The Ashevillage Institute of Kleiwerks International
Janell Kapoor, Founder
Massey Burke, project collaborator
All Kleiwerks International staff & collaborators
Massey Burke, project collaborator
All Kleiwerks International staff & collaborators
1. Describe the problem(s) you intend to solve and/or the preferred state you intend to achieve.
Gaia faces a tangle of interrelated problems: climate change, peak oil, the disintegration of community and indigenous cultures, and so on. Each problem considered independently appears huge and insoluble; the thread of each problem, when followed far enough, leads back to a single center—the great human forgetting of how to belong to an ecosystem. Solving any of these problems requires tools that
enable us to rebuild that knowledge—tools that re-teach us how to create a mutually beneficial relationship with the non-human world.
Once you follow a thread back and arrive at this central knot, it is possible to reorient from how can we prevent global warming? (or habitat destruction, or topsoil loss…) to what is the core of a vibrant human culture, and what is its right relationship to wildness? When we begin living this question, appropriate systems begin to arise naturally.
The problem that Kleiwerks intends to solve is that of tunnel vision: the state that Kleiwerks intends to enable is that of a meaningful conversation between human culture and the rest of the living earth
2. Describe your solution and your plan to implement it.
We have a lot of tools available to us for rebuilding a sane human culture. Kleiwerks employs many of them but has chosen natural building as its flagship tool. Natural building uses local materials with minimal industrial refinement: clay soil, sand, straw, stone, bamboo, unmilled wood, rice husks, urbanite (demolished concrete), bottles and many other things.
Because these materials vary from site to site, using them effectively teaches detailed knowledge of the local ecosystem, from the soil types to the weather patterns. Because the impact of their use is local and visible, people can make personal decisions about whether the need for the building justifies the impact of its construction.
Natural building is usually more labor intensive than conventional building, a characteristic which also teaches: it makes visible the invisible petroleum energy that goes into refining and transporting most conventional materials. When the energy that goes into a structure is primarily human, that human is much more likely to make real distinctions between needs and wants.
Natural building empowers a wide range of builders. The materials are non-toxic, non-threatening, and non-modular—you can work with an ounce of cob, or a ton of cob, or anything in between, depending on your ability and your mood. Because so many more people can participate in the building process, more people feel necessary to the life of the community. Natural building also enables communities as a whole to feel much more self-sufficient, which restores a sense of community dignity.
Kleiwerks has historically used these tools abroad, teaching and leading natural building work at the invitation of communities in Thailand, Argentina, and other places around the world. Last year, Kleiwerks began to bring its work home. The first step—the creation of the Ashevillage Institute near downtown Asheville, North Carolina--is in progress. This urban education center and living laboratory is dedicated to living the question of rebuilding human culture. It will also serve as headquarters for Kleiwerks International and currently includes, among other things, an eco-remodel house and an earthen cottage called the "Garottage.”
The Ashevillage Institute is designed to be a replicable model of Kleiwerks principles. It does not suggest creating a new set of systems for human support; instead it takes and reorients as much existing urban infrastructure as possible, and creates new solutions to fill in the holes or to adjust existing systems. We feel that this approach is particularly appropriate for urban centers, where Kleiwerks is most interested in developing hubs, and where a little bit of reorienting goes a long way.
The hub operates in five concentric rings of relationship.
1) The core community, which consists of the staff, interns, apprentices, and visiting specialists. The living community is there to walk the talk, to develop solid working teams together, and to support outreach.
2) Core teaching, which includes onsite programs in natural building, urban permaculture, wild food and fermentation, and other related skills.
3) Relationship to the neighborhood, which includes leading and supporting City Repair-style placemaking work, neighborhood permaculture projects (rainwater catchment, lawns to food), and developing a replicable EcoHood program.
4) Relationship to the city, which includes work through schools, other nonprofits, and the city government, and the hosting of a Village Building Convergence.
5) Relationships to the larger movements of natural building and permaculture design, which includes supporting the formation of other urban hubs in the United States and the continuation of Kleiwerks’ international collaboration.
The Ashevillage Institute is already replicating in the form of Kleiwerks West near San Francisco. This incipient hub includes an urban permaculture farmhouse retrofitted with natural building techniques and a full-season workshop schedule.
Kleiwerks wants these hubs to support better documentation, enabling us to develop and share educational tools with our alumni, affiliates and the general public. These tools include an expanding library of videos, photographs and working templates and a popular website which now receives half a million hits per year.
3. Describe how you will finance your solution and make it economically viable.
Once the Ashevillage Institute gets off the ground, we expect it to support itself primarily through the following: programs (classes, apprenticeships, etc..), for-profit projects in the community that are in line with the Kleiwerks ethos, public events, and making the main house available for rent as a community center. We also expect to continue seeking funding from donors and organizations as supplementary support.
4. Describe who will take your solution to the next stage of development (include your qualifications and/or those of your team, and any strategic partners.
The team that will take this project to the next level will consist of the unofficial consulting team that consists of most of the prominent members of the natural building movement, which act as a visioning body, and the team of new project managers, which are in formation around the hubs of Kleiwerks.
Once you follow a thread back and arrive at this central knot, it is possible to reorient from how can we prevent global warming? (or habitat destruction, or topsoil loss…) to what is the core of a vibrant human culture, and what is its right relationship to wildness? When we begin living this question, appropriate systems begin to arise naturally.
The problem that Kleiwerks intends to solve is that of tunnel vision: the state that Kleiwerks intends to enable is that of a meaningful conversation between human culture and the rest of the living earth
2. Describe your solution and your plan to implement it.
We have a lot of tools available to us for rebuilding a sane human culture. Kleiwerks employs many of them but has chosen natural building as its flagship tool. Natural building uses local materials with minimal industrial refinement: clay soil, sand, straw, stone, bamboo, unmilled wood, rice husks, urbanite (demolished concrete), bottles and many other things.
Because these materials vary from site to site, using them effectively teaches detailed knowledge of the local ecosystem, from the soil types to the weather patterns. Because the impact of their use is local and visible, people can make personal decisions about whether the need for the building justifies the impact of its construction.
Natural building is usually more labor intensive than conventional building, a characteristic which also teaches: it makes visible the invisible petroleum energy that goes into refining and transporting most conventional materials. When the energy that goes into a structure is primarily human, that human is much more likely to make real distinctions between needs and wants.
Natural building empowers a wide range of builders. The materials are non-toxic, non-threatening, and non-modular—you can work with an ounce of cob, or a ton of cob, or anything in between, depending on your ability and your mood. Because so many more people can participate in the building process, more people feel necessary to the life of the community. Natural building also enables communities as a whole to feel much more self-sufficient, which restores a sense of community dignity.
Kleiwerks has historically used these tools abroad, teaching and leading natural building work at the invitation of communities in Thailand, Argentina, and other places around the world. Last year, Kleiwerks began to bring its work home. The first step—the creation of the Ashevillage Institute near downtown Asheville, North Carolina--is in progress. This urban education center and living laboratory is dedicated to living the question of rebuilding human culture. It will also serve as headquarters for Kleiwerks International and currently includes, among other things, an eco-remodel house and an earthen cottage called the "Garottage.”
The Ashevillage Institute is designed to be a replicable model of Kleiwerks principles. It does not suggest creating a new set of systems for human support; instead it takes and reorients as much existing urban infrastructure as possible, and creates new solutions to fill in the holes or to adjust existing systems. We feel that this approach is particularly appropriate for urban centers, where Kleiwerks is most interested in developing hubs, and where a little bit of reorienting goes a long way.
The hub operates in five concentric rings of relationship.
1) The core community, which consists of the staff, interns, apprentices, and visiting specialists. The living community is there to walk the talk, to develop solid working teams together, and to support outreach.
2) Core teaching, which includes onsite programs in natural building, urban permaculture, wild food and fermentation, and other related skills.
3) Relationship to the neighborhood, which includes leading and supporting City Repair-style placemaking work, neighborhood permaculture projects (rainwater catchment, lawns to food), and developing a replicable EcoHood program.
4) Relationship to the city, which includes work through schools, other nonprofits, and the city government, and the hosting of a Village Building Convergence.
5) Relationships to the larger movements of natural building and permaculture design, which includes supporting the formation of other urban hubs in the United States and the continuation of Kleiwerks’ international collaboration.
The Ashevillage Institute is already replicating in the form of Kleiwerks West near San Francisco. This incipient hub includes an urban permaculture farmhouse retrofitted with natural building techniques and a full-season workshop schedule.
Kleiwerks wants these hubs to support better documentation, enabling us to develop and share educational tools with our alumni, affiliates and the general public. These tools include an expanding library of videos, photographs and working templates and a popular website which now receives half a million hits per year.
3. Describe how you will finance your solution and make it economically viable.
Once the Ashevillage Institute gets off the ground, we expect it to support itself primarily through the following: programs (classes, apprenticeships, etc..), for-profit projects in the community that are in line with the Kleiwerks ethos, public events, and making the main house available for rent as a community center. We also expect to continue seeking funding from donors and organizations as supplementary support.
4. Describe who will take your solution to the next stage of development (include your qualifications and/or those of your team, and any strategic partners.
The team that will take this project to the next level will consist of the unofficial consulting team that consists of most of the prominent members of the natural building movement, which act as a visioning body, and the team of new project managers, which are in formation around the hubs of Kleiwerks.
Login to add/view comments
