Greetings.. Updated flyer for the gig coming this week in sydney, Apologies for the late notice and change in venue and date! We'd still love to have you along and come and connect to the awesome movement for building earthship communities in Australia!!

Learn about this inspiring Earthship build and the community that came together to make it happen.

Join the discussion with Rachel Goldlust, founding member of Earthship Australia and graduate of Michael Reynolds’ Earthship Biotecture Academy.

Connect with shared learning opportunities and skill development workshops being led by Earthship Australia and learn how you can get involved.

Bookings encouraged

 http://www.trybooking.com/CWHM

Australia’s first Earthship – Finishes Workshop

Hello everyone!

We are very excited to announce the finishes workshop for Australias first Earthship in Queensland, Australia. The Earthship design concept and systems have been applied to the subtropical climate of the area. Come and see the rammed earth tyres, the can walls, the earth berm, the hempcrete roof and all other components of this Earthship.

The Earthship was started in January this year. We ran a 3 week construction workshop on our residential permaculture plot. Our Earthship Finishes Workshop gives detailed attention to bottle walls, botanical cells and many more creative applications for the flooring, walls and the bathroom fit out.

Greetings Tasmanian Earthship and sustainable building supporters!

After much waiting there's finally an Earthship event coming up for Tassie

Come along if you've heard about Earthships and want to find out more or would like to sign up and join the movement starting across Australia to bring this radical sustainble architecture and living model to us here!

Greetings from Taos!

Well I've been lucky enough to be able to revisit Taos this year to get some more hands-on experience, see some old friends, visit with the Academy and try and organise for some workshops in Australia for 2013.  I thought Id just give a quick summary of what happened and what I observed this time round.

Well Taos is in full swing in September.  There's builds going on in Estancia and Pataka in New Mexico and finishing the towers and EVE project, with the crew dispersed between them.  The Fall Academy are split between working hard on the EVE project and a G2 built in the Greater World community where they are currently installing the solar hot water, solar and water systems.  The new classrom in the EVE project seems to make for a more formal learning environment than previous venues and the work is at a pretty high level with the second level of can and bottle work on the front face of the EVE proving to be very challenging (especially as the winds picked up).  The Crew have had a busy year with international builds in Czech and coming up in Guatemala and Argentina finishing off a number of different project in 2012.  The vaulted dome model which we experimented with in Guatemala seems to be Mike R's new favourite with a build for a doctor being finished in Vermont recently over the summer which demonstrated its ability to be adapted to a colder climate and with nice finishings.

Greetings

Successful 1 day workshop completed at the recently created Murrindindi Farm on the outskirts of Sydney with 20 odd participants from all walks of life and with a variety of skills and interests participating.  The idea was to create a new circular seating area for future permaculture workshops on the land using recycled materials and as an introductory 'fundamentals' workshop in the design and practicalities of Earthship Biotecture building design. 

Hopefully all who attended had an enjoyable and fulfilling day, as it was mostly a hands on busy action-packed workshop with a load of new skills and tricks learn in how to use the waste products of today and transform them into practical building solutions for tomorrow.

Meeting to be held in the Ceres Van Raay Building - Enter from the Stewart St mosaic entrance and park anywhere in the top carpark.  Head towards the main buildings and look for A Frame to direct to exact room.

Please arrive promptly for 7pm start, don't want the meeting to go longer than an hour and have a bit to discuss.

Thanks

Greetings fans of Earthships in Australia
For those who don't know my name is Rachel and I've been taking on the logistics of setting up a NFP group out of the assorted structure that has been based at CERES Environment Park in Melbourne. Last week I received a grant from Moreland Council in Melbourne to register Earthship Australia and become fully incorporated.

Now as we havn't had a meeting or gathering for some time I would like to extend the invitation to Melbourne people to come along and re-form the group meetings that were started over 2 years ago and had quite alot of enthusiasm and purpose.  When the first meeting started in 2009 there was a wide range of people who came along every week to plan and discuss actions for Earthship projects at CERES and beyond and I'd really like to re-ignite that group and reform now that we have alot more knowledge and experience collectively behind us on what are the most realistic ways to move forward.

I have been doing alot of research and networking recently to look at the Earth building industry in Australia and inspect the industry to see where and how Earthships will fit into the marketplace.  As a town planner and graduate of the Academy I am trying to find myself a living developing Earthship consultation, training, information sessions, workshops and providing the planning process for projects across this big and diverse climate.

As you may or may not have found out there are no completed permitted global model Earthships in Australia that demonstrate the entire range and capacity of the Earthships seen in Taos and in other parts of the world.  It is archaic and makes me ill (even as a town planner) at the amount of regulations there are to prevent us from moving towards what is really a conscious choice, not a half-thought out and cheap short-cut.  Regulations are there to protect society and standardise it.  I understand this, but are they now becoming a tool for bureacrats to use to wave the red flag infront of change and efficiency.  If someone wants to collect rainwater to use for non-drinking purposes, what has it got to do with regulators.. I mean seriously?  nanny state we are.

So aside from that little rant I thought Id post up some of the resources I have been collecting which may be useful to others as we go down the road together towards ultimate (not tokenistic) sustainability.

Note some of these are not only Australian-situation relevant.. I have been looking far and wide at examples others are doing and dealing with in their countries for comparison and inspiration.  As Mike Reynolds says, when life throws you lemons, make lemonade.. hence we are going to have to be 'creative' to get these amazing structures up and running in this country.

Enjoy

Earthship specific resources

http://earthship.co.nz/ - Our buddies over the ocean are doing it better than us at the moment in terms of finished projects

http://taosearthships.com/blog.htm

http://inspirationgreen.com/glassbottlewalls.html

Melbourne Based Daniel Hogan earthship designs - http://www.themeski.com.au/

http://www.michaelbgreen.com.au/earthships

https://sites.google.com/site/earthshipmanitoba/project-definition

http://www.offthegridbuild.com/

http://w3.unisa.edu.au/news/2009/220709.asp

http://ryall.com.au/?p=910

http://www.networx.com/article/an-introduction-to-earthships

www.calvin.edu/~mkh2/summer_student...pro/es_2007_kruis.pdf

http://nontraditionalhousing.tribe.net/thread/aab1f08d-c8ab-4413-9d56-0a0d06220c19

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/wind-energy?before=1319569206

gubbsearthship.com/berm/

www.newcq.org/database/sites/default/files/ncq-94-earthship.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/professions/moving-from-mcmansions-to-earthships-the-quest-for-sustainable-housing-in-australia

http://eprints.brighton.ac.uk/4855/

Sustainable technology industry, associations, forums & research papers

ATA - http://www.ata.org.au/projects-and-advocacy/

http://www.dab.uts.edu.au/ebrf/

http://www.dab.uts.edu.au/ebrf/research/articles.html

http://www.dab.uts.edu.au/ebrf/research/durability.html

http://www.byohouse.com.au/forum4/viewtopic.php?t=150

http://www.ebaa.asn.au/forum/viewtopic.php?t=229&highlight=&sid=2ac058805d6bcd726d2a5954ba0fcc5f

http://www.resourcebasedcommunities.org/2012/05/17/get-involved-with-rbc/

EBAA - http://www.ebaa.asn.au/links.html#osbt

GBCA - http://www.gbca.org.au/

http://www.icat.org.au/our-work/

http://auses.org.au/solarpedia/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/fei-ngeow/19/90b/125

www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/assets/acc/.../water_fact_sheet.pdf

http://www.nature-loo.com.au/greywater/howitworks

General earth building resources and examples:

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/QandA/cob/structural.htm -- where you can find a wide range of information about sustainable architecture and natural building.

www.ebaa.asn.au/documents/ThermalSurveyof.pdf

http://earthbagbuilding.com/Testing/superadobe.htm

http://www.permastructure.com.au/

http://cobdreams.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.greenprophet.com/2012/07/hassan-fathy-regenerative-home-buddhist/#comment-39547

http://naturalbuildingblog.com/

http://www.eco.com.au/directory/dir/designers.htm

www.ecoflex.com.au/

builditbackgreen.org/bushfires

http://milkwood.net/2011/01/17/earthbag-building-workshop-at-milkwood-farm/

http://permieclass.wordpress.com/tag/super-adobe/

www.greywater.net/

Sustainable living blogs/articles/organisations

http://www.littleecofootprints.com/2011/06/ceres_melbourne_community_environment_park.html

http://www.holmgren.com.au/frameset.html?http://www.holmgren.com.au/html/Fryers/fryers.html

www.eco-shout.org

http://www.thegreenswing.net/pages/96rutlandave/water.html

http://www.a-p-e.org/

http://desertsmartcoolmob.org/