Down to earth: Whidbey builder teaches the use of natural materials

A builder working with natural materials is hoping to inspire others to construct their next project using sustainable materials that can be found in their own backyards.

And this weekend, they have the chance to join a two-day, hands-on plaster workshop in Freeland led by the builder himself.

South Whidbey resident Eli Adadow has spent the past 25 years sculpting dwellings as a natural builder, from saunas to sanctuaries to other structures.

As a traveling nurse in the 1980s and 1990s, Adadow spent time in countries such as Nepal, Tibet, India and Africa and saw how the rest of the world lived, in earth-friendly buildings made of earth.

“I think it has a lot of potential in this day and age when we are in crisis mode with the planet,” he said. “It’s a viable solution.”

It wasn’t until 1998, however, that he immersed himself in the world of natural architecture after attending a cob workshop in Oregon. Cob is made from combining sand, clay and straw. Cob structures that were built hundreds of years ago can still be found today in England and Wales because of their durability.

Adadow explained that natural building has three components: some sort of aggregate, like sand or gravel, clay as a binder and some kind of fiber, such as straw.

“All natural structures are some ratio or proportion of those three ingredients,” he said.

Since landing on Whidbey Island over two decades ago, Adadow has built a series of natural structures. He is perhaps best known for his pizza ovens, which can be found at the Whidbey Institute, Whidbey Island Waldorf School, the South Whidbey Community Center and South Whidbey Tilth, among other locations. The ovens provide a communal gathering space and a segue into the world of natural building.

He has also constructed rounded buildings he refers to as yurts, though they are not mobile. One such structure, built partially into a hillside, is called the limpet house for its roof’s resemblance to the conical shell. With its whimsical exterior, it looks a little bit like a home a storybook character would live in.

“We try to mimic nature with some of our natural buildings,” Adadow said.

The design of this yurt is similar to an orphanage Adadow was commissioned to build in Honduras as part of a crew. It is made of earth bags, or burlap sacks, which are commonly used in natural building.

Over the years, the limpet house has been used as an office, meeting space and meditation sanctuary. In one of his other yurts, someone wrote an entire book.

Despite the heat of the day, it remains blissfully cool inside, like being in a cave.

“It’s just a nice place to come and sit,” Adadow observed. “I like coming here in the summer when it’s really hot outside and taking a nap because it stays pretty cool.”

In the winter, a rocket stove heats the space, and the thermal mass of the structure keeps it toasty.

A yurt he’s in the process of building with the help of apprentice Matthew Stalcup has wood chips on its roof, where Adadow is hoping to grow oyster or shiitake mushrooms.

And another yurt currently under construction this summer may be the first of its kind in the area. Slipstraw, named for the combination of straw dipped in clay, provides the infill for the yurt.

“I don’t know why nobody’s done it before because it seems so simple to me,” Adadow said. “Hopefully it’ll be kind of a historic yurt.”

Adadow can find most of his building materials within a 5-mile radius, such as wood from the trees and clay on the ground. Straw comes from farms on the island.

“I think people can save a lot of money if they build this way,” he said. “It is a little labor-intensive but usually when a house is built it’s two-thirds labor and one-third materials. But in the case of natural building, the materials are somewhat negligible.”

Oddly enough, Adadow developed his zeal for building naturally shortly after he was remodeling a home the conventional way. He recalled making numerous trips to Home Depot for power tools, sanders, adhesives, glues and other chemical-laden materials to use on his 100-year-old fixer-upper in Denver.

“It just kind of dawned on me, there’s got to be a better way,” he said. “Sometimes the better way means you have to start from scratch.”

Many people, he said, don’t think outside of the box when it comes to building and are content to use materials that are mined, manufactured, packaged, transported and easily accessible at the local home improvement store.

Building naturally, he added, is another way to avoid wasting materials and sending them to the landfill. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 145 million tons of construction and demolition debris ended up in U.S. landfills in 2018.

Though he’s often out getting his hands dirty, Adadow would someday like to write a book on retrofitting existing homes with natural materials, such as a bathroom with interior walls made of slipstraw and plaster, or an entryway with an earthen floor. People can even use natural paints and pigments.

“I always thought that it would be kind of fun to have a reality show where instead of dropping somebody off in a remote location to survive, you would drop them off and have them build something,” he said.

Besides natural heating and cooling, there are myriad other benefits of working with a material such as clay.

“Bugs don’t eat it, it doesn’t rot, it doesn’t burn,” he said.

While natural building may be an unfamiliar practice in this country, people in places like Mexico, China and Africa have professions where they specialize in plaster, floors and rock work. Adadow is hoping to teach the sustainable and environmentally conscious art to as many people as possible with his Ancient Earth School of Natural Building, which he has operated for several years.

“I think we’re all natural builders at heart, just somehow we have to access it,” Adadow said. “My workshops are experiential. It gets people the chance to touch it, feel it, kind of learn from it. I think that’s another kind of key principle of natural building is actually participating in it.”

An upcoming workshop July 29-30 will delve into the use of earthen plaster on one of Adadow’s sanctuary yurts. The workshop runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days and costs $150 per person. A 10% discount is offered for participants who bring a friend or carpool, walk or bike to workshops.

Although the U.S. doesn’t currently have a market for natural building, Adadow thinks one might be forthcoming, given the pressures of inflation and global warming.

“It gives people some empowerment to just build something local and sustainable, where you’re not hurting the earth,” he said. “When this place melts back into the earth, the only thing that’s gonna be left are some screws and nails that will probably rust and go away.”

But thanks to the structure’s durability, it will be a long time before it meets its end.

Adadow hopes more people will think about working with the earth instead of against it.

“I just want to get the word out that this is something people can do,” he said. “You can take it all the way from a career opportunity to just a backyard hobbyist.”

For more information, visit ancientearthbuilding.com.