Earthdance Bamboo

Welcome to the Earthdance Music Festival!

We arrive with a truck load of bamboo and trailer full of fabric and natural fixins

the site is a natural cove formed by winter eddies,

when the rains rush through

We enhance the natural spiral form with bamboo poles splayed outward. Then we tie the poles to the center point (a beautiful gnarly tree) with manila cables


Hanumon is happy

Quinn and I get taller, a trick i learned back in junior high school

design session

building the portal to the spiral zone

Christopher does some innovative joinery

Ethan came along to this one, and fits right in with the crew

the main gate goes up

I do a fancy lash with crystals included (wired in first)

flower shaped shading connects the guy wires

playing with the fabric first!

the elder's throne

Quinn weaves a web behind the throne

testing lighting for the night

an earth mandala, created over the course of the festival, with public collaboration, fills the central space

shading effects

the elder's throne in action

Rainwater Greenhouse - Update

Getting cobby!

the lovely Amit Chertoff, joins in for a day, just before heading back to Israel

Ethan is at home in the garden

Prepping bottles for more cob

reclaimed tile, thrift store grout, and tumbled broken bottle chips

create the potting surface

workshop participants get dirty with light straw clay

and base coat plasters

even old time friend, Max Edelson, stops by to get muddy for the afternoon

Lawrence is a pro at this rate, and helps teach the mixing techniques

Oiling the cut-face of the urbanite wall makes it really beautiful!

A little bit of bamboo conceals a less than perfect plaster detail

The main entrance begs you to enter

Chinking at all possible points of infiltration

Rainwater Greenhouse - From the Sketchbook

A sample of the sketches that moved this project along.

Started the design work in May.

Notice how the design changed (for the better) up until construction started in mid July.

Basically the 'final design'

Passive solar strategies and structural details finally sorted out.