Paulina Wojciechowska

An Architect (qualified from Kingston University in the UK), as a child spent a few years in Afghanistan and India where she saw for the first time earth architecture. Paulina studied earth building in CAL-Earth Californian institute of earth art and architecture in the Mohave Desert, where she built an earth dwelling out of Earthbags. She later studied with the Canelo Project. Amongst others worked on a project with the Yaqui Indians close to Hermosillo in Northern Mexico, building a community house out of Earthbags, then worked on ‘Casas de Cantan’ project, building houses for poor women living in the slums of Cuidad Obregon in Mexico. Later worked with Sioux Indians (Oglala) at Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, and teaching Earthbag construction to construct an Earth House. Paulina has recently taught the Technology and Development module on the MSc. Programme in CENDEP (Centre for Development and Emergency Practice) at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford.

From the year 2000 she has focused her work mainly in Poland, although there has been some international activity in the UK, Hungary and Sierra Leone. Her design of the small house in northeasterly Poland was mentioned in the main newspaper ‘Polityka’ as one of the most interesting ecological buildings in Poland.

She is also an author of a book on Earthbag construction ‘Building with Earth a guide to free-form Earthbag construction’ and Alternative Construction entitled “Earth Hands & Houses - Earthbag and Other Alternative Construction Methods”. She has also written contributions to books such as:

• Alternative Construction- Contemporary Natural Building Methods. Edited by L. Elizabeth and C. Adams. On Earthbag technology
  
  
• The Lemonade Stand, Exploring the unfamiliar by building large-scale models. By Maurice Mitchell.
  
  
• Sandbag Construction, The Art of Natural Building, Edited by J. Kennedy

Paulina founded ‘Earth Hands And Houses’ organisation in 1997. Below are some of the alternative building methods Paulina experienced during her travels;

• Earthbags
• Pumice filled bags
• Sandbags
• Straw clays
• Adobe
• Cob
• Straw bales
• Cordwood
• Pumice-crete
• Stone
• Rammed earth
• Rammed Tyres
• Paper-crete
  

Jarema Dubiel

An Ecologist, Teacher and Journalist, who did his Masters Degree in the field of Sociology at University of Warsaw. In 1990 He initiated the project ‘Green Telephone’ (an environmental help line), for the Polish Environmental Centre in Warsaw, which he then run for the next 10 years. He was the co-ordinator of several projects. Such as:

• Anti-nuclear power plants (thanks to this campaign there are still no nuclear power stations in Poland),
  
• Anti waste incineration campaign and
  
• Anti pvc and polyurethane campaign

He runs lectures and workshops for children and youth on how to identify and avoid toxic elements in our surroundings.

Articles

Article from "The art of Natural Building" by Paulina Wojciechowska edited by Joseph F. Kennedy Networks Productions, Inc. 1997

Earthmother Dwelling: Listening to the elements, exploring inner freedom

I spent most of my impressionable years in Afghanistan and India, where I was surrounded by indigenous architecture. It was during this time, I suspect that I developed subconsciously the passion for honesty, modesty and harmony in design.

When I started architecture I explored how the city in its origin embodied myths that connect it to the world, with everyone's lives being grounded by this connection. I worked with the premise that, notwithstanding progress and modern mobility, significant aspects of our beings remains biological. In his writings on the biological basis of psychoanalysis, Peter Fuller shows how myths arise from the same substratum as dreams, and that they play a significant role in how we engage with the world. These myths are neither fiction nor flights of fantacy, but the concrete manifestation of this mythopoetic dimension of our being.

...Rejecting... mechanical imagery as the basis for architecture, my work has been an exploration of being, where it interrupts with the structure and "feel" of the city. I have attempted to show the city through its buildings, might, form, spatial realms suffused with character and mood where lives could be fruitfully enacted.

Throughout my studies I had a passion for what I call "primitive" architecture. By primitive I don't mean backward, but quite the opposite to be primus means to be the first. To be at the beginning. It is good for the mind to go back to the beginning, because the start of any established human activity is its most wonderful moment. This view can teach us the fundamental principles of each invention, thereby showing the possibility of taking another path.

Most 'primitive' anonymous buildings were constructed in response to such conditions as climate, orientation, and the easy availability of building materials. As the building material dictated the form of the dwelling, the builders were sensitive to it. They worked with their materials, not against them as in so much of today's architecture.

During the summer of 1996, I finally embarked on my long awaited journey to discover indigenous materials and techniques. One of my earliest and most exciting discoveries was the arch. Here was a form that occurs all around us in nature. The arch allows us to be free of the need to use wood, and materials such as concrete and steel, which are high in embodied energy. All naturally occurring structures use the arch form as their structural element...

I first learnt about Earth Architecture from the Iranian-born visionary architect, Nadr Khalli, during an internship at his school of Earth Art and Architecture, Cal-Earth. The islamic influence wasn't new, due to my prior years spent in Afghanistan, but the materials and techniques were. However my passion for the arch had noting to do with dome or vault or any type of symmetrical islamic architecture. It has to do with nature. I didn't want to necessarily imitate nature. I wanted to feel the freedom that nature appears to posses. I had experienced so many constraints in the world I came from; I wanted to escape it . I wanted to become free. I wanted to explore my strength. To understand and celebrate the possibilities of the earth in my hands.

As I worked with this totally fluid materials, I felt its lack of constraints, its freedom. I wanted it to lead me, to allow the earth that freedom. I didn't want to make it do something which imitated another material. I wanted to set it free, to listen to it. I believe that all buildings should be designed and built with sensitivity... designing and building are to me like sculpting. When a sculptor carves in to the rock he listens to the rock telling him what it should become. Creating a dwellings the same to me; its about understanding the material, the need of the inhabitant, the climate, being in harmony with the environment and, most of all, feeling passion during the process.

At the moment, my ideal house is one which lives in such harmony with its environment, a house that is difficult to notice, like an animal that blends into its surroundings. So many houses appear like warts on our landscape. When you drive in the countryside, how much nicer it would be if you couldn't see the houses, if they harmoniously blended in, like the houses in Afghanistan that climb the hillsides and are made of the same earth as the hillside. Only at night, when the lights come on, do you see the extent of development.

In my 'Earthmother Dwelling' that I built at Cal-Earth, these are some of the things that I aimed to achieve. The 'Earthmother Dwelling' was built in a close dialogue with the essence of the site. Listening to the elements, letting the earth tell me what it wanted to become. Being from the architectural icons of traditional cultures. Listening openly to my inner voices, letting them guide me to achieve coherence and happiness.