Seems like things are stalling again... Though our Earthiship build in Mazunte has lots of helping hands, piles of dirt, and pretty much all the tires we'll need, we still haven't gotten the final okay from the authorities. Mind you, we're not building the theater, a public building for two hundred people. It's not even going to be a house, for crying out loud! It's a simple garage, a mere shed. Regardless, while the bureaucrats are dragging their feet, we can't continue with the next course. And since the helping hands are attached to hungry mouths, we also decided that we couldn't extend their stay for next week. Which is too bad, because our group of volunteers have gotten to form a wonderful team this time.

On Friday, however, seeing that it was their last workday with us, we wanted to give them a little treat: getting insight into earth-bag style construction, referred to as superadobe. Though as it turns out, the technique employed was considered a step further, and thus called hyperadobe.

Switching Sites to La Boquilla

One of my friends has a piece of property in La Boquilla, only half an hour from Mazunte. I have mentioned this place several times, as that is where I worked last year, building a retaining wall of tires. Since then, a decent size palapa, or palm-thatched roof has sprung up on the top of the hill, which busy workers are equipping with a kitchen. The stairs leading from the first to the second floor will be made out of layers of hyperadobe, which a knowledgeable neighbor of ours was going to introduce to the workers. So we thought, why not give our volunteers also an impression of this?

We packed everyone in the back of the truck and took them to La Boquilla, to show them the property, give them an idea about the massive retaining walls you can build with tires, and introduce them to earthbag construction. Also, afterwards we took some time to enjoy the sun and the beach at the secluded little bay, before heading back to Mazunte. Everybody was quite happy about this little excursion, as it turned out, and we weren't stuck in Mazunte, trying to keep the many hands busy while not being able to go on with our build.

Superadobe and Hyperadobe

Though I have seen earthbag constructions on various occasions, both as they were being constructed, as well as finished buildings, I have never had the chance to try it out for myself. The concept is pretty straight forward, though: you take old sacks of tarpaulin or polypropylene, fill them with dirt, give them a good pounding to really compact the earth inside, and lay them on top of each other like compressed sausages. To make the construction process even more efficient, you don't even need sacks. Getting a roll of the sack material, and cutting off pieces of the right length saves a lot of time. They can be laid out to make round dome-shaped structures, but also straight walls.

In the case of superadobe you need a piece of barbed wire between each layer of earth bag, to keep them from moving around while getting compacted. But hyperadobe tries to be ahead of the game, using a mesh with relatively big holes, so the dirt on both sides of it can stick together, and thus save you on the barbed wire.

Before We Can Start: Preparation

As it is always the case, you can't just jump right ahead into building. Some preparation is required, such as excavating the area, at the least. However, the building material also sets some picky requirements. Before the dirt can be used, it needs to be made sufficiently wet, to achieve a certain stickiness. This means that the type of dirt had to be examined for its clay and sand contents. It is not as wanting as actual adobe, so a rough estimate is sufficient, but it's not like pounding tires either, where just about anything can go inside, save for organic stuff. If it won't stick at all, you need to add some clay, or cement. Fortunately, the local dirt we excavated was just fine to stick together when wet. As a result, we spent a good amount of time picking through the dirt for small rocks, and wetting it down.

The Apparent Downside to Hyperadobe

Once we were ready, our teacher explained how to close one side of the bag, how to insert the cardboard tube, recycled from pouring concrete columns, and how to fill the mesh to make a dirt sausage. The first one had to be repeated at once, as the bag simply tore open on the side. The next run wasn't much better, but this time lots of hands got busy sewing the torn places with pieces of wire. This had to be repeated when it was time to compact the filled bag. For me, that was just too much picky work.

Wasn't the whole point of hyperadobe to save on the wire??? And sure, the excuse given was that the mesh was old... but c'mon! This never happened on such a regular basis with superadobe, at least any time I got to observe it done. Not to mention the tires, which can withstand a whole lot of maltreatment, then then some! I know, I've tried! But I don't want to discredit this method completely. Though after this impression I really would like to get my hands on it myself. But careful what you wish for... because if we don't get the permit soon, I just might have to. Let's hope for the best!

Follow our Construction Adventure in This Series:

Bending Rebar Like a Mexican
Working at Night for the Perfect Level
The Challenge of Scoring Tires
Creating Conditions to Work and Live
Previous series: A Theater on the Beach