Due to the interest for low-tech technologies in general and on earth architecture, seen as an ideal tool for developing projects empowering communities and their realization in the absence of funding , there was always much fascination for the “superadobe ” building system .So at the beginning of 2012 I moved to CalEarth Institute in California, center where Nader Khalili developed the technology, studying there full and satisfactory their “long term training program”.
This program target and is focused on technical training of professionals and teachers on superadobe and I had the occasion, from the first few weeks, to be able to accompany Institute Director Ian Lodge first and the professor Marcos Cervantes then in the Spain workshops.
So I participated in March 2012 in Mallorca and Barcelona workshops and Bilbao and Madrid in May of the same year.
From then until June 2013 Ctrl+Z developed for CalEarth-Spain the teaching of the workshops in this country, realizing a total of 10 workshops with them, with theoretical/practical courses always implementing the construction of an educational prototype.
In parallel to that from Ctrl + Z independently performs constant activity of advisory and support of projects that students will undertake, organizing some working days in which we met with several former alumni to contribute to the construction of project one of them.
These occasions are harnessed to consolidate and expand the training received in the workshop and expand the experience in the technique.
From June 2013 CalEarth-Spain and Ctrl+Z roads separated and we start again to work directly with central CalEarth Californa Institute. This new line of collaboration has materialized with the realization of a 10-day workshop in Morocco in which the basic program of Spain workshops has been extended to the complete construction and finishing of a 3 meters dome and incorporation of different green technologies.
For 2014 will be organized different activities to be reported once closed the calendar. If you are interested in organizing events superadobe in Europe or South America activities you can contact us at: info@control-zeta.org.
The activities can be developed equally in English, Italian or Spanish.
For those who do not know the Superadobe is a green building technique designed by the Nader Khalili , who founded Cal Earth, based on three principles:
(1) Housing is a basic human right
(2) Every human being should be able to build a house for himself
(3) The best way to provide shelter, facing the exponential increase in human population, is by building with earth.
The Superadobe (sandbag and barbed wire ) is a long adobe. It is a simple adobe, immediate and flexible generator of the lines . War materials are used for peaceful purposes, integrating traditional earth architecture with contemporary safety requirements worldwide.
The bags are filled with earth, stabilized or not, of the site overlapping one another by barbed wire, to give consistency to the structures, which are usually dome type, domes, arches and apses, creating resistance to earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fire, …., a simple and easy technique where the whole family can participate in the selfbuilding of their home.
Ctrl+Z for its dedication towards models that promote selfbuilding and empowerment of communities, do not not build supeadobe houses for others, although it may involve in the construction process for projects of social interest or in a very seldom in private buildings. The selfbuilding is, in fact, conceived as a tool for emancipation from the need to get a mortgage and superdobe as one of the possibilities to implement it.