The first building school 1990

From 1989 to 1995 I worked on the early development of the Findhorn Ecovillage. In the early days we ran a series of building schools that taught groups of students building skills over a three week period while building a house largely from scratch. This is my story of the first building school in early 1990, just weeks after I started work leading on finances and operations for the emerging Ecovillage.

The building school started. There were about 20 students. The ambition was to build 90% of the first house in three weeks. A big ambition.

This ambition was inspired by a United States non-profit named Habitat for Humanity. They organise people to build a house for a member of their community, largely over a weekend, so it is both a housebuilding and community building event. Their work is very inspiring.

Those three weeks were extraordinary. They combined the best of the Findhorn Community’s approach to group work, including a short moment of ‘attunement’ at the start of the working morning and afternoon. The whole team stood in a circle by the building site holding hands and shared a moment of silence, a process of helping everyone to become ‘present’ to the tasks ahead. For some this was new and took a bit of getting used to, but within days the whole group felt the benefit of it.

This was followed by a discussion about the tasks for the morning, and then everyone got to work. As this was a building school, most of those attending had done little or no construction before. There was a lot of tuition by the Constructive Individuals team led by Simon and also by John.

Although I wasn’t part of the building school as such, I must have made the five-minute walk from our office to the building site 20 to 30 times a day to communicate or manage one of the hundreds of daily details. At this time I was the only person in the office other than John (who was largely on site) and the architect, who was absorbed with technical drawings. I was busy with deliveries to be chased, trips to a local builders’ merchants for things we had forgotten, invoices to be paid, accommodation problems from some of the students and in one case a visa issue to deal with. It was an exciting time.

Increasingly, members of the Community wanted to come and see what was going on, and in some cases to join in. This was difficult as, unlike many Community activities, a building site has significant hazards. I spent a lot of time telling the rest of the Community what was going on while trying to discourage them from joining in.

On site the first of the ‘cluster’ of eco-houses was quickly framed, in the second week the scaffolding was raised and later that week we had a roof on. Then we hit a snag. The insulation was a product made of recycled newspaper. We had purchased a special blower that was shipped from Germany. It was basically a large cylindrical drum about five feet tall with a three-foot diameter at the top which the insulation was emptied into. There was a pump and a large flexible tube with two water jets at the end. It was like a giant vacuum cleaner that blew rather than sucked.

The walls were timber framed with a barrier and then plasterboard on the inside, so the insulation was blown into the cavity of each wall and ceiling frame from the outside. The problem was that it was February and the wind was strong and gusty. A lot of the insulation went flying as it was blown out of the end of the hose, much of it ending up all over the builders themselves. What should have taken a day took nearly a week and delayed the schedule. All sorts of ideas to resolve this problem were debated, and in the end a makeshift tent was created out of timber and sheeting that was pushed up against each timber frame to protect the blower and the blowers from the wind. It helped a bit, but we lost time.

However, by the end of the three-week school the first house was weathertight, with walls, a roof, doors and windows, electric cables and plumbing pipes fitted and the walls and ceiling partly insulated. We had built the basics of a house.

The final attunement was a great moment of celebration, and on this occasion we encouraged the Community to come and join us. Over a hundred people joined the builders and our team as we stood in a circle around our first eco-house, first in silent contemplation and then to raise a loud cheer for the builders.

It was just one house, but it was pioneering. We had not just built our first eco-house, but we had created the first breathing wall eco-house of its kind in the UK, battling the authorities to get permission to build it. We had started building the Ecovillage.

This is an excerpt from Creating Social Enterprise, my new book about my social enterprise career, which includes my time in the early days of the Findhorn Ecovillage.