Come build with us
Our campus in West Texas is located in a beautiful section of the Chihuahuan Desert 10 miles from the boundary of Big Bend National Park and just over an hour from the arts hub of Marfa, TX. We host a range of programs from one day open houses, to week long workshops, and the multi-week student volunteer residency.
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Program Overview
Student Volunteers
The student volunteer program is at the core of SCA’s teach through building and build through teaching approach. Students learn a range of skills while working on building facilities for future students to use. Living communally, working with each other, and with the local community, volunteers learn practical skills and develop their leadership and teamwork abilities. This lived experience is augmented by classroom education that connects the work to concepts of ecology, construction, and holistic design. By instilling these values and equipping young people with practical skills and experience, SCA aims to send volunteers back to their communities motivated and empowered to enact positive change and more fully realize their own potential.
Students work together to install a door buck in our library - SCA Campus
Students get hands-on experience with Morony Pots demonstration - SCA Campus
Building Workshops
SCA hosts classes for community members, tradespeople, and individuals interested in building with regenerative practices. These classes range from free one-day workshops to paid multi-day programs hosted on our campus and in the community. Hands-on components are augmented with formal presentations. Expert builders are brought in to teach programs centering on the collaborative construction of a building or building component. By training people in a range of environmentally suitable techniques, SCA aims to expand the variety of available construction methods, improve the quality and sustainability of building practices, and empower people to construct quality homes for themselves using available materials. If you are interested in teaching a workshop, please email us.
James Anthony teaching a masonry bóveda workshop at the SCA library.
Hugo Ramos teaching adobe brick making
Jim Hallock teaching CEB construction and Soil Analysis
Past Programs
Masonry Bóveda Workshop with James Anthony
Dates
November 22nd to November 26th 2024
Instructors & Staff
James Anthony
Bob Estrin
Heather Christensen
Edwin Castillo
Coakee Wildcat
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Renowned bóvedero James Anthony travelled from Morelia, MX to teach a four day workshop on the art of masonry vaults. After practicing on a 10’ x 10’ steel frame built for training purposes students applied there skills to begin launching an impressive 14’ x 28’ vaulted roof over our future library. When complete, the library will be our first fully enclosed educational space, housing our collection of books, our classroom, and our soil lab.
Students came from as far as Japan, and included skilled builders, stone carvers, architects, and specialists in natural building and traditional techniques. Todd Swanson, who donated many of the books which the bóveda will shelter, was an early mentor of James’s and came down to support the effort along with veteran natural builders Tim White and Mike McGuire. It was an honor to have such a group, with over a century of combined natural building experience, join together at the school to build this inspiring structure.
French Co. Grocer Community Earth Building Workshop
Dates
November 15th to November 17th 2024
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Heather Christensen
Edwin Castillo
Coakee Wildcat
Location
Marathon, TX
Description
In the third week of our student program we deployed to Marathon to teach the French Co. Grocer team and Marathon community the techniques of earth block construction. Over three days we stripped concrete forms, made and placed story poles and door bucks, leveled the stem wall, and began laying the walls of the new building. For our students the experience provided a rare opportunity to see earth building employed on a commercial scale construction site. The French Co. Grocer is beloved in Marathon for providing not only fresh food but a space for music and community. The town rallied around Sam Stavinhoa, owner of French Co., raising money to help build a permanent location. We are humbled by the strength and resolve of the Marathon community, who showed up to raise the walls of a building that will serve the town long after we are all gone.
Fall 2024 Student Volunteer Program
Dates
October 31st to November 19th 2024
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Heather Christensen
Edwin Castillo
Coakee Wildcat
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Our sixth group of students worked primarily on the library building which will be our first enclosed educational space and a major milestone for our campus. We used local clay, cactus juice, straw, sand, and lime to apply a protective plaster scratch coat before forming and pouring a concrete curb atop the wall to support the bóveda (masonry vaulted roof). Students also worked on a range of other projects on site, placing pavers, bending steel tube, welding the shower frame, sewing canvas, and working with natural stone to complete our shower building. Coakee Wildcat taught two sessions on drylands restoration and agroecology and led students in plumbing a greywater distribution system for the new shower. Students also received talks on regenerative design, earth building, soil science, recycled and natural materials, regenerative land restoration, agroecology, and agroforestry. In the third week of the program our group traveled to Marathon, TX for the French Co. Grocer community build workshop to learn to build with CEB. Students also toured nearby papercrete buildings, Big Bend National Park, and explored the region.
Spring 2024 Student Volunteer Program
Dates
February 27th to March 17th 2024
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Heather Christensen
Macy Walz
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Spring 2024 Student Volunteers learned a range of regenerative design and construction skills while working on building core facilities for future students, staff, and visiting teachers. Work through the program focused on advancing the construction of our library building. Students learned in-depth, hands-on techniques in building with compressed earth blocks, including making blocks from simple material components, constructing and setting window and door bucks, laying CEB walls, building arches, and forming and pouring a cement bond beam. In addition to this work students learned to make adobe bricks and worked on several land restoration projects including installing a large culvert and building erosion control structures from damaged earth blocks to slow water, reduce erosion, and encourage native plant growth. Students also received seven talks on regenerative design, earth building, soil science, recycled and natural materials, and regenerative land restoration. Students visited nearby owner built earthen homes, the neighboring Christmas Mountains Oasis, Big Bend National Park, Balmorhea State Park, and the Mexico Border.
Off-Grid Earth Building Essentials
Dates
March 1st to 9th 2024
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Heather Christensen
Macy Walz
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
We condensed the regenerative design curriculum from our month long Student Volunteer Residency into a 7 day intensive course to host our most comprehensive workshop yet. Presentations covered natural and recycled materials, off-grid waste management, catchment, greywater, landscape integration and restoration, and a range of ancient and modern approaches to heating and cooling with natural energy. In parallel to this broad curriculum workshop attendees got a hands-on crash-course in compressed earth block construction through assisting with the build of a small library and classroom for our campus. This building provided an opportunity for attendees to experience the many aspects of earth block construction from the ground up, including soil testing and mix design, compressed earth block machinery and production, rubble-trench foundations and grade beams, earthen mortars, laying CEB masonry, and forming bond beams.
Fall 2023 Student Volunteer Program
Dates
November 28th to December 17th 2023
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Dean Behary
Cain Estrin
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Fall 2023 Student Volunteers learned a range of regenerative design and construction skills while working on building core facilities for future students, staff, and visiting teachers. The work primarily focused on finishing buildings we began this past spring, specifically a composting outhouse constructed from compressed earth block. Students learned in depth about plaster techniques using lime, sand, clay, straw, and agua de nopal made from cactus growing on site. By the end of the term a three coat plaster had been applied and students installed windows and helped finish weathering in the building. In addition to this work students helped make a foundation and set a 3000 gallon water tank and worked on several land restoration projects including creating media lunas from sub-standard earth blocks to slow water, reduce erosion, and encourage native plant growth. Students also attended four talks on regenerative design and toured three owner built homes, the neighboring Christmas Mountains Oasis, Big Bend National Park, and visited the Mexico Border.
Arches, Vaults, and Domes
Dates
April 15th to 16th 2023
Instructors & Staff
Jim Hallock
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Cain Estrin
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Over three days, participants received a hands-on introduction to arches, vaults, and domes while participating in the construction of a barrel-vault roof on our composting outhouse. Jim Hallock taught students to build a compressed earth block vault, from the basics of soil analysis and mix design, to earth block production, formwork design, and finally laying the vault. Bob Estrin gave a presentation exploring the structural principles of arches, vaults, domes and other thin shell structures.
Spring 2023 Student Volunteer Program (Session Two)
Dates
March 26th to April 16th 2023
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Jim Hallock
Larry Sunderland
Keaton Karvas
Cain Estrin
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Spring 2023 Student Volunteers learned a range of skills while working on building core facilities for future students, staff, and visiting teachers. Work was primarily focused on constructing two new buildings with compressed earth block. Students began by pouring a rubble trench foundation for the library before switching focus to the outhouse. There they set door and window bucks, laid earth blocks, installed electrical, plumbing, doors, and windows, formed the bond beam, and built an earthen barrel vault roof. In addition to this comprehensive crash course on earthen building, the structures utilize and exemplify a range of techniques: catching rainwater, recycling grey water, composting waste, and using the sun to heat and induce cooling airflow. This comprehensive education enabled Volunteers to utilize their training and connect with the local community by helping guide others to learn to build with compressed earth block over several full-day free events. In addition to hands-on learning, students were given formal presentations on regenerative design by Bob Estrin and visiting CEB expert Jim Hallock, as well as participating in an overnight backpacking trip in the Chisos Mountains.
BABS (Build A Brick Shithouse)
Dates
March 12th to 18th 2023
Instructors & Staff
Jim Hallock
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Larry Sunderland
Cain Estrin
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Over the course of one-week, workshop participants began construction on a free-standing dry aerobic composting toilet from stabilized compressed earth blocks (SCEBs). Participants were taught the many aspects of earth block construction from the ground up, including soil testing, and mix design, compressed earth block machinery and production, rubble-trench foundations and grade beams, earthen mortars, laying SCEB masonry, forming bond beams, and exterior plaster. Architect and SCA Director Bob Estrin provided an overview of on-site waste management and the design of robust self-contained systems to augment hands-on education.
Spring 2023 Student Volunteer Program (Session One)
Dates
February 26th to March 18th 2023
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Jim Hallock
Larry Sunderland
Cain Estrin
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Spring 2023 Student Volunteers learned a range of skills while working on building core facilities for future students, staff, and visiting teachers. Primary work included producing compressed earth blocks, helping construct two earthen buildings, and assisting with workshop preparations and operations. Students began by surveying and laying out two new buildings. Focusing on the composting outhouse they formed and poured a foundation, pressed and laid earth blocks, poured an intermediate slab, and set door and window bucks. In addition to this comprehensive crash course on earthen building, the outhouse structure exemplifies a range of techniques: catching rainwater, recycling grey water, composting waste, and using the sun to heat and induce cooling airflow. In addition to hands-on learning, presentations by SCA staff and visiting expert Jim Hallock helped provide a broader perspecive and theoretical basis for the applied studies.
Terlingua Community Garden Presentation
Dates
February 4, 2023
Instructors
Bob Estrin
Location
Terlingua Community Garden
Description
This presentation and hands on workshop at the Terlingua Community Garden was one of a series of off campus presentations we have offered over the years. Particpants learned the basics of earthen construction and soil analysis. Locals brought soil samples which were studied together and at the end of the course we made mini earth blocks to test the viability of various soils. A range of material samples including a range of soils, clays, pozolans, earth bags, adobe, earth blocks, basalt mesh, papercrete and more were brought out to give participants a first hand experience of the range of materials.
Earth Bag Shower
Dates
April to May 2022
Instructors & Staff
Jamie Cowdery
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
The first new building we constructed was primarily a piece of water infrastructure, a solar-powered pump house integrating two outdoor showers, a sink, and an outdoor kitchen. The building catches rainwater and recycles greywater for irrigation. Local earth builder Jamie Cowdery led the earthbag construction. Fibers artist and SCA alumni T Palermo collaborated on a custom canvas enclosure for the showers. Local blacksmith and artist Alex Kamelhair helped forge and fabricate the steel frame for the canvas shower enclosure. Local craftsman Larry Sunderland helped with the doors and other finish details. Photovoltaic panels, solar water heating panels, a water pump, a 300-gallon water tank, and some of the plumbing and electrical components were donated. We planted 25 trees donated by the Apache Corporation through Property Owners Association Terlingua Ranch Inc. (POATRI) which are irrigated by gravity-fed greywater and pressurized drip irrigation installed from the pump house building.
Spring 2021 Student Volunteer Program
Dates
February 1st to May 1st 2021
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
Spring 2021 Student Volunteers assisted mostly with site/infrastructure repairs and clean up to prepare our campus for future building projects and programs, as well as building an earthen oven. In addition to these projects, Student Volunteers helped organize community events, taught art workshops, and participated in field trips to Ojinaga to learn from adoberos in Estación, The Chinati Foundation, The McDonald Observatory, and Big Bend National Park. Volunteers engaged with the community through a number of events, including helping to organize and execute a one-day workshop, where we presented on Earth Building and soil composition before inviting attendees to participate in making adobes. This program was made possible by Matt Barnett who donated lodging at Camp Impresario to house SCA staff and volunteers while we were still cleaning up the land and acquiring temporary shelter to host students on-site.
Earthen Pizza Oven
Dates
April 2021
Instructors & Staff
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Location
SCA Campus, Terlingua TX
Description
When the first Student Volunteers arrived our campus was not ready for major construction, so we built an earthen oven to provide an opportunity for Volunteers to learn a variety of building techniques. We mixed mortar and placed limestone masonry, laid fire bricks, collected, tested, and mixed local soils, formed the oven over a sand mold, added a cob layer for insulation, and applied an earthen plaster to finish the oven. As well as being a teaching tool, the oven created a central gathering space for community events and immediately drew dozens of people to clean-up and construction events that ended with eating pizza and playing music around a campfire.
Adobe Workshop
Dates
March 4th 2021
Instructors & Staff
Sandro Canovas
Hugo Ramos
Bob Estrin
Estella Dieci
Location
Estacion, MX
Description
Friend of SCA, Sandro Canovas, invited SCA volunteers and staff to learn to make adobe blocks from local adoberos in Estación, MX. Thank you to Sandro, and to Hugo Ramos and family for hosting and teaching.
The School of Constructive Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We support resilient communities and encourage individuals to study, experiment, and advance models for building and living in healthy relation to the natural environment.
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