Normally I would have started a website first, and later on perhaps create a Facebook page. Things have changed. For Termitero I created the Facebook page first to launch our idea and organise a workshop.
It is called Termitero.Permacultura and now also has its group attached to it.
The Facebook page is all in Spanish. Because it is focused to share our experiences with others in Bolivia. I would not be me if I did not register the domain first so I can now start creating this website.
With this site I want to share our experiences with a broader public. We have the vision that bioconstruction as part of the permaculture principles is something that is emerging from a relative small group of enthusiasts and will become an mainstream alternative.
Why? Because the houses build are better, healthier to live in, easy to build, flexible in design, cheaper* to build and have less impact on the environment during the build ánd throughout its lifetime.
Yes I claim ecological houses are cheaper. Simple because someone told me. We are going to monitor our costs carefully to be able to tell you for real. It all depends. But today, it mostly depends on our budget. We simply do not have the cash to buy an existing house, or pay a contractor to build one. Just by leading the work myself we cut down the overhead and make it -just- feasible.
Because we have to.
Now the BIG question is, will it be cheaper too when we only take into account materials and labor, not considering the contractors profit? Because if it is. We have a business. It would be fantastic to build better houses for others.
Intuitively we feel there is potential here. So that is why we register all the progress of our first project “Las Palmas del Este” in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
At this point we are out of the groundworks and up starting to build the walls using Hiperadobe. Here I will show step by step how we got to this point and keep you posted on further developments.