Article
Fall 2002 Interview
Published in HopeDance Magazine and The Cobweb
'EARTH BUILDING IN THAILAND'

The Natural Building Colloquium is an annual gathering of builders and teachers from North America and beyond. The October 2002 colloquium took place at a camp in southern Oregon. One of the most exciting presentations was by Jon (pronounced "Jo") Jandai from Thailand and Janell Kapoor from North Carolina, who presented their recent work teaching earthen building in Thailand. Following their slide show, Michael G. Smith of CobWeb, Margie Bushman of HopeDance, and Joseph Kennedy of Builders Without Borders sat down with them to ask some questions.

Q: Jon, how did you become interested in earthen building?
JON: The first thing is, I wasn’t interested in building at all. I think about selfreliance, so I wanted to become a farmer. But, to become a farmer is not enough to become self-reliant. I have to learn to do everything that I will need to do. So I have to learn about building. Then I had a chance to visit Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, and I liked it a lot. When I went back home, I start to build. Before that I had worried a lot about a house — it’s a big thing I can’t get easily. But I found it’s very easy to build a house. The first adobe house was easier than I thought it would be. And after that I build a house almost every year

Q: Does Thailand have a tradition of earthen construction?
JON: We have some, but we don’t use it for housing, only for grain storage. It’s wattleand- daub style, but normally we use cow dung, not mud. We use mud for making charcoal ovens. That’s the only way people use mud in Thailand.

JANELL: Originally in Thailand, the whole place was jungle. It’s been greatly deforested. The traditional building materials were hardwood, also thatch and bamboo, which don’t last a long time. In the last several decades, it’s been just concrete all over. There’s very little hardwood left and people can’t afford it, not to mention the ecological implications.

Q: So is housing a major expense for people in rural areas?
JON: In rural areas, it’s a little bit expensive. Normally, their income might be four hundred dollars per year per family. To have one house of concrete and wood, it costs about four thousand dollars. That’s their entire income for ten years, not to mention their other expenses. And if you are in the city, it costs far more than that. More than thirty years you need to work to get one house.

Q: So you returned to Thailand after seeing Taos Pueblo, and decided to build yourself an adobe house. Tell me about that process.
JON: When I went back home, I started to experiment with adobe brick. After I made a test, I found it’s very strong and I felt more confident. People came and said, "You’re crazy! How can you build house with mud?" But after they saw this way of building, they understood it and accepted it. Now there are two people in the village who’ve built their houses of adobe. And then they’ve started to build the temple in my village with mud, too.

Q: Janell, how did you get to Thailand and how did you get involved in earthen building there?
JANELL: I was with a friend who was doing seed saving in Thailand. We went out in a little boat to snorkel, and the people sitting behind us intrigued me. I started talking with one of them, and he turned out to be the head of an Ashram that focuses on activist training and support. I told him what I do, and he invited me to come teach a cob workshop. I went the following winter. There was a tremendous response. Every day there were more and more people interested. We designed the course so that we could actually finish the project in the time we were there. That was really important.

Q: What was the project?
JANELL: We built a small meditation space. It was a 17-foot diameter exterior, with 15 arches. It was important to design something that would look good, because it was a model. There wasn’t anything else like it in the country. My mantra was, "Make sure we can complete it." We worked with a team of folks who could continue without us, and that’s where we met Jon. Because of all the interest, we stayed on and worked with him. We did a second course and focused on adobe building, which seems more relevant. Thailand is not a seismic area. Building with adobe is faster and easier. It’s plenty strong. So the majority of earthen building that’s happening there now is adobe and wattle-and-daub. From those two courses, and because of the activist network that exists, hundreds and hundreds of people have been involved in trainings since we left.

Q: Why do you think so many people are interested?
JON: Because of the economic collapse. Before that, I had built adobe houses in Thailand for five years, but very few people were interested.

Q: How is earthen building helping to strengthen the communities you work with?
JON: It’s the way to solve their problems now. They want to solve their problems, and they want to do it together. With adobe, if a lot of you build together, it’s faster and more fun. It’s the old tradition that we have almost lost now, because people have to work for money. When they work for money, they will not work together like that. But now we take back the old tradition to work together and help each other. If five people each want to build a house, they all build one house together and then move to another house, then another.

Q: Are other people experienced in earthen construction involved besides the two of you?
JANELL: For now, not many people who are experienced, just a handful. But there’s also the common sensibility of the villagers themselves, who know the earth. In Thailand, people just get it. They are adventurous and experimental in figuring things out. They have an innate sense of how to build.

JON: Another thing is we don’t have a history of clay building in Thailand. In other countries, like India, Nepal, China, or South America, they’ve had it for a long time. So if somebody does something like that they consider it backward. But in Thailand, we don’t have that stigma; it’s something new, so they want to try it.

JANELL: Thai people love whatever is cutting edge. There’s a real creative spirit. Knowing that people can sculpt their houses and not have to live in square boxes certainly drew attention. There’s a group Jon’s working with called Santiashoka, which means "peace and happiness," a very widespread movement with several hundred thousand people throughout the country who are looking at the opposite of capitalism, creating a giveaway system based on Buddhist principles of love and abundance. They have been doing trainings in self-reliance, helping farmers and villagers get out of debt. And part of the trainings now includes earthen building. The stage is set.

Q: Is there a way that those of us in the developed world who have access to a lot of resources and information can help?
JON: We need examples to show people that it’s not really something new; it’s something that people have done for many generations; it’s safe and stable and lasts very long. We need pictures to show people, to say, "Here is an earth building, an adobe or cob building, four-hundredyears old." That can help a lot, especially for the elite of the country, like the architects, who don’t know anything about this. If they get the information, they will understand it.

JANELL: Jon gave a talk to the Board of Architects in Thailand. There were two hundred architects and professors of architecture. He had nothing to show them, and they were still very excited. It would be helpful to have visual aids, a slide show, and books from all over the world showing that earthen building is a long tradition in many places. We also need video equipment to document our work and share it with other groups around the country.

Q: Thank you both so much for your work, and for sharing it with us.
Jon Jandai can be contacted at jonjandai@hotmail.com. Janell Kapoor can be reached at janell@kleiwerks.com. For ongoing building projects go to www.kleiwerks.com. www.sulak-sivaraksa.org is a Thai network committed to social justice with ecological vision, based on engaged spirituality.

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