August 29th, 2011 - 2011 shows to be a busy and active year. So busy that even publishing a newsletter has taken a while.
Volunteers from Earthship Belgium have had a part in building an Earthship greenhouse in North Brabant, for which we are thankful. The result can be viewed on our website.
The construction of Earthresidence in Kemzeke has significantly progressed. In total there are around 45 volunteers regularly involved in the realization of this hybrid Earthship. In the blog Earthresidence you can follow the progress.
Next to this we had our expedition to Sweden, combined with the first Earthship Europe seminar. 8 volunteers departed from Antwerp to Sweden to meet with other volunteers from Earthship Sweden and volunteers from European Earthship Builders United (EEBU). You can be read about these experiences on our website.
Also, in recent years we have studied the performance of earthships in Europe. It appears that the earthships built by M. Reynolds are not sufficiently adapted to European climate and therefore exhibit problems. These are not insurmountable and the proper adjustments can prevent this. All this research and many discussions in Europe led to the development of a model adapted to our climate, the Euro model.
Euro Model - Illustratie: W. Raets
We are currently working on this model and the idea is that as soon as possible we can build it and do further research to see if the solutions work. Earthship Sweden may have the opportunity next summer to realize this as we here in Flanders are experiencing difficulties with building with the tires.
In terms of building, research, experimentation and development, we can state it has been a very fruitful summer, bustling with activity and developments.
Given the fact the summer is slowly approaching its end, we already started the preparations for the autumn. We are working hard to try and organize a round of "Earthship Belgium visits you ..." in Hasselt and Ghent. Should this happen you will find announcements on our website. Following the development of this summer, we will update our lecture somewhat to the current state of affairs.
We also want to use the autumn to launch our project plans around an ecological self-sustaining community. Now that we have found someone for translations into French we are going to launch it in both Flanders and Wallonia. Earthship Sweden will be launching the project in Sweden. The first meetings with a benevolent community there have already taken place.
The project will revolve around building a community living in earthships or on earthship based homes. Permaculture and nature restoration are part of the project, as well as research of all possible aspects of such a project. There should be room for experimentation and further study of the results of these experiments. Experiments in the field of construction, agriculture, nature and society in a more balanced and less stressful manner for our planet are among the objectives. The free availability of all learned knowledge in an open source way is another important part of the project.
The ultimate goal is to start more of these projects across Europe. The various European projects will be working together in European Earthship Communities Network (EECN) to exchange experiences, knowledge and so on with each other.
For the project we are also looking for partners such as permaculture specialists, colleges and universities (for research), municipalities with interest, those with interests to work, inhabit and live in the experiment, financiers and so on.
If you know organizations or individuals who may be a possible partner in this project let us know.
And the lastest news, tonight our webstore launched for the public. The shop has T-shirts with earthship themes in a limited edition. With this we hope to get some extra funds in order to pay our actions. We hope that you will like the designs .
With kind regards,
Willy Raets,
Chairman,
Earthship Belgium npo
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