Finding professional places to learn natural building methods is hard today, and was even harder in the ’90s. Emily Wetherbee took matters into her own hands and stitched together an education between multiple degree programs. Her process could help inform and inspire today’s efforts to teach natural building at the college level.
When I was a young student, and for the most part still to this day, the only way to receive an education in ecological design and natural building seems to be pieced together with multiple short-term initiatives such as internships, apprenticeships, retreats, conferences, work parties, or short-term college courses. Although there are many wonderful community forums and resources with the onset of the internet such as the Build Outside the Box website, it is still quite compartmentalized. The brilliance of my education at The Evergreen State College was the firsthand experience in the field with a cross disciplinary emphasis on the basic principles of Ecology. I was led to Evergreen in the Fall of 1998 in search of a self-directed education. At Evergreen, students engage in one single class for the entire semester. Progress is based on written evaluations, both by faculty and students, instead of receiving grades. This model lends itself to providing a safe space for free thinking with no gap between what students want to learn and what is being taught. As I started my studies at Evergreen, I chose a two- semester program entitled Environmental Studies: Land which focused on the principles of ecology, political economy, and public policy. I was able to incorporate Earthships (which I discovered on my way from my Rhode Island home to Evergreen) into all my coursework in the Fall of 1998 and Winter of 1999. My study in the Spring of 1999, allowed me to immerse myself in Permaculture studies (inspired by Earthships) within the context of intentional communities on the Big Island of Hawaii for three months. After the Spring semester was over, I 25 26 returned to the mainland and lived on site in the gravel pit of The Greater World, in Taos, New Mexico, building a double dome Earthship with a team of 6-8 people. The perfect next step came in the Fall of 1999, with the creation of a yearlong course (3 semesters) entitled Shelter: Eco Design in the Real World. The program was taught by three faculty from different backgrounds: Rob Knapp (Physics), Bob Leverich (3D Art and Architecture), and Paul Przybylowicz (Ecology). The interdisciplinary approach to Ecological Design provided an open framework to study the complex issues with the built environment. I will never forget when I called home and told my mom that I would be majoring in “Ecological Design”: she was bewildered, yet supportive. Climate change was not at the forefront of every school’s focus yet, but at Evergreen we were studying the carbon cycle as part of a larger design/build program. A wide exposure to natural building techniques was a critical part of the curriculum. We studied straw construction, cob, adobe, papercrete, and timber framing with design exercises in the studio and construction experience on projects in the Pacific Northwest. Natural building was coupled with Building Science; two movements that I believe could be merged closer together, especially today. After the Shelter course, I was searching for the next opportunity to learn about whole systems design. I found The Ecosa Institute program at Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti and applied to be part of the Fall of 2000 founding class. Alongside ten other students from different schools around the country, we learned from the ecologies of Arizona, including rainwater harvesting and natural building techniques of the Hopi people, and Aboriginal living skills training. Since then, the program has expanded in partnership with Prescott College. Feeling the need to formalize my education into a profession after Evergreen, Ecosa, and working for a green roof company as well as a solar panel installation company, I went to graduate school at Parsons School of Design in New York City. I was able to bring together my formative natural building experience into my projects, although it was not being taught there yet by the faculty. All of my projects were focused on cyclical design at various scales: regenerative materials and infrastructure solutions that were bio-based. One example was my thesis project which was in response to the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) problem in NYC. The project proposed a new remediation landscape to take in the wastewater at the outfall locations and purify it through a series of industrialized wetland systems. The municipal infrastructure consisted of a series of earthen greenhouse and public bathhouse facilities with rainwater harvesting systems working in conjunction with the wetlands. As I gained the technical tools and guidance needed to become an architect, I was able to stay true to my environmental ideals. This was in part because of my previous experience with a self-directed educational model and the freedom to be part of an emerging profession. Upon graduation, I worked at a couple of firms, DBVW Architects in Providence and Nelligan White Architects in NYC, both of which incorporate sustainable solutions in the design process. However, the solutions did not seem to address the larger planetary need to use regenerative resources. It was not until I started my practice at the beginning of 2020 that I was able to truly synthesize all of my experiences.
An excerpt below from the Evergreen course catalog:
For some students, this may mean participating in the design of specific real-world buildings, such as Evergreen’s new Seminar II classroom building, an appropriate-technology house at the college’s Organic Farm, a possible expansion of Housing or a youth hostel for downtown Olympia. Other students may focus more on off-grid living, Third World needs, waste management, energy, alternative materials such as straw, earth or recycled tires, the technological visions of people like Buckminister Fuller or Amory Lovins, the whole systems understanding of Lynn Margulis and others, or the social visions of Boston’s Dudley Street Project.
