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 a 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 plan to teach through building and build through teaching. Student volunteers learn a range of skills while working on building facilities for future student volunteers to use. Living communally, working with each other, and with the local community, volunteers will learn practical skills and develop their leadership and teamwork abilities. This lived training is augmented by educational programs that connect 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.



Field trip to the Chisos Mountains - Big Bend NP

Installing a barrel vault roof - 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




Jamie Cowdery demonstraing earth bag construction.

Hugo Ramos teaching adobe brick making


Jim Hallock teaching CEB construction and Soil Analysis

Past Programs


Fall 2023 Student Volunteer Program


Dates


November 28th to December 17th

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, especialy 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 damaged 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, adobse, earth blocks, bassalt 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 Estatción, 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. See video here.

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. See video here.