Natural Building Workshop in Thailand

Dates: January 6 – 20, 2010
Location: Thailand (directions here)

This two week program is designed to give participants:

1. An integrated experience living at an intentional community
2. Experience in natural building
3. An introduction to Permaculture Design

Workshop participants will take part in all the activities of daily life, from cooking to composting, as well as work on specific projects such as the construction of adobe bungalows. We hope that participants go away from this course understanding not only the basics of adobe building and permaculture design, but also understanding some of the nuances of what it takes to be a successful intentional community.

Natural Building: This is one of the topics that we are most passionate about, and interns will get plenty of experience working with adobe bricks, carpentry, mud plasters and natural paints. We have two main projects that we will be working on during this time. The first project, and the focus of our time will be to build a series of small earthen bungalows. These bungalows will serve as housing for future courses and internships. We are very excited to make each bungalow a beautiful unique creation, with as much artistic nuance as interns would like to give them The second is to work on the finishing touches of a number of buildings that have gone up in the last year. We should work to add those finishing touches that really make earthen building come alive.

Permaculture Design: The Panya Project has been greatly influenced by the design principals of Permaculture. We started our project two years ago by hosting a Permaculture Design Course, which concluded with an integrated permaculture design for our property. Since then we have been working toward achieving the aims of that design, including all the earthen buildings, an edible food forest, a large kitchen garden and a broad acreage of fruit crops. We have also put in an extensive water harvesting swale system to help us return water to the watershed.

In addition to all of these things, we have an adobe pizza oven, abundant fruit crops for eating and wine-making, a swimming lake an easy 15 minute walk away, a beautiful forest around us, and two more wonderful communities next door, including a Thai cooking school and cafe that serves the best fruit shakes in Thailand!

Costs:

Two week building workshop: Jan 6 – 20, 2010: US$400* (14,000 baht)

We ask all participants to pay a US$200* (7,000 Baht) deposit to secure your place.

*Please note that the costs of this course are in Thai Baht, so the US$ price may change.

These courses filled quickly this last year, so please sign up early to reserve your space.

Contact Christian Shearer now to register: panyaproject (at) gmail.com