Earthbuilding School
In-person workshops & internships
Upcoming Workshops for 2025
Announcing our Southern Hemisphere Spring Workshop Series.
If you book more than one workshop, we will give you a 10% discount.
The Earthen Finishes & Earthen Floors workshops will be offered back-to-back.
Earthen Finishes
10/11 January 2024, Nelson. Cost: $380
During this fun 2-day workshop we dive into a wide range of options of how earthen walls can be finished, from high-performing simple surfaces to more creative textures and techniques. Clay speaks to the senses, has amazing health properties, and is cheap and forgiving to use. There will be a strong focus on hands-on work and practicing techniques, and you will leave with enough theory and recipes to be able to reproduce what you have learned.
Simple finishes for adobe and cob walls
Earthen Plasters
Decorative techniques (inlay, plaster cut and relief)
Clay Paints and Alis
Breathable sealers
Ingredients and Tools
Tips for professional detailing
Printed Handout with Recipes
Earthen Floors
12/13 January 2025, Nelson. Cost: $380
During this fun 2-day workshop we teach you two different earth floor techniques from start to finish. Earthen floors can be installed over a variety of substrates, are cheap when DIY and are wonderful underfoot. There will be a strong focus on hands-on work, and you will leave with enough theory and recipes to be able to reproduce what you have learned.
Developing and testing mixes
Making Adobe Floor Tiles
Installing a 2-layered poured earth floor
Laying Adobe Floor Tiles
Finishing and sealing the floor surface
Materials and Tools
Tips for professional detailing
Printed Handout
Intro to Earthbuilding
This is a video one of our students made about a 5-day workshop that covered cob oven building, earthen floors, earthen plasters, Adobe brick construction and artistic play with natural paints.
PREVIOUS NATURAL BUILDING WORKSHOPS
Specialty Natural Building Workshops
Book us to run an earth building training or workshop at your place
We are very happy to come to your place to run a workshop or training. This can be anything from a fun 1-day pizza oven building play-shop, to a week-long specialized training in earthen plaster techniques for trades people, to facilitating working bees or community builds.
We usually require clients to be responsible for organizing the on-site logistics and advertising of their own event, but can of course help with this if needed.
For workshops we teach in a team of two and the charge for tuition is $1200+GST per day (for longer trainings we charge an hourly rate for preparation and planning), plus travel and accommodation.
A discount can be negotiated for community or school projects, please do not hesitate to talk to me about your options.
Natural building topics we can cover
Development and testing of different earth building materials (Adobe bricks, plasters, floor mixes, cob mixes, etc)
Earthbuilding design and construction (both load-bearign earth walls and hybrid earth-timber construction)
Set-up of large scale brick production and building sites
Different natural building techniques: Adobe brick technique, Cob, Light Earth Infill (LEM), Strawclay, Wattle-and-Daub and experimental earth building, strawbale, Hempclay
Different natural plasters: Earthen plasters, lime plasters, Tadelakt
Natural paints and wall finishes: Casein paint, alis, lime wash, natural pigments
Different plaster artistry and mural techniques: Sgraffito, al fresco painting, relief bas, inlays
Different earthen floor techniques: Adobe tiles and poured earth floor, including finishing options
Pizza ovens made of cob
Restoration of historic earth buildings
Low-impact appropriate technologies such as compost hot water, compost toilets, rocket stoves and rocket mass heaters
Restoration of historic earth buildings
Elemental therapeutic and somatic encounters with Earth - Water - Fire - Air
Workshop Testimonials
Earthbuilding School on Social
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