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Workshop: real feel for adobe, an ancient building material
Workshop gives a real feel for adobe, an ancient building material
Publish Date: March 10, 2005
By Fred Bonavita
The San Antonio Express-News
On a mesa a few miles east of this border town, a dozen men and women scooped up handfuls of mud and hurled them at the sides of a small adobe building.
They stepped back, admired the sound and effect of mud hitting the wall, and reached for another helping. It bothered no one that the secret ingredients in the mud were prickly pear cactus and fresh horse manure that had been cold-brewed in a tea before being mixed with earth and straw. (...)
The walls werent the only thing affected by their enthusiasm.
Their hair and clothing were becoming spattered in the process. No one seemed to care. Indeed, they expected it. This was part of what the participants paid $250 to $300 each to do. (...)
Rather than focusing on the upscale housing market in such places as the Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Taos axis in New Mexico or the wealthier areas of Arizona or California, the alliance is in the forefrontof a renewed effort to build energy-efficient housing using materials that considerably reduce the cost and the impact on the environment.
Its all in the spirit of building with local people and local materials, said Simone Swan, who founded the alliance and whose home was the workshop classroom and laboratory.
Its all economic incentives because dirt is the only (building material) that is not linked to the price of oil, said Swan, who studied use of earthen materials and indigenous building techniques under Hassan Fathy, a renowned environmental architect.
The project was under the watchful eyes of Maria Jesus Jimenez, who managed the sessions; Joaquin Valenzuela, an adobe vault and dome craftsman; and Efren Rodriguez, a master adobe plasterer. All hailed from Ojinaga, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Presidio. (...)
John Morony, who teaches environmental biology at Southwest Texas Junior College in Del Rio, said he was learning much of what he would need to know when he begins work on his own house in May. It will be built of smoother compressed-earth blocks instead of traditional adobes, he said, but the process is much the same.
Im seeing what I want to build a house with, said Morony, who is a member of the Adobe Association of Del Rio. The group, he said, teaches people to build with whats available and thats
dirt. (...)
For more information, contact www.adobealliance.org or
Write to Adobe Alliance, 1 Casa Piedra Road, Presidio, TX 79845.
Story and photography copyrighted by %The San Antonio Express-News.%
Source: The Desert-Mountain Times
http://www.dmtimes.net/blog/_archives/2005/3/10/412373.html
Publish Date: March 10, 2005
By Fred Bonavita
The San Antonio Express-News
On a mesa a few miles east of this border town, a dozen men and women scooped up handfuls of mud and hurled them at the sides of a small adobe building.
They stepped back, admired the sound and effect of mud hitting the wall, and reached for another helping. It bothered no one that the secret ingredients in the mud were prickly pear cactus and fresh horse manure that had been cold-brewed in a tea before being mixed with earth and straw. (...)
The walls werent the only thing affected by their enthusiasm.
Their hair and clothing were becoming spattered in the process. No one seemed to care. Indeed, they expected it. This was part of what the participants paid $250 to $300 each to do. (...)
Rather than focusing on the upscale housing market in such places as the Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Taos axis in New Mexico or the wealthier areas of Arizona or California, the alliance is in the forefrontof a renewed effort to build energy-efficient housing using materials that considerably reduce the cost and the impact on the environment.
Its all in the spirit of building with local people and local materials, said Simone Swan, who founded the alliance and whose home was the workshop classroom and laboratory.
Its all economic incentives because dirt is the only (building material) that is not linked to the price of oil, said Swan, who studied use of earthen materials and indigenous building techniques under Hassan Fathy, a renowned environmental architect.
The project was under the watchful eyes of Maria Jesus Jimenez, who managed the sessions; Joaquin Valenzuela, an adobe vault and dome craftsman; and Efren Rodriguez, a master adobe plasterer. All hailed from Ojinaga, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Presidio. (...)
John Morony, who teaches environmental biology at Southwest Texas Junior College in Del Rio, said he was learning much of what he would need to know when he begins work on his own house in May. It will be built of smoother compressed-earth blocks instead of traditional adobes, he said, but the process is much the same.
Im seeing what I want to build a house with, said Morony, who is a member of the Adobe Association of Del Rio. The group, he said, teaches people to build with whats available and thats
dirt. (...)
For more information, contact www.adobealliance.org or
Write to Adobe Alliance, 1 Casa Piedra Road, Presidio, TX 79845.
Story and photography copyrighted by %The San Antonio Express-News.%
Source: The Desert-Mountain Times
http://www.dmtimes.net/blog/_archives/2005/3/10/412373.html
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