“Remote island in the Philippines turns to Indiegogo for help in earthbag construction project.
Although often called ‘the last unspoiled frontier’ in the Philippines, Palawan has recently been receiving new attention. The small village of Coron Town is on a mission with an earthbag construction project like no other. “We are looking to create many opportunities for our community by building an earthbag house,” said Susan Rosa, coordinator for the construction project.
An earthbag house is just that. A house constructed from bagged earth which is piled and stacked to form a dome shaped house. They frequently look like large beehives once completed. “We’re building this earthbag home on Mount Tapyas in Coron Town,” explained Rosa. “The original idea was to design and build an earthbag dream house and give it to my mother. We hired members of the community to help us build our dream home, and then it became more of a social project for the whole community.”
Rosa has realized that the earthbag construction project is creating jobs in the poor villages, and helping the community in a bigger way that she had thought possible. “We want to keep this going,” continued Rosa, “and this is why we are now crowdfunding on Indiegogo.”
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Hi all, your comments are very interesting. I just want to make you all aware too of an EcoVillage in Coron we are currently designing for the local community of informal settlers; we are a team of Filipino and International consultants collaborating to make this possible. We are very concerned about the delicate ecosystem of Palawan, but also recognize that we need to help generate jobs for local community. Follow us on http://www.coronecovillage.com – we are still building the site so please bear with us.
Please stay in touch and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
What kind of soil did you use to build the earthbag houses?
I didn’t help build them, just tour the village and report on the project. I believe they used local sandy soil with a little cement added. Always make some test bags to see what works best using the soil you have available.
Yes, the project is completed.
Unfortunately, Mrs Rosa does not allow anyone to get info or pictures of her house, unless paying her.
BTW, In Coron is presently ongoing a new project, proposed by Andres Tamayo foundation, aiming to build 30sq-mt house, including solar panel for 300W, at cost of 150K PHP.
I’ve been there, one house is already completed and 9 more on going.
Thanks. Any more information on the project in Coron? Website?
The Indiegogo crowdfunder happened 2 years ago according to the YT video writeup. And, it is no longer on Indiegogo, so we don’t know if she was successful or not. The roof looks like a cement finish.
I hope the owners respond to this story. The roof looks unusual and am wondering what they’re doing. It looks like they’re building up the edges to capture roofwater. It’s better to have wide roof overhangs in rainy climates.