Earth and Bamboo Natural Building Course

Dream of building an elegant bamboo and earthen plaster home? Due to the increasing demand by new conscientious settlers in our area of Costa Rica, a weeklong intensive course is being offered in bamboo,cob,adobe and earthen plasters hosted on an amazing 175 acre permaculture farm in the Diamante valley. Immerse yourself in the jungle and learn valuable hands on skills in many different natural building modalities with experts living in Costa Rica.

The hands-on workshop and lectures will cover:

*Bamboo varieties, cutting, selecting, curing, design and reinforcement
*Beautiful bamboo design options including dome bending roofs and curved walls, also temporary structures and tent platforms
*Bamboo splitting lattice, laminating, bending and decorating
*Bamboo furniture making
*Bolt-less and beautiful bamboo joining techniques
*Fish mouth
*Overlap
*Pegging and lashing techniques
*Finishing and maintenance of bamboo
*Bamboo foundation options
*Bamboo wattle and daub
*Clay sourcing and preparation
*Making cob with vetiver grass and local clay
*Interior and exterior finish coats
*Preparing soils, grass binders and mixtures
*Special power and hand tools use
*Making hardwood and bamboo pegs and binder sticks
*Adobe
*Lime plasters
*Earth plasters
*Earthen floors

Instructors

Rodolfo Saenz

A Costa Rican native with 25 years experience to a master craftsman level in all natural building disciplines. Rodolfo specializes in bamboo, cob, adobe, and bamboo furniture making. At 17 he studied in Taiwan for 3
years learning building techniques with monks, as well as massage, meditation and kung fu. His Costa Rican home is a shining example of the possibilities bamboo and cob construction offer. A video of his innovative
house will also be presented at this workshop, along with live demonstrations of the key materials.

Eric Rivkin

Eric founded La Joya del Sol in 2005, a project of the no-profit Viva La Raw Program for natural lifestyle education. He has 30+ years of experience building with wood and bamboo. He’s designed and built timberframe housing in Minnesota which received acclaim for its extreme durability, quality, and zen beauty in an advanced Japanese tradition. He “grows his own homes” by planting several varieties of construction grade
bamboo at La Joya del Sol , uses only fallen or dead wood from forests, intended for use in future construction.Eric believes in the amazing and infinite design possibilities that bamboo has to offer. La Joya del Sol is filled
with examples of delightful and cutting edge bio-architecture using bamboo and sustainable woods. He dedicates his life to sharing elegant solutions to a simple, strong, most used building material on earth -bamboo.

With special guest instructors as well

Cost: Ex-pats: $575 Native Costa Ricans: $400

Cost includes all classes/workshops,tent camping and gourmet raw vegan food by Chef Eric.(Some cooked vegan options will be available)

Arrival on Monday March 23 by early afternoon. Orientation is at 3 pm Monday The classes start at 8 am Tuesday March 24th and end at 12 pm on Sunday March 29. Classes/lectures/workshops will be from 8 am to 12 pm Tuesday thru Sunday and from 2 pm to 6 pm Tuesday thru Saturday with a 2 hour siesta daily for lunch and river play. Students are encouraged to stay on Sunday to enjoy the farm and amazing river and waterfalls.

Enrollment
For more information about this course or to enroll, please contact either Trey Abernethy at [email protected] or 8444 3565 or Eric Rivkin at [email protected] or 8886 6802.

There is a maximum of 15 openings for this workshop and a minimum of 8 students to run the course.