During the northern summer of 2003/4 I attended two natural building workshops. It was my first "hands on" experience of natural building. I discovered a method of building that is ecologically sustainable, economically affordable and fun! Mud buildings can be built by almost anyone without the need for special skills or equipment.
Below are several articles I have written about my experiences for various publications as well as links to some related organisations involved in natural building work.
From 27 December 2003 to 25 January 2004 Buddha Smiles hosted a natural building workshop at Kaniyambadi near Vellore in South India. Participants came from six countries and various parts of India to begin working on the construction of an alternative school on the recently purchased land.
It was late in the afternoon that the group of international participants arrived in a field near Kaniyambadi that was to become our home for the next month. There was little to greet us: just two buildings and one of them, the all important toilet, was still not finished. Not to be disheartened everybody set to work putting up their tents and getting settled in. Thankfully the toilet was finished on the second day.
The next day work on the building began. The site was nothing more than a few lines marked out on the ground. However, rather than starting to build something up we started off by digging down. It was necessary to build a good foundation and for the next ten days everyone became very well accustomed with the "mumti", a local digging tool. We also carried a lot of rocks which were used to make the foundation. While the digging went on people also made mud bricks for the building.
When the foundation was finally finished we started to learn about mixing cob. The local workers seemed initially sceptical about the use of cob, but it wasn't long before they too joined in the fun. The building was constructed using a mixture of mud bricks and cob. Seeing both methods in use allowed assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of each material.
Everybody became used to the simple way of life in the camp. We were connected to the earth in many ways, not just because we used earth as a building material. Everyday we got up early to do yoga on the ground near the building and we ate our meals off banana leaves while sitting on the ground. We were fortunate to have a great cook and he made a whole variety of Indian dishes that were invariably delicious. One day the cook had a day off and we enjoyed some great Thai dishes cooked by the Thai participants.
Despite the language barriers that existed between the local people and the foreign participants a great sense of cooperation and understanding soon developed. By the end of the workshop the local workers had mastered all the aspects of natural building and were doing most of the work!
It was not only the local workers that were very involved in the project though. It seemed that many people from the local villages, particularly the children, were interested in what was happening. Many of the children would come to the site on their days off school to play cricket, practice speaking English with the foreigners and check the progress of the building.
For everyone involved the workshop was a learning experience, learning not just about natural building but also about working with people from different cultures and ways of life. It was also about learning by doing. There were daily talks to discuss various aspects of building. However, for the most part it was participating in the process of building, from digging the foundation and making mud bricks to plastering the walls, which constituted the learning process.
There were also opportunities for wider interaction with the community. We visited one of Buddha Smiles' after school programmes where children attend classes in the evening taught by volunteer teachers. We witnessed the annual bull races in a nearby village. This event was viewed from the safety of a roof top in the village, the many bulls running around in an uncontrolled manner made it dangerous to be in the street.
Pongal, the harvest festival, which falls on 15 January was welcomed with the traditional ceremony of cooking rice in the pot until it boils over after which we enjoyed a special breakfast of sweet pongal and other south Indian specialties. One night there was a performance of traditional Carnatic music. Local musicians enchanted the crowd for almost two hours with their wonderful tunes.
While the building went on lots of other things happened on the site as well and by the time everybody left what was an almost bare field a month earlier began to look something like a school. Electricity was connected and 120 banana trees were planted as a start to developing an organic farm. Although the building was not finished during the workshop the walls were almost finished ready for the roof to be put on and final details of the building added.
Work will not stop then with the opening of the school planned for June and natural building and permaculture workshops to be held at the end of this year.
Buddha Smiles needs ongoing support for its school project. If you are interested in volunteering, attending a workshop or donating money or books please contact Ramu Manivannan, the director of Buddha Smiles. |
Mud is not a traditional building material in Thailand. However, in the past few years something of a mud building revolution has taken place. There are probably a few reasons for this. Firstly, mud building is easy and cheap. Secondly, a man from the northeast of Thailand called Jon Jandai has been at the forefront of the revolution. He first built his own house from mud six years ago. The revolution, however, took off after a workshop at Wongsanit Ashram a little over two years ago that bought together Jon Jandai and Janell Kapoor from the US organisation Kleiwerks. Since then mud buildings have been popping up like mushrooms all over Thailand. The focus of the building work has been on building community centres and homes for the poor. Wongsanit Ashram has been the centre for coordination of the workshops.
"It's so easy," says Jon Jandai about mud building. After participating in a two-week long workshop at his new farm in February I have to agree with him. A group of 20 people from the US, Australia, Canada and Israel came together to build a house for Jon Jandai and his wife Peggy. The speed and ease with which the building was constructed easily convinced everyone present that building a house is as easy as Jon Jandai says.
The few thousand mud bricks needed to build the house had been made in advance of the workshop. The first day of building was full of energy and the walls went up very quickly. By the end of the first day the walls had gone up to a height of over six feet. After four days work The walls and the thatch roof were completed. The remainder of the workshop was spent doing final details like plastering and painting and learning other building techniques including working with bamboo.
Jon Jandai originally comes from the hot, dry northeast of Thailand but he and his wife recently purchased nine acres of land 50 kilometres north of Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. The climate there is tempered somewhat by the mountains allowing a wider range of plants to be grown. While the farm already has several natural buildings the main purpose of the farm is seed saving. Jon Jandai relates the story of how when he was young, people came to his village and gave away watermelon seeds. A few years later though, they started selling the seeds to the farmers. Soon the local variety of watermelon seeds had been lost. It is something that can never be replaced. "That is why seed saving is so important," Jon Jandai says.
The farm's name is Pun Pun. It is actually a bit like a pun in Thai. In English it means ne thousand varieties? It is being developed as a centre for seed saving, organic farm and a place for learning about sustainable living ?natural building, Permaculture, organic farming and alternative technology. It is home to about half a dozen Thai people as well as various visitors that come and go. Many of the visitors are there as members of WWOOF (Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms, an international network of volunteers). The people there live simply, cooking and eating together in a communal kitchen. Several huts made from various combinations of mud, bamboo, timber and thatch dot the farm. A hydraulic ram pump has already been installed as the first example of alternative technology.
Everyone present at the workshop gained a great deal of inspiration from the time there. Many were motivated to go away and work on their own natural building projects. After having participated in the workshop myself I can only echo the words of Jon Jandai: it's so easy.
My interest in mud building was first provoked by a visit to the famous Hakka earth buildings in China. Sometimes they are also referred to as "round houses", although not all of them are round. I was amazed by these architectural wonders but I didn't really know much about how they were built.
A few months later I found out about a natural building workshop hosted by Buddha Smiles being held in India in December 2003 to January 2004. Buddha Smiles is an Indian NGO based on Gandhian principles. Its main activity is providing education for poor and underprivileged children. The aim of the workshop was to build a classroom and two offices on recently acquired land near Vellore in Tamil Nadu. This would be the first stage in developing an alternative school at the site.
The workshop bought together fifteen international participants from six countries. The building work was lead by Elke Cole from the Canadian organisation Cobworks. She was assisted by two natural building instructors from Wongsanit Ashram in Thailand.
The workshop went for four weeks and construction started from scratch. A two feet deep trench for the foundation was dug by hand and stones were laid in it. There were several quarries nearby and these provided the roughly cut blocks of granite for the foundation. The foundation was built up one and a half feet out of the ground and then a reinforced concrete ring beam was placed on top of the stones. The ring beam was put in on the advice of the engineer supervising the project. Some people felt it went against the ethos of natural building though.
Building the foundation was perhaps the most difficult part of the project. After the foundation was completed we began building the cob walls. We were fortunate that the soil in the area was rich in clay so the dirt dug up for the foundations could be used to build the walls. Rice straw was also added to the cob mix. Some mud bricks had been made and these were also used in the building. The mud bricks used rice husks, another locally available material, for reinforcement. Local workers were used to working with brick and they seemed to prefer mud bricks to cob.
The mud for the cob and mud bricks was mixed not by hand but by feet! The whole project was undertaken without the use of any sort of power tools or heavy machinery. Mud was chosen because it is a natural material and available on site. Timber is very scarce and expensive in that part of India so it was only used for the roof. Mud is not a traditional building material in the area and the building was somewhat experimental. Local people seemed initially a little sceptical about the new building technique but they seemed to get used to it once they saw the construction progressing. Many large windows and a wide roof overhang were incorporated into the design to cope with the tropical heat. The roof overhang and stone foundation should protect the mud walls from the monsoon rains.
In four weeks the building was not completed. Unfinished work included putting in an earth floor, plastering the walls and making a thatch roof. While the workshop was going on I was invited to attend another natural building workshop in Thailand by some of the Thai people at the workshop in India. I was feeling very enthusiastic and I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn more about mud building.
The Thai workshop was held on a farm near Chiang Mai in February 2004. It was organised by Jon Jandai and his wife Peggy. They had recently purchased the farm and the workshop was to construct a house for them to live in. Jon is quiet well known in Thailand. He built his own mud brick house six years ago and since then he has been teaching people all over Thailand about mud building. He has been the inspiration behind a small revolution. After several years of non-stop teaching he purchased nine acres of land near Chiang Mai to establish a farm as a seed-saving centre and a place where people can come to learn about natural building and sustainable living.
The workshop brought together a group of about twenty international participants. Most had little or no background in natural building but plenty of enthusiasm. The approach to building was markedly different to the workshop in India. Jon Jandai repeatedly said, "It's so easy," and after a few days he had everyone convinced that it was.
The bricks had been made in advance of the workshop. On the first day of building there was a frenzy of activity and the walls of the three by six metre house were built to a height of almost two metres. Unlike India where a strong foundation was constructed, the building was simply built on a small mound of earth. I was a little sceptical about the longevity of such a building, but it was built on top of a hill so there was good drainage. Also in rural areas of Thailand there are no building inspectors so there is no fear about not complying with building codes.
It took only four days to complete the walls and roof of the building including the thatch. It was amazingly fast compared to the Indian workshop where the building was still unfinished after four weeks. The remaining time was spent learning some other building techniques such as wattle and daub and working with bamboo. We also finished the interior of the house and "painted" the walls with tapioca-based paint.
The project in Thailand was quite a contrast to the one in India. It left me feeling very inspired. I realised that building mud houses is not difficult and can be done without the need for specialised tools or machinery. I will return to India at the end of this year to assist in another natural building workshop at the school.
Building a house is often thought of as something that's difficult, expensive and can only be done by experts. A recent experience in Thailand allowed me to change that view. In fact building a house can be very easy.
"If it's difficult it must be wrong," says Jon Jandai, Thailand's natural building guru. He has spent the last few years helping other people to build mud houses all over Thailand. Jon and his wife Peggy arranged a workshop to get some people to build a house for them. The workshop was held in February on their recently purchased farm near Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. It brought together about 20 people from the USA, Canada, Israel and Australia to learn about natural building.
Although people came from diverse backgrounds only a few had had any previous building experience. However, this did not deter anyone from lending a hand and getting in the mud. In fact one girl from Canada liked the mud so much that she dived into the mud pit and covered herself with mud from head to toe. And she emerged smiling! It was this kind of positive attitude that embodied the spirit of the workshop and its participants.
At the beginning of the first day of building we had some level ground with only the door frames erected and a huge pile of mud bricks to one side. It was hard to imagine how this would be transformed into a house. Everybody started work with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. With over 20 people working, the walls started to go up very quickly. When every body stopped work for lunch the windows were in place and the walls at a height of about four feet.
Re-energised after lunch the work continued at a pace and by the end of the day the walls were built to a height of seven feet. The next day the walls were finished and work began on the roof and loft. After just four days the main structure was completed and the roof thatched. Not only were we inspired and excited by the speed of the construction; we were amazed at how easy it was. Everybody could take part in every part of the building process. No special skills or even tools were required. The only tools on site were machetes, a hammer and a bow saw.
With the building work done at such a fast pace it afforded the opportunity to do some other activities. We started to build a toilet in bamboo and learnt bamboo basket weaving. We finished off the finer details of the house and painted it with a tapioca-based paint. Many people also showed off some of their other talents or just took the time to discuss their dreams and how to make them become reality. The kitchen became home to some and they turned out pizzas and chocolate chip biscuits from the clay oven. Others displayed their musical talents with guitar, drums and singing.
It was a wonderful two weeks. I will never forget the most important lesson I learnt there which applies not just to building, but to many things in life. In the words of Jon Jandai: "It's so easy."