The EARTHLODGE
Eco-Building Project

The Earthlodge project took place in the summer and fall of 2003. The project was aborted at the beginning of winter, and it was not resumed the following spring. Instead the participants have all gone on to work on other eco-building projects across the world. Thank you, EarthLodge, for spawning a natural building movement in Southern Ontario!

We are designing and building a 1-room cabana, for meditation and intimate gatherings, out of recycled ecologically-benign materials, on the farmland of our friend Les Bowser, approximately 1 hour northeast of Toronto. Construction began on Saturday, July 26, 2003, and has been continuous ever since.

An Earthship Meditation Lodge

Phase 1
Site Excavation

Phase 1 of the Lodge was successfully completed, thanks to some great work from Alex, Azad, Chris, myself, Johnnie, Les, Octavian, and Rose. Props to Chris for biking all the way up to Cedar Grove and back from Toronto! Below is a photograph of the excavated site. As you can see, the lodge is being buried into the side of a small hill, to protect it from the north winds, and to take advantage of the temperature-regulating powers of massive hill.

Phase 2
Tire Walls

Phase 2 consisted of construction the foundation walls of the lodge, which involved shoveling earth into 28 used car tires and ramming the earth in tightly with sledgehammers. Below are some images from Phase 2 of the lodge construction. Big ups to Alex, David, Jeffrey, Jesse, Les, Naomi, & Rose, mighty earthship builders one and all!

Phase 3
Earhbag Dome

We have now begun Phase 3 of the Earthlodge! We will now be encasing the lodge with a corbelled dome made up of burlap bags filled with rammed earth. This method of construction has been used successfully in India and California, but to the best of our knowledge, this meditation lodge will be the FIRST permanent earthbag structure of its kind in Canada, ever!

Phase 4
Steel Reinforcement

After putting down five rows of earthbags, we started to worry about the structural integrity of the back half of the Earthlodge (the half that presses up against the hill), when we noticed that the walls of the lodge were starting to bow inward (below left). So we constructed a mesh grid out of steel rods that would lend extra support to the earthbag wall (below right). We started to feel a whole lot better!

Unfortunately, the rebar wasn't strong enough to support the earthbag walls of its own accord. So we called in some heavy reinforcements: shoring jacks. These big, bad mammajammas are used to raise entire houses up off of their foundations, so we knew they'd be able to do the trick for a one-room earthship. And for good measure, we cut up our leftover rebar into 1- and 2-foot lengths, and drove the spikes down into the earthbag walls, locking them together.

Phase 5
Door & Windows

The universe has deemed our project worthy... we were able to find windows and a door that are perfect for the Earthlodge! We got them at very reasonable rates from a depot for recycled building materials. When building walls from earthbags, only arched windows and doorframes will work, rectangular lintels aren't structurally stable. The plywood forms you see below will be removed after the earthbag dome has been completed.

Reclaimed Materials

Barbed wire was invented in order to separate people. The Earthlodge is being built in order to bring people together. When Les bought this land a year and a half ago, he found barbed wire strewn across the property. We've now reclaimed that barbed wire, and put it to good use: as mortar, providing extra friction between every two layers of Earthbags.

Home-made Tools

As we have been building the Earthlodge, we have fashioned some home-made tools so that we can work more efficiently. Marv's friend Larry forged a tool for tamping down the earthbags, which we have nicknamed "Stampy". Jeff banged together a wooden form that we can fit the earthbags into when we tamp them down, giving us uniform bags. That way, we don't need to tamp the bags down up on the walls themselves, which won't be fully stable until we complete the entire dome and vault. We nicknamed the wooden form "the PonsFORM", after its inventor, Jeff Ponsford ;-)

Computer Renderings

Below are some quick computer renderings of the shape that we intend the Earthlodge to take. Of course, the Earthlodge being built organically and non-hierarchically... so who knows what shape the structure will look like in its final form!

Volunteer Work Bees!

A great deal of unskilled labour, mainly digging and shoveling dirt, will be required in order to construct the lodge. The lodge is being built solely by volunteer labour, so any help that you can contribute to the construction of the lodge would be greatly appreciated. Good food to eat, comfortable beds to sleep in, and beautiful green fields to run through will all be provided!

If you've got a little bit of free time on your hands and you don't mind getting those hands a little dirty and sweaty... if you're interested in ecological building, or if you'd just like to get out of the city for a day or two -- we'd love to have you up at Cedar Grove. Learn valuable eco-building skills, and have fun while doing it!

Directions to Cedar Grove Farm

From Toronto, take the 401 East to the 35/115 (exit 436, between Bowmanville and Newcastle). Stay on the 115 until you reach county road 10. Take this north to county road 14 (about 5km past highway 7, immediately after Emily Provincial Park) and turn left, crossing the bridge over Pigeon River. Right away you will turn right, back on to 10. Go 2km north to Shamrock Road and turn right. The third mailbox on the left, #625, is black and reads "Les Bowser, Cedar Grove". You're here!