Earth Building Academy

Comprehensive 3-month online natural building program backed by 1 year mentorship.

Learn on your own projects with our expert guidance. This program has been created with our students in mind. Our main desire is to make this as relevant, practical and supportive of your own natural building journey as possible.

Our next Intake will be in April 2025.

The online Earth Building Academy is for you if…

You want to finally get your own natural building project off the ground (and save time & money)

Many people attend our hands-on workshops because they want to build their own place or retrofit an existing home with natural materials.

While a week’s in-person immersion in our work is a great experience, we have always felt it also has its drawbacks… It might not be straight forward to get home and actually get started with your own local materials.

You might have thought about a natural building project for a while, you are researching things online, but you are not gaining as much traction as you would like.

This program is for you if you want clear guidance on a wide range of natural building options, and support putting it into practice straight on your own project.

You will enjoy an extended period of time where you have close support as well as boosted motivation and focus to make it happen.

Our experience will save you from having to learn things the hard way or getting overwhelmed by the many different approaches you find in books and online. We like simple and good quality!

You are a building or permaculture professional and want to expand your natural building knowledge

We regularly consult with building professionals, regulators and have been invited to teach the Natural Building component of various PDCs.

We find there is a bit of outdated information floating around that doesn’t support firmly moving natural building into the spotlight it deserves.

Clients often think it is too hard or takes too long, it is too “rustic”, too expensive, dirty, not durable enough, doesn’t perform well in earthquakes – and the list goes on…

Earth can be a state-of-the-art building material. We are fortunate to be world leaders in NZ when it comes to building regulations covering natural materials and have extensive experience in their good performance in extreme conditions such as wind-driven rain and earthquakes.

This program is designed to cater for participants of different skill levels, and definitely is also aimed at design and building professionals.

If you are a building or permaculture professional you will benefit from learning alongside novices, because you will gain an understanding of how to convey the material in an easy and practical way.

You want the satisfaction of crating your own healthy, beautiful living space on any budget

There is nothing quite like being able to say “I built my own home using local materials!” or “I renovated my flat at minimal cost – and it now is healthier and way more beautiful than before!”

Building is a skill that will stay with you for life and comes in very handy. While carpentry requires more training, natural building techniques such as making and laying adobe bricks, applying natural plasters over a range of substrates, or making your own earthen floor can be learned relatively easily, especially with a bit of initial hand-holding.

In this program we cover a wide range of techniques you can use both in small retrofit projects or to build an entire house.

We want to ignite your passion for natural building materials, and give you the confidence to get into your own creative projects straight away.

Our times call for solutions to big problems such as climate change, unhealthy buildings and skyrocketing home prices. We want to empower you to tap into a win-win solution with your building projects:

Good for the planet – good for the people!