Daruma Eco Farm

Earth & Natural Building Courses · Workshop archive

From the archive

Natural Building for Women.

In 2020, Daruma passed on word of a hands-on natural building workshop for women at Permaculture Center Kamimomi in Japan, taught by Liz Johndrow and Ariel Burns. It was never a Daruma course, and the workshop itself is long over. We keep the write-up here for the record, not as a live booking page.

Permaculture Center KamimomiOkayama, JapanPartner event, not held at Daruma

Permaculture Center Kamimomi sits on a south-facing, terraced hillside in Okayama Prefecture, growing rice, vegetables and orchard fruit alongside its natural building and forestry courses. For one May, the centre put together a run of workshops built specifically for women wanting to learn earthen and timber construction from the ground up, no previous experience required.

Instructors Liz Johndrow and Ariel Burns led four modules across the month: earthbag foundations, a seven-day timber frame joinery intensive, natural wall systems paired with passive solar design, and a session on natural plasters and finishing artistry. Participants stayed on site in a traditional Japanese folk house, ate together, and worked in small groups with plenty of one-to-one instruction time.

Five women perched and standing together on a raw timber frame structure at dusk, laughing, during the Kamimomi natural building workshop
Workshop participants on the timber frame they raised together at Permaculture Center Kamimomi.
If there is a woman anywhere in the world who wants to learn natural building from knowledgeable, experienced teachers, this is the time.Permaculture Center Kamimomi, 2020 workshop announcement
  • Earthbag basicsThe principles of foundations and the basic techniques of earthbag construction.
  • Timber framingA seven-day intensive in square-rule joinery, raising two small structures by hand.
  • Natural wall systems and passive solar designLight straw-clay and light rice-husk lime infill walls, alongside the basics of solar gain and insulation.
  • Natural plasters and artistryClay and lime plasters explored with a decorative, artistic finish.

The workshop was taught in English with Japanese interpretation, run in partnership with TERRA Collaborative, The Pueblo Project and the Japan Straw Bale House Research Association. Registration closed long ago and the original booking links are no longer live.

The instructors

Three women laughing under a canvas tent while working timber-frame joinery with a chisel and mallet, during the Kamimomi workshop
Timber-frame joinery under the workshop tent at Kamimomi.
Liz Johndrow

A hands-on builder since 2004, moving from a carpentry background into straw bale, timber framing, natural plasters and cob. She founded Earthen Endeavors Natural Building in 2009 and TERRA Collaborative in 2014, and teaches natural building skills across the US and Central America.

Ariel Burns

Splits her work between timber framing and carpentry in Central Maine and joining Liz on natural plaster projects and TERRA teaching. She likes the meeting point of finished wall systems and handcrafted timber homes, and supporting others to learn both.

Daruma's own natural building course runs in Thailand.

This workshop was a one-off, hosted by a partner centre on the other side of Asia. If you want hands-on natural building taught at Daruma itself, cob, adobe, rammed earth, bamboo, wattle and daub, and lime plasters, on the campus near Bang Phra, that course is live and running.

See the current Natural Building Course at Daruma, or ask us a question.

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