Awhi Farm – Timbrel Dome workshop with James Bellamy
Dynamic, innovative approaches and a ‘can-do’ attitude have clearly made the Awhi Farm Sustainability Centre a community project to keep both eyes on.
Over two visits, Steve Henry and I have been able to see a number of great low-cost projects unfolding before our eyes – one in particular was finished on our return visit on Wednesday.
In this short video, James Bellamy took the time to talk to me about the Timbrel vault workshop while students worked around him.
On our return visit the structure was complete as you can see from the photo below.
Self supporting Timbrel vault structure
On our way north James Bellamy, running a 3-day Timbrel vault building workshop. The tiles are pressed from local crushed pumice, cemented together with gypsum plaster to create amazingly strong arch and dome structures in a very short time.
Check out the courses at http://www.ecoshow.co.nz/Courses.html
This excerpt is copied from the above webpage:
“A building technique that dates back 600 years and is now being rediscovered due to it’s low use of building materials and therefore low embodied energy. Made from locally pressed tiles, beautiful spanning shapes are built without extensive formwork and at minimal cost. The designs of these dome shells work with pure compression and no reinforcement steel.
At Awhi farm a hand press is used to make the tiles out of our local materials of pumice and stabilized with cement.”
I can see Awhi Farm becoming a significant and integral part of the ‘sustainable community development’ space in the central North Island in a very short amount of time.
Thanks again for the whole Awhi Farm community for extending your time to us so generously. Hopefully, these blog posts go some way towards raising the profile of the Centre and encourages more people to visit and be inspired by the space you’re creating.
Return to Awhi Farm to meet with tangata whenua
Welcome to Awhi Farm - Turangi Sustainability Centre
Our return visit to Awhi Farm has proved to be the most culturally rich experience of the tour so far – a grassroots action project, practical outcomes, a supportive learning community, tangata whenua involved intimately in the process – all necessary to create a culture of acceptance, forward thinking and a sustainable future.
Nick, a young Maori man talked passionately about his 8-months at Awhi Farm “this has changed the way I think about what I do, about who I am, about myself”
Lisa, tangata whenua, talked about being able to inhabit the land without having to go into debt, something she had done before and was not prepared to do again – the opportunities Awhi Farm provides allows for this possibility.
Bryan spoke again about the Awhi Farm vision of creating a low-cost practical learning centre for young people in the local community.
Jo talked about the profound impact a 2-week permaculture course had had on her perspective and how it had informed her ideas and community vision for Awhi Farm.
The discussion came up around the idea of whether Awhi Farm could be a teaching and learning hub for sustainable practice in the Central North Island –“It already is” was the response. There is the potential that more formalised recognition of the work being done could be credited through the qualifications in sustainable practice being developed by Otago Polytechnic’s Centre for Sustainable Practice (CSP).
Steve and I were provided with the opportunity to speak from the heart about why the new qualifications are so important – John, one of the founding trust members highlighted the need for the new qualifications to be promoted with Maori communities. Strong ties between a traditional Maori perspective of land and the type of sustainable practice both Awhi Farm & the Centre for Sustainable Practice means that genuine collaboration is possible between these unique, rich and diverse communities; united under the shared vision of what a sustainable future looks like for all of us.
Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua.
Care for the land Care for people. Go forward.
Enough said.
Awhi Farm solar trailer demonstration
Awhi Farm -Turangi
On the suggestion of James Samuel, Steve Henry and I dropped in on Awhi Farm on our way through Turangi not really knowing what to expect. 3 hours later we had to drag ourselves away after being blown away by the scope and breadth of the work that had been done by Bryan, Jo and the the board of trustees.
Steve, Bryan and Jo at Awhi Farm
A fantastic community focussed, led and run project – 10 acres of land on the edge of Turangi, this is old Ministry of Works land overgrown with blackberries and numerous other invasive species. Since March 2010, the board and a committed group of voluteers have come to together to clear the land, erect temporary structures and showcase low-cost sustainable projects including harvest gardens, sustainable building techniques, landscaping and a working community of health and low impact lifestyles.
Much of the work is based on permaculture principles and it is obvious that this is the case when looking around the farm and the trnsformation it has gone through in such a short space of time since opening in March.
Many of the folks there were kind enough to offer their time to describe the projects they had been working on. In this series of posts, I’ve embedded a number of short videos to show what sort of innovative projects are possible when a group of people come together with the shared vision of creating a sustainable future together.
Check out some of the Youtube videos from our time at Awhi Farm:
Bomun talks about creating this low cost sustainable structure
We look forward to out second visit on Wednesday 13th October when Lisa, who is tangata whenua, is available to speak to us about the project and her visions for it. I’m looking forward to it!
