This is part 3 of my life-journey in learning about sustainable architecture and what experiences came after my time working on an Earthship in India. Please do check out my posts for part 1 & 2 on my blog at
In this post, I'd like to share with you the valuable lessons I learnt from a good friend of mine Dan Warburton who eventually became my boss. Also my experience of personal growth through taking a Masters in Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy and the incredible people I met along the way working in Super-Adobe architecture and as a manager of a property maintenance company.
It really is a joy to share with you part 3 of my journey as it's an ongoing journey, a driving force in my life that fuels my flame. I hope it can inspire creativity and action for others, in the same way that it has for me.
For those of you who have been awaiting this article, I apologize for it's delayed-release. As mentioned in part 1, I am in the middle of renovating a home in preparation for my first child expected in October.
Life is what we make it! Although I do train myself to focus on the positives, there has been no exclusion of down-time in earlier life. Late 2011 was the end of one of those times. I wasn't sure where I was heading and my dreams were sunk below a sense of creative-scarcity. I remember talking to one of my good party-friends Dan Warburton about just how depressed I felt and gave him a taste of my self-loathing and unappreciation. He bought none of my excuses and responded with shocking tactics. He showed me in a formula of words who I really am and showed me to myself the kind of person I can potentially be. He also helped me quit smoking.
At that time, Dan was considering starting his own company and talked a lot about taking charge of his own life. He had such energy for his ideas and talked constantly about his dreams, which to me was (still is) incredibly inspiring.
I took time to heal. A few months later when things were easier and on a sunny warm day in Brighton, I received a call from Dan to come and meet him for lunch. He proposed the beginning of a new company bringing his years of experience as a tradesman into one place and to start hiring people in an effort to establish his own building maintenance company.
I'll never forget his words that day, and I paraphrase 'Andreas, how would you like to be the operations manager of an entrepreneurial company called Team Super?' Of course, I took the offer! Dan was in my eyes, already a superhero. Teaming with him would be a great experience!
The whole idea was based upon providing homeowners with superior customer service coupled with high standards of work, a clean, friendly and time conscious team of tradesmen to serve the city of Brighton & Hove. I loved it!
It was a challenging position to take. I had never done anything like this, and neither had he. We spent the first 6 months creating everything from scratch from systematisation of work processes, building team spirit, logo creation and brand imaging. Even our very own positions.
As a good friend, Dan spoke only about the greatness he saw in me and in other people and that anything below that is an image of a false self. A person should follow their gut and that we only have one life and it must be met with deliberate and positive affirmation. This position above all taught me about professional team-building and working outside of my comfort zone. A skill that I look to pass on and a trait in myself I have learnt to nurture. It also taught me about people management in both its glory and discomfort. Not to mention the skill of running and overseeing construction projects, a job I will never forget!
At the end of that year, I enrolled on a Masters in Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy at CAT, Wales. I felt super excited like you wouldn't believe because the school accepted me without a Bachelor or any university degree at all. This also made me extremely nervous, as I knew I had a lot of academic work to do.
I had both joy and sorrow studying at CAT. I swore to myself that I would never speak highly of the place after a terrible ending of the course as I eventually did not get the tutorial support I needed due to the school having serious financial issues.
However, studying there gave me that reassuring sense that there are people out there who really do care about the built environment, nature and the greater world we live in. Taking that poetic story of 'eco-worrier' to the academic floor really AND I MEAN REALLY was a wake-up call for me. All of my half-baked ideas about saving the world were hit with a hard academic science and a need for a self-guided road to competence. It taught me how to be analytical in my approach yet practical with my hands. Plus we had some fun!
My time in India and particularly with Alex and his Earthship taught me that I lacked knowledge. I knew that I needed to go back to school and better educate myself in architecture and sustainability. I needed to face my fear in order to better meet my dream of building a sustainable house.
Around the end of 2012, I came across an article about Super-Adobe and earthen construction techniques by an organisation called Cal-Earth. I became fascinated with the dome-shaped and organic forms that the buildings took. The article also wrote about the architect Iliona Outram Khalili’s marriage to the late great Nadir Khalili. I had to get in touch and find out if she was active in building courses or had any contacts in the EU!
To my surprise, she was active and in the UK, where she had moved to. She invited me to take part in online conferences and small workshops debating building techniques and the philosophy of construction using the elements.
I was eventually asked to become a board member for her non-for-profit organisation New-Earth UK, to which I gratefully accepted!
The model of New Earth focuses on Super-Adobe education and emergency housing services. Today it has a global outreach which both helps people in need and provides a service to students and clients alike. Being with New Earth has given me the opportunity to learn how to teach people on a construction basis. To hold focus on a physical building project and at the same time pass information to others. It was there I met a lifelong friend and coworker Tommaso Bazzechi. Couldn't think of a better building partner and architect for Super Adobe. New Earth UK are now collaborating with Domoterra in Spain and are holding courses on a continual basis.
Here is their most recent project as posted on Facebook.
Check out their website for when and where new courses are happening next.
When you are a group constructing a dome that, itself is based on the laws of physics, a structure that is made of the earth, bound by water and air and fire, something unexpected happens. At least it does for me. By nature of learning and building by hand the group bonds beyond words. It's a process. In some way, it becomes a ceremony. It is something I think that everybody should try. It truly is magical!
New Earth eventually opened up a job opportunity for me with an associated company called Small Earth in London.
Small Earth has focused their use of Super-Adobe on landscape architecture and building 'playscapes' for school playgrounds across London. There, I learnt first-hand how to sculpt structures like an artist. The core construction team lead by Lajos Macsar and Janos Zoltan Bozo taught me a regimented and disciplined way of building effectively and efficiently. To them and their team, I owe a great deal. and even a shot of Hungarian Palinka (traditional Hungarian Spirit).
Even now as I renovate my home Lajos's lessons have taught me to be a better architect and builder.
Look out for my final post in this series, where I will be sharing with you where my story has taken me to-date studying as an electrician, and where I want to go in the future, to build the dream house! A sustainable, self-sufficient Earthship inspired home.