FIRST EARTH | Uncompromising Ecological Architecture

[greyl]

David Sheen traveled four continents over four years to film the vast array of earth-based shelter documented in this film. Shot on location from the West Coast of North America to West Africa. FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world–and easiest to build, even for a novice builder.

Chocking up over 300,000 hits on YouTube even before its official release, FIRST EARTH is not a how-to film; rather, it's a why-to film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countrysides, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles. According to Sheen, "In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil, and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons, both the personal and the political."

In addition to its panorama of earthen building around the world, FIRST EARTH features interviews with well-know authors, thinkers, and activists including Daniel Quinn, Richard Heinberg, Derrick Jensen, James Howard Kunstler, Joseph F. Kennedy, and Stuart Cowan.
www.davidsheen.com/firstearth/

Movie here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDkfuziZiI

[MagickMuffin]

1. This deserves a serious viewing

I have been interested in Earthen Houses for about a decade now, since I became aware of the technology behind Earth Houses. Abode, Rammed Earth, Earth Ships, Straw Bale, Underground houses and Monolithic Domes (not the typical geo-domes) and would love to live in one of these kinds of structures if I had some land to build on.

Back in the late 90's we were trying to set something like this up, a community based mini town, however, we didn't have the funds to finance something this big.

If I had plenty of money one of my ideas was creating an artist based community. A community where artists could create their works of art, whether it was music, painting, sculpting, writing, or other projects based on a common philosophy of connecting with Mother Nature.

I haven't watched all the videos but I certainly will when time permits.


Thanks for posting, greyl

:hi:


http://www.monolithic.com/

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This link has some really interesting structures. This guy builds most of his houses in Mexico but does build else where.



http://geocities.com/flyingconcrete/


And A BIG :kick: & RRRRRRRRRRRRR

[cali]

3. support Arcosanti then

It's a failed experiment, but it's a very cool failed experiment and it's still tottering on.

[greyl]

4. I wouldn't describe it as a failed experiment.

As a project, it is failing to meet up with its planned deadlines and occupancy, but if looked at as pure experiment, it is successful because it has produced results to study and learn from. Laboratory is one useful description of it, I think.

There are not 100,000 people at Arcosanti. The plan was, and is, to draw 5,000; the population is under 100.

To visit Arcosanti now is to catch it at an odd moment. The principles put into practice there long ago — environmental sensitivity, anticonsumerism — have started making their way into general consciousness. As its founder predicted decades ago, the outside world is finally discovering its current course to be unsustainable. Interestingly, for vastly different reasons, Arcosanti finds itself discovering the same.

At a community meeting while I was there, Mr. Soleri, who lives near Phoenix but spends a night or two a week at Arcosanti, eased into an old couch and quietly asked how his creation was going to keep the lights on. While tourism and the sale of bronze and ceramic bells bring in some money, he said, another $50 million would come in especially handy. Residents batted around money-raising strategies that wouldn't sell out Arcosanti's core identity; few stuck.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/travel/16next.html?pagewanted=1

[pnutbutr]

2. planning a straw bale shed

when I rebuild mine.