The role of the Time Keeper / Project Manager is to make sure all of the steps of this list are being followed and each task is achieved. The following list is for building a dwelling structure. For a first smaller project, the list will be significantly smaller.
The components and steps of organizing a festive earthen building event for building a dwelling structure.
For building a bench the steps will be more simplified.
1. BEFORE THE EVENT:
COACH: Create a Team / establishing a chapter with goals and objectives and an understanding of roles and responsibilities of the key areas. Create and establish realistic and achievable fund raising goals.
TEAM: Choose a Time and Place / When and where:
when: Choose a time when the weather is warm enough for people to get wet and when most people are available to participate.
where: Choose a location by balancing the considerations listed below.
Considerations for choosing a location
Practicality and Accessibility for people to get to.
Within the vicinity of a high density area that enables large numbers of people to easily get there.
High Visibility – for transferring the exposure /awareness to the largest number of people, (publicity) and for maximum potential of developing the collective effort and collective cooperative skills/consciousness.
Access to materials – Earth, water, sand, fiber.
Location that is friendly to children and seniors.
Location that would be considered a safe and pleasant environment to your constituency and guests from other communities.
Safe from rising water and flood areas. (not down in a gully and protected by a surrounding drainage system)
Access to sun, especially in the winter and protection from too much sun in the summer.
Able to take advantage of prevailing winds.
TEAM: Choose a structure design
Considerations for choosing a structure design:
Take advantage of the ability of earthen mixtures to be molded and sculpted into curves rather than corners and straight walls. Curves add extra strength to your walls and aesthetic appeal.
Choose a roof design with a wide overhang to protect from driving rains damaging the surface of the walls.
Ensure the walls begin at least 6-12 inches off the ground on a stone foundation to protect from rising damp.
Consider where to put window openings and where not to. In the Northern Hemisphere, this means maximizing sunlight in winter by facing windows and openings to the south and protect from too much sun in the summer, (close off western wall) and protect from cold winds from north by closing off northern side (no openings)
Start with a small structure for first time projects.
TEAM: Build a Water Drainage System
Water drainage is important with all building. You want to make sure you are not building anywhere near where water will rise and flood your structure. You also want to create a drainage system that steers any water away from a structure by digging a U shaped ditch that is filled with gravel and stones that acts as a drainage system around the building site that protects the building from water. Water will go into the ditch and drain out either side of the U while the building is safely in between.
TEAM: Lay a stone foundation.
Unfired earth buildings need to sit on a solid stone foundation to protect it from rising damp coming up from the earth. The stone foundation can sit inside a trench filled with gravel and stones or large stones can be placed directly on the ground. The stones must be laid in such a way to create a concave bed for the earth to lay in. The stones only need to be laid where the load bearing walls that hold up the roof will be.
Stones are typically found at a creek bed or quarry. Depending upon how many trucks and people you have, this may take from half a day to several days. Stones can also be purchased by the truck load and delivered to your site.
Other tasks to do before the event:
TEAM: Collect gravel for drainage trench. This can be collected from a creek or quarry or purchased from a store.
TEAM: Collect sand for earthen mixtures. Can be collected from a creek bed or beach or bought from a store or concrete factory.
TEAM: Collect fibrous waste material such as straw. Fibrous waste material can be collected by cutting long grass and leaving it to dry. You can also purchase bales of straw. We used dried kudzu one time and that worked well.
TEAM: Build door and window frames and collect wood and other materials for roof.
TEAM: Collect cow manure and or hair or paper to soak into pulp for the plaster
TEAM: Obtain linseed oil for final coat of plaster. This is purchased from store.
TEAM: Obtain burnt limestone for plaster
TEAM: Organize tools for digging and buckets for carrying water or sand. (This is part of community assets inventory, finding out who has what resources in your community.)
TEAM + OUTREACH: decide who will attend the event, how many people, and set targets and create a plan/strategy for reaching this audience and getting them to come.
OUTREACH: decide which mediums will be used for promo.- person to person flyers, print media, radio, tv, internet, email.
FINANCE: manage the budget - how much $ will be needed and for what. (Create a list)
FINANCE: manage and or determine the plan for raising funds.
FRONT OF HOUSE: develop system for officially welcoming / initiating people to the project and the event. This includes a point of contact, contact info and instructions on where to go.
FRONT OF HOUSE: decorate and prepare the event site for the event.
NOURISHMENT: estimate food needs and menu and a plan for meeting the needs.
DOCUMENTARIAN: establish method of documentation (writing, video, audio) and who will do it.
CREATIVE AND ARTISTIC: create a music and dance team to create community line dances for each of the tasks to be done. Create a rehearsal schedule for this.
DOCUMENTARIAN: create a questionnaire for participants discuss in groups during lunch time at the event. The goal of the questionnaire is to stimulate dialog amongst participants and find out strengths and weaknesses of event from participants perspective and to get ideas for continuous improvement.
DOCUMENTARIAN: set up online system for enabling participants to share their thoughts, feelings and learnings of the projects with each other and the public.
DOCUMENTARIAN / EDUCATION: Ensure members understand how to use online systems.
DOCUMENTARIAN. Document the whole process from beginning to end.
TIME KEEPER: put the total to-do list in order for project/time management.
EDUCATION: develop a system for ensuring that enough people know enough about earthen building to successfully lead the process.
AT THE EVENT:
FRONT OF HOUSE: Meet and Greet the Participants
TEAM/CREATIVE: Dig the Hole or have dirt delivered
NOURISHMENT: Feed everyone
TEAM/CREATIVE: Make the earthen mixtures for building with
The sand clay ratio for making load bearing building material is as follows:
About 15-50% clay, and 50-85% sand
About up to one third of the total mixture is fibrous waste material such as straw.
TEAM/CREATIVE: Make bricks / Build Walls
When you lay the wet mixture down to build the wall you will only be able to build up to a certain height. Once you have built up to the maximum height for that day, typically about 1-2 feet high, (less if the mixture is still very wet) you can either wait for it to dry and return the next day to do the same, and if you have more mixture already made, you can put the wet earthen mixtures into forms and make bricks to lay out in the sun to dry and lay on subsequent days. While you are building up the walls you should ensure that the walls are going straight up and the top flat part of the wall that will be built on next is concaved inwards slightly to create a “bed” for the next layer to “sit” in. Poke holes in the sides and top of the walls to help it dry and to create something for the next layers to sit in.
Wall Thickness: As a general rule for every story high, the wall should be at least 12 inches thick. The base should be slightly thicker or wider than the top part of the wall. For a one story high wall, the base of the wall should be about 18 inches thick, slightly tapering up to 12 inches thick at the top.
TEAM: Insert Windows and Doors Window and door frames can be buried into the walls
TEAM: Sculpt Furniture Furniture can be sculpted into place as needed.
TEAM / CREATIVE: Plaster Walls . Smooth, plasters to make the final coat, especially inside, are made out the same ingredients finely sifted using a fly screen or even a t-shirt so that only very fine mixtures are sifted through. Manure from grass eating animals or waterproofing oils such as boiled linseed oil can be added to the mixtures for extra waterproofing. There are an unlimited number of recipes for making natural earthen plasters and experimentation is good. Plasters can include ingredients such as flour, animal blood, animal fat, eggs, paper pulp, and natural pigments for color.
A basic recipe for plaster is one part finely sifted clay, one part finely sifted sand, one part finely sifted cow manure, or small cut pieces of hair, and one part burnt limestone. Once this mixture is completely dry and smoothed out as much as possible, you can coat it with some boiled linseed oil or burnt limestone (cal) to further seal it.
TEAM/CREATIVE: Floors. are made out of the same ingredients as the walls with a smooth plaster finish. You can pour very wet mixtures over gravel to create floors and spend time smoothing out cracks.
TEAM: The Roof. There are many roof designs and the roof can be built either at the beginning or the end.
DOCUMENTARIAN: Document the whole event and solicit input from others that can be used as a record of the total experience.
AFTER THE EVENT / FOLLOW UP
TEAM: completing the structure which may include: finishing laying any mixture that is not laid, finishing plaster inside and out, making/pouring floor mixture and polishing the floor, building the roof, putting on doors, landscaping around the structure.
OUTREACH calling participants to thank them for coming out.
TEAM: Planning the next meeting
TEAM: Planning the next event.
OUTREACH: Letting people know about the next event and how they can get involved.
FINANCE / OUTREACH: Calling people to ask for donations for the next event.
DOCUMENTARIAN: Publish / compile documentation of the event and event organizing process.
FINANCE / OUTREACH: Creating and selling products created at the event.
Festive Earthen Building Event schedule example or template
Below is an outline of tasktivities in chronological order that can be used as a template for a Festive Earthen Building Event schedule that lasts for 3 days. This list assumes that the preparation work of laying the stone foundation and securing and preparing the building materials has been done. The framing of doors and windows and windows can be going on simultaneously and the roof can be built before or after the walls.
1. Meeting and greeting.
People are directed to a specific area – either food, music or building / dancing
While light snack or drinks are served. 30 mins
2. Digging the hole. (the digging dance) (1hr)
Food is served
3. Water, sand and fiber are added to the mix (the passing dance) (1hr)
Food is served.
Optional. At this point, the wet mixture can be left overnight or for several nights and days to soak in water and soften the earth to make it easier to mix.
4. The ingredients are mixed into one homogenous mixture with bare feet stomping (the stomping mixing dance) 1hr.
Optional. The mixed ingredients can be left overnight again to cure.
5. While mixture is curing participants divide into discussion groups with questionnaire to stimulate dialog and talk about efficiencies / effectiveness. A representative from each group feeds findings into a central repository: 1-2hrs
6. Laying the mixture up to the maximum wet height which is usually between 6 and 12 inches OR laying the mixtures into molds to make bricks to dry in the sun. 2-6hrs
Food is served
At this point the group can continue by making bricks to lay and dry for a couple days before laying, or make blobs that are kept wet and pressed into place the following day as well as make more of the mixture to be left overnight for the next day. 2-4 hrs
Food is served
Day 2.
7. Making the plaster by sifting the ingredients (2-4hrs)
Food is served
8. Applying plaster to the outside of the walls (2-4hrs)
food is served
9. Making the mixture for the floor and pouring it (2-3hrs)
Day 3.
10. Smoothing out the floor (2-8hrs)