by Gloryrose Dy
Earth Village ProjectI woke up 7 am. I was so tired the other day. I was very pressured with charging my dead phone and with the internet connection because I had to contact people through skype. But then I somehow loosen up because Maria talk to me about helping me out with the internet connection and where to charge my phone.
You see, until now Barangay Batug does not have electricity yet. They use solar chargers to have light during the night.
The next thing we did was the Philippine delegates orientation with Marielle, a very cool woman. Marielle gave us a tour around the entire Batug Earth Village Community.
This is the entire map of the community so far.
The Earth Village not just house Biotecture but a series of different innovative and sustainable methods in construction and way of life. What I see is that the village values community inclusivity in its rehabilitation process for the Batug people. This is because the community organizers have been present in the preparation of the community for rebuilding since December.
The time spent in community preparedness for rebuilding and not drastically imposing solutions to the people is worth commending. This is truly rebuilding with the heart in its most idealistic form and it happened in Batug, Dulag, Leyte.
Not only that, aside from rehabilitating the community and rebuilding with the heart, the Earth Village Project also introduces adaptive and natural building approaches that are more environmentally friendly in nature.
It now dwells to me that Earth Village is not only superficially rehabilitating the Filipino way of community development but also rehabilitating the Filipino sensibilities and perceptions in terms of environmentally sound methods as well.
If you want to learn more about what they do, watch this video.
Start of Construction Work
Today I also met the three other Filipino interns, Quennie Lungay, Weng Dagcuta and Ina Flores. There are five interns from the Philippines and there are about 14 local interns from Batug. I have not met them yet.
We started working on the rip tires which are used as foundation and load bearing walls. They are staggeredly joined to 6 levels of tires all in all. The tires have different kinds of sizes depending on its usage. The big tires are from the base or the foundations of the building while the smaller ones are for the load bearing walls.
One does not need to dig a whole for the foundations of the Windship. Instead, we just dig around 3 to 5 inches enough to block the tires and prevent them from moving.
These tires are laid out based on the plan of the Windship which are composed of two semi circles. (I'm sorry I can't post the plan here because I need to ask the Earthship Biotecture team first)
To compact the mud inside the tire, one has to put cardboard inside of it first. It is different with the case of foundations because one has to use a sack or plastic to prevent moisture from coming in.
As a standard, you have to really make sure the mud or they call "tuna" is compacted really well inside the tires which means making sure there are no air pockets.
Below is a picture of Ina Flores, a landscape architect doing the tireworks.
Simultaneously people are doing the bottles and then the thin shell roof vault.
Simultaneously, another group is preparing the bottles, cleaning everything up and preparing it for the desired size. One plastic bottles should be 8 inches length ideally.
Meeting the Earthship Biotecture Crew.
I met Michael Reynolds today. He is awesome. and this is what I had in mind when I met him -- If you are an architect in this planet and you do not know this man by any chance, then you are not really an architect. This is bluntly saying it.
I also met Lou and Philip today. Phil is the one heading this build.
People in the community are working with us. I have not have the chances to talk to everyone yet but will sure do tomorrow.
We had a meeting and Question and Answer. People in the community mostly cannot understand English. Maria was the instant translator and she is really good for a Filipino who was raised in New York.
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| The Batug Team of Volunteers with Maria |
I also met with the community women. They are the one preparing the food.
I keep thinking about Biotecture – I have yet to know everything about it but I have the feeling everything here is so practical.
I have not asked about why the orientation of the building is such. Maybe I will tomorrow.
My realization today about this community. I feel that the vibe is not sad here anymore but most of them lost there source of livelihood which is corpas and they are slowly trying to find ways to have another livelihood.
By the way, we went to the river after the build. It is beautiful. This is going to be my shower for 9 days.
