Peter Bane & Keith Johnson $150
Learn to capture this scarce and precious resource in tanks you can build yourself. This hands-on event will cover everything you need to know about constructing a 10,000 gallon rainwater tank at Keith and Peter's home in Bloomington.

August 4, 2007 Foundations for Natural Buildings
with Keith Johnson & Peter Bane $75
Hands-on class creating a new foundation for a timber frame, straw-clay infilled chicken coop / tool shed with rubble trench and urbanite. This 5,000 year old technology was used to create the Pantheon and most other ancient buildings of Europe.

August 11 & 12, 2007 Straw - Clay Walls for Natural Buildings
with Keith Johnson & Peter Bane $150
This hands-on class will install new highly insulative, fire-resistant walls for a timber frame chicken coop / tool shed. Centuries-old strategies for today. Basic grounding in theory and technique. Slide show showing many natural building styles and practices.

September 29, 2007 Earth Plasters for Natural Buildings
with Peter Bane and Keith Johnson $75
Learn to create and apply beautiful earth plasters over straw - clay walled chicken coop / tool shed. Various recipes and finishes will be discussed.

Contact Rhonda at 812-320-9136 to register.