Day 6: One on One on Community Organizing and with Michael Reynolds

Today, I collapsed.

It was early in the morning around 6:45 am. Quin and I were talking in our tent areas when I suddenly collapsed.

So today, the Earth Village Project team told me to take a rest. But before that, I went to Dulag with Gigi Bartulaba to get my anti tetanus shots (I actually had a minor wound due to a nail yesterday and they don't want to take any chances. So nice of them)

Community Organizing

Gigi and I went to Dulag proper via motorbike which costs around 25 pesos each. We talked about the work made before the building of the Windship, while touring around the area.

It was a blessing that I was able to go with Gigi and have a one on one talk with her about how she started facilitating on creating the cooperative of Batug for their sustainability.

They started working on it way back December 2013 on creating the coop and voting for the officers.

After that, I made a windship cake since I can't do much work today due to health. It is Josh's birthday and I tried my best to really make a windship cake.

At the Bar, I had a one on one talk with Michael Reynolds. He happend to be alone at the bar and I went up and just talk to him about the Earthship. It was pretty amazing as usual.

Day 5: The Batug Children and Their Future

By Gloryrose Dy

The building systems

We did the usual technology documentation. I was assigned to do the cement mix again and while I was doing it, Quin Cruz called me and told me that Rory will explain the systems, today.

The building systems are vital parts of the entire Windship and Earthship. It is composed of the
a. Electric Systems
b. Water Distribution and Sanitation Systems

and it the Windship, all these systems of recycled. For example, the water from the water distribution systems does not come from the main distribution line which the city or the municipality usually gives , rather, from rain water.

Rain water is being catch through a rainwater catchment located at the left and ride ends of the building and is being filtered inside via filtration systems. After that, water is being transmitted to the pipe lines for distribution using the Pascal's law.

In the same way, black water is also being recycled from the individual septic tanks which are found directly underneath the toilets.

The electric systems are different in a way that it uses energy from the sun instead of the main source from the electric companies. Here, solar panels are used to store energy and then transmitted to the lighting fixtures, etc.

Scratch Coating for the Vault

Meanwhile, while we were being oriented with the building systems, the other volunteers where doing the scratch coat for the vault. This is the semi-finish plaster for the vault. The vault's thickness is approximately 3 inches. Mixture of the cement here is the same mixture for plaster mix except that there is one additional indigenous ingredient being mix which is the coconut husks fibers. 

On site changes

Another thing to note today is that some of the design on plan are being changed due to onsite 'realizations'. This is because the roof looked flimsy and it felt that it could not wind stand the weight, so some changes on design were being made. 

Scaffolds

Scaffolds

The Batug Children with Sarah Queblatin

While  the entire build team was busy creating the disaster resilient buildings and also focusing on technology transfer, Sarah Queblatin, one of the people behind Earth Village, was also busy educating the children on Batug about Solid Waste Management and being environmentally friendly.


The children here are so interested in listening to these topics. This is one of the reasons why the village is a very promising arena for rebuilding with change and with a heart. 

People especially the children are so open minded to different perspectives and concepts. 

The Batug Children and Their Future

Just before lunch, Quin and I went to the store nearby to get some refreshments when Mayla, a woman local volunteer who is part of the built went to us and asks us to help them with their 'letter to the future'.

(Not the bloggers' photo)

The letter to the future is the volunteers' letter to their children which will be embedded on the windship and supposedly opened after 50 years.


When I heard about the concept, I could help but remember this movie by Wong Kar Wai entitled "In the Mood for Love". 

The Arrival of ABS CBN and UAP President

ABS CBN and other mainstream players in the development went to visit us today. Arch. Rosal, UAP National President, came over, too.

Tonight..... on Crowd sourcing  and Call for Donations

Before night time, I was informed that we are not able to install some of the building systems because of time pressure and financial capabilities.

The Windship is actually funded by 50 volunteers from around the world who gave 1000usd as quote and quote tuition fee to learn how to build a windship.

This is a commendable process of crowd sourcing because it does not conform to the normal dole out mentality. 

See, most of the help receive to help Tacloban are in a form of grants or donations. This is not necessarily a bad thing but in my opinion, the Windship crowd sourcing style is better. This is because apart from donating, the person who donated also has the opportunity to learn how to build an alternative method of construction which is authentically green. Compared to merely donating and not having something in return.

The stakeholders who helped the build not only have the chance to help financial, they also gain knowledge, experience and additional certificate, a tangible object to prove the participation.

Because of this, I want to make a call to help out in completing the Philippine Windship but visiting this website. 

You can also contact jeane@earthship.com for the next leg of build.

Day 4: Technology Transfer

by Gloryrose Dy

Cement Mixer

I am tasks to be in Group 1 today and we are in-charge with the cement mixer and cement mixtures. Since we are doing the thin shell spit coat , the mixture for the forms, the mixture for the bottle grout today, we focused on making these three different mixtures using one one cement mix.

putting the spit coat for the thin shell structure

The Cement mix

Cement for spit coat

Partition walls using recycled glass bottles and plastic bottles bonded together using cement mixture

Forms for the wall using recycled bottles of Cola. 

Technology transfer

Apart from working with cement, today was more about technology transfer. The Filipino nationals wanted to focus on how the technology of the windship can be fully adapted by the community. To do this, Maria lead the team into pairing national volunteers with the local volunteers.

We decided to meet at 11:30 everyday.

My team was really good. I was the architect but Ariel, a 21 year old local was better than me in documenting. He was measuring everything and experiencing every move. I am so proud of this person.

from Left: Sandy and Ariel document the construction work

Community Involvement
The involvement in the community is very vital. Quin Cruz, a researcher from Ateneo School of Government, talked about inclusive development. In my understanding, it is much like participatory architecture, where in the community must be involved in the entire process of planning, implementation and operation of the architecture that is being develops.

I am firm believer in this. I believe that it through this that a community who has experience extreme trauma needs this kind of rehabilitation. And with this I am so honoured to have witness such process in action, myself, in this camp.

The Barangay Captain with the policemen and women, me and Quin'

Here is the  my drawing of the progress so far.

Day 3: Pintakasi in Windship and Earthship Biotecture

by Gloryrose Dy

A Day of Knowing Biotecture

I woke up at 7 am, a little bit late for the days schedule. We were supposed to be up at 6 am for breakfast and start working at 7 am which is not the usual time for me.

The construction day for me started with working on the vault tirewires. We did this for about 2 hours and then we transferred the vault to the wall and connected it to the bond beam.

It was indeed a magical moment because all of the men and women were working together to really connect the vault and the tires.

The vault and the tires where connected using a bond beam. The bond beam is composed of U shaped rebar and a 32 inches long dowel which where embedded inside the compacted tires.

The rebars need to be painted before there are embedded to prevent rusting.

The vault and dowel are connect with wires.

And then they are covered with potty cake with a 3:4:5 mixture. 3 bags cement, 4 pale sand , 5 pale gravel mixed with water.

After connecting the vault to the tires, the team starting working on the bottles partition for the non-bearing walls.

The Batug Community Volunteers Meet with Michael Reynolds

At lunch time, Michael Reynolds met with the local volunteers to talk to them about the windship. He explained how the building is made of recyclable materials such as the bottles and the tires. He also explained about how the culvert which served as a cooling tube made the structure cool in the inside despite the robustness of it. He also explained how the structure is completely zero-waste and can be used off-grid even without the dependence of third party energy i.e. main distribution line from electricity and water companies.

Michael sits down with the community

culvert

As translated by Maria Marasigan, the locals were able to understand and they asked a lot of questions, too. This is so far one of the magical moments in the camp. This is because even if most of the local volunteers had a hard time understanding English and even the technical terms that Michael was saying, I felt that they understand the sincerity that everyone involved in the camp was giving.

There is, indeed, no language barrier in  the sincerity to help others.

Biotecture with Michael Reynolds

After the build, I was able to talk to Michael Reynolds at the 'bar' that the coop of the community built (with the help of the kind hearted lady named Gigi Bartulaba, a community organizer from Mindanao) . Michael Reynolds loves staying and chilling at the bar after the build and I realize this today.

Me, Weng and Quin were walking towards the bar when we saw Michael at the farthest end of the place sitting with three other volunteers from Taiwan and Rory.

Michael Reynolds told us a lot about Biotecture and his profound beliefs about building and designing.  We conversed about why he is not into architecture but into Biotecture. It is quite interesting. We talked about architects not being able to work as they should be, which to work with nature, and that architecture is archaic.

That is the reason why he coined the term Biotecture and made it into a real profession which Biotect, an person practicing Biotecture.

And then I asked Michael if he works a lot on site because he was working at the site as a worker too, this morning. Or if he was at the office sometimes.

Rory, one of the leaders in the build of Earthship Biotecture, but in and said that Michael works a lot in the office. This made me laugh a little. And then Rory said, but Michael works on site a lot, too, which makes it easier for the people on site to decide easily on what to do.

By the way, Phil, the leader of the build, is an architecture graduate, says Michael.

To know more about Earthship Biotecture, take a look at this video. You can see Phil talking about it here.



By the way, dinner is served amazingly once again by the Batug women.

Day 2: The Work Starts

by Gloryrose Dy

Earth Village Project

I 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.

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.

Day 1 - Travelling from Davao to Dulag

by Gloryrose Dy

A Morning of Associative Regression

Going to Tacloban after the Typhoon. I am expecting a lot and expecting a lot from my end. I hope I will be able to help the families who lost there homes somehow. I am vowed to be an architect with true passion to help internally displaced and with this construction scholarship I hope to learn and re-learn things.