Suzanne Rouge is an athletic-looking 60+ year-old woman with a lot of energy and a lot of ideas. She is a driving force behind Earth Art Village, a cooperative collaboration for mutual benefit to all members, located just north of Crestone. Colorado. Earth Art Village began in 1998 with 460 acres to be subdivided into 35-acre parcels, with the county allowing one well per parcel. All village members would live on 160 centrally-located acres and the rest of their parcels would be used for the agreed-on mutual benefit for all owners. All homes are to be naturally built and earth-friendly. Many different facets of living are to be explored here. Growing food at 8000’, having different methods of gray water distribution and sewage disposal, implementing Dark Sky practices, growing food forests, teaching permaculture and sustainability, building new versions of solar batteries and partially underground greenhouses are but a few of the things the village folks will tackle. This is a work in progress and will change and grow according to member wishes. There are no covenants to contend with, only the collective owner’s wishes to realize.
Susanne, along with her son, live in a 400 square foot house already on the land, and much more building is planned for the next few years. They are in the process of building a two-story garage, shop, and large classroom made out of hempcrete. They are dried in and ready to finish the building soon. Suzanne will then continue to work on her house next door, which will be an earthship hybrid with tires on the bottom and hempcrete on top. Attendees of various workshops will learn valuable building skills by donating some labor to the cause.
Suzanne says, “Hemp is a great building material whose benefits are becoming more and more apparent every day. Hempcrete is only one of the things you can do with hemp. Hempcrete consists of lime, hemp hurd, and water. It gets very hard with time, petrifies in about three years and eventually turns into limestone. It is a wonder to live in, very dynamic. It breathes well and purifies air, is anti-microbial, mold-, mildew- and pest-resistant. It also retards water and fire damage as well. The R insulating value is 25 per linear foot. We pack it into woodframed walls. Hemp grows like a weed. It gets 18-20 feet tall very quickly, can grow in a variety of climates, uses little water, fertilizer, no herbicides or pesticides, and is a good carbon sequesterer. It has been grown to good effect at two highly toxic radioactive sites, Chernobyl in Russia and Rocky Flats right outside of Denver. Very helpful in mitigating those toxic soils.
Suzanne has done a lot of work and has a lot of work still in front of her but she is still very enthusiastic. “Give me this year and I’ll be ready to begin implementing all we have talked about today.”
This article is from crestoneeagle.org