Up and Running!

After years of investigation into the Compressed Earth Block process and about a year and a half trying to get a press I am happy to report that we now have begun to make blocks. This initiative is part of a larger sustainable living project I have created called "SkyWurkz" which is meant to develop a new living model based on spontaneously ordered systems rather than the historic top down hierarchies. While this larger project is focused on the sustainable production of all the essentials for a fulfilling life (food, water, shelter, security, health, education) the CEB initiative is meant to fulfill the shelter requirement specifically and possibly a few other things as well. This is intended to provide both a literal and figurative base of operations towards the achievement of the other essentials. The SkyWurkz project is still very new and under development. Additional details will emerge as time goes on.

At this time I want to focus efforts towards mastering the CEB process and develop a small business model around this which can be replicated to create opportunities at the local level. My plan is to use a small piece of land I have near San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua to build first a small block factory then a home. This will hopefully be a good demonstration of the CEB process (and also architecture and construction with CEB) that I will then use to build a new market awareness. Once the idea starts to take root I hope to position the local workers who I will be training to take advantage of the new opportunity as well.

There has already been interest expressed from various parties on the potential use of CEB for their projects so I will be working hard to get the tests done so we can show a solid proof of concept. I will of course try to capture as much of the process as I can and intend to "open source" everything both regarding the actual making of blocks and my experiences with the business model. The entire plan is quite involved and still very much a work in progress so I will elaborate more on that as time goes on. For now, let's get this blog started with a few posts bringing us up to date and then a bit about where I intend to go from here.

Thanks for your interest in the project!