Natural building as a community game changer

Building mud houses is more art than science. Learning the right mixtures to use based on the soil you have available is more a matter trial and error than calculation, and thus requires a certain amount of experimentation. making an earth house is more similar to making a cake than building a conventional form of house.

The material cost of building earth based dwellings is only a fraction of the cost of building a conventional house with commercial materials. However labor is the major cost.

Earth based houses are naturally insulated, so they will be cool in summers and warm in winters. They are extremely strong if constructed correctly, and proponents of earth houses claim they are resistant to earthquakes. Other advocates of earth houses claim that are very healthy with no irritant chemicals incorporated within the mixture to cause any allergies, etc.

There has been a small revival of earth house building in Asia over the last decade, however this revival is driven by a small number of champions like Ajarn (teacher) Smith, as he likes to be called, of Sakaeo, approximately 300 km North-East of Bangkok.

As an entrepreneur, Ajarn Smith runs a special type of business that is orientated towards empowering others to build earth brick houses, rather than for profit. As he says......"mud houses must be made with your heart", it requires community collaboration. Thus the business of mud house construction in Asia is a social enterprise, which is about helping communities to organize themselves and acquire the specific skills to build their own dwellings.

The concept, at least at village level will not work through the engagement of direct contractors, it's more a consulting arrangement. And this is where the benefits come in.

Earth houses are best seen as a community project, and as such are a potential game changer for a village. Building earth houses is about developing self reliance. And self reliance brings on many other benefits.

Earth housing as a cluster can be a source of value for a local community. Firstly, it helps the youth of any village build up self discipline, new skills, and even more importantly enshrines them with the ability to learn through trial and error. Secondly, such community projects build up great amounts of personal self esteem, which according to many academics is important in developing any form of entrepreneurship culture.

Community earth house construction can be a catalyst for regenerating a cooperative spirit in a village. Communal work brings back the old values of cooperation, once one of the cornerstones of village life. It's through this cooperation where new sources of community opportunity can be created, and provide the basis for a small entrepreneurial economy. This is so important to keep the youth in any village today.

Many earth building village clusters in Thailand have become the basis for home-stay projects, which act as a platform for other income making activities like handicraft production, expanding the potential income base of the community.

Natural building is a potential tool in poverty eradification as well. It prevents the need to borrow money to purchase conventional building materials, thus reduces debt and reliance on high interest micro-financing within any community.

Community earth house projects can help change a village paradigm where there is an emphasis on developing self sufficiency, which without any village will most likely remain within the poverty trap. Mud housing projects coupled with solar panels and mini hydro systems to produce a source of electricity, allow the village to improve their standard of living with the need to be connected to the main electricity grid. Water can also be harvested from the roofs (if sheets) of buildings to assist in water self reliance as well.