Big Bend Real Estate Guide May 2020 | Page 14

Nubian vault Papercrete house and sculpture in Alpine. Casa Cabra Marfa, Domed tower finally got the thing to work, but in our first attempt, the blade in the mixer was incorrect with the baffles pointing upward, and the mix shot up in the air. Then the welds on the rear differential platform came apart and the whole thing collapsed. After a few expletives and almost giving up, we made some necessary modifications and test runs and the thing began working like a champ. After adding water and cement and pulling it with a truck, it churned up a lot of papercrete slurry. The mixer was WestTexasMoves.com • BigBendRealEstateGuide.com improved on later with a sturdy steel tank and supports were added at the bottom so it could be tilted. This made shoveling out the mix easier. We made wooden forms, poured in the mix, and waited for the blocks to dry. Working with Hal Flanders, we did tests on the blocks to make sure they were strong, lightweight and fireproof. My first attempt at building something was a small wall in front of our house. The blocks on the wall tended to shrink by adding cement alone, but by adding about 30% sand, it not only reduced the shrinkage but gave them thermal mass and helped with the fireproofing. The next project to try was a small pump house for a hot tub on our property in Sunny Glen canyon near Alpine. With this small 7’x 7’ storage shed it seemed I was getting the hang of it, and with some helpers I started building a barrel vault guest house in front of the pump house. All this was done on a mountainside, making it a bit of a challenge. It was a learning experience, but the barrel vault took shape, simulating a method similar to mud brick building in the Middle East 4,000 years ago. The principles of making domes and vaults had been revived by the master Egyptian builder Nader Khalil,i who wrote a book called Earth Architecture, and that was our guide for laying up the blocks to create a vault-shaped roof. In the meantime, Simone Swan, who was building a beautiful adobe home near Presidio and who was a strong advocate of Khalili’s designs, was using those same formulas in her barrel vaults and domes. After consulting with her and observing the skill of the adoberos at work, it became clear that the same method of laying up the adobe bricks could also work with papercrete blocks. Given that PC blocks are about three times lighter than adobes, therefore reducing the heavy labor involved, it was a no- brainer to conclude this could work on our barrel vault, too. Somehow the word got out about what we were up to. The Alpine Avalanche ran a story on it. Not long after, Channel 8 in Dallas caught wind of it and put it on their evening news. Then Texas Country Reporter came out and filmed an episode called Recyclers’ Paradise. Interest in papercrete all around the Big Bend was growing, and others were trying their hand at it. Clyde Curry and Kate Thayer of Marathon came to see the barrel vault under construction and soon began the amazing Eve’s Garden, which today is evolving expeditiously thanks to Alaine Berg and Noble Baker. Clyde, who had just finished a straw bale house, could see the potential of PC right away. Guil Jones, Wes Spears, Danielle Gallo, Paty Hernandez, to name a few, were building creative things and putting Marathon on the map as a papercrete mecca. Rich Gill over in Marfa was also building a PC house, and down in Terlingua folks trying their hand at it. Meanwhile, over in Alpine, we were busy building as well: a wall across the street from The Holland Hotel, a PC garage, a small cottage we called the satellite house because it had a large satellite dish for a roof, an apartment in Marfa next to the Paisano Hotel which had a dome perched on top, an adobe restoration project in Marathon, and working with Guil Jones at his compound. Our paper supply mostly came from the local Alpine recycling yard, but also from Continued on Page 20. 13