The Windship

After Typhoon Haiyan, three months in Leyte helping build the Windship, a typhoon shelter of tires, earth and bottles, with a village and Earthship.

Role: Procurement, building, storytelling
When: January to spring 2014, about three months
Where: Batug, Dulag, Leyte, the Philippines
Team: The Earth Village Project, Earthship Biotecture and the people of Batug
Scope: A typhoon shelter, base camp, community garden, adobe workshops and a village co-op

Volunteers carrying sacks past walls of tires, bottles and earth under palm trees — **The Windship rising:** tires, bottles and earth, Leyte.

$30kBuild budget and procurement I managed
200+Villagers at the first visioning session
70+People on the Windship build itself, by my count at the time
5,000+Photos and videos I shot as chief storyteller

I was in Australia when Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, reported at the time as the strongest storm ever to make landfall. I booked my flight home to Chicago through Manila, without knowing a single person there. By January 2014 I was driving a packed SUV into the village of Batug, in Leyte.

Not relief

The Earth Village Project set out to rebuild Batug in the most sustainable way it could: small-scale organic farming, mud houses, composting toilets, structures from earth and trash, all built with the village rather than for it. A few people had started in December, camping in a villager’s yard and spending a month just walking with families and listening.

I arrived after New Year with the next wave of the team. In one weekend we set up base camp, ran a visioning session that more than 200 villagers came to, planted a community garden and built a mud bench. We took the word relief out of our vocabulary. There were no beneficiaries; we worked with the community and learned with them.

Vaults of cans and bottles over a tire base, under construction among palms — The Windship under construction, 2014.

The Windship

Michael Reynolds of Earthship Biotecture had designed a typhoon bunker on Earthship principles, and he called it the Windship. In Tacloban, one of the few buildings left standing was the round convention center; the wind slid off its curves instead of slamming into a wall. The Windship takes the same idea: two low domes joined by an arch, on a base of tires rammed with earth, with walls of recycled bottles and concrete, finished inside with adobe mixed on site. The roofs catch rain into two cisterns, most of it is buried from the outside, and the middle holds planted beds that treat its grey and black water.

The build started on 23 February 2014 on the grounds of the Batug school. By my count at the time, the build itself drew more than 70 people from the village and around the world, and over the life of the project more than 100 volunteers came through the camp. When it was done, the kids found out it doubles as a giant musical instrument you can play with sticks and stones.

A finished vaulted building with bottle walls, a round window and painted trim — **The Windship’s** bottle walls and round windows.

My part, and the hands

I ran procurement. In Cebu, Sabina and I drove a pickup that city councilor Nestor Archivale donated all over town on a wild goose hunt for every tool and material the build needed, and I managed a budget of about $30,000. I made welcome packets for the volunteers flying in, helped build, and kept the camp running once the build started: the composting toilets, the food waste, and the drinking water, which we hauled from the river in a bucket chain and filtered overnight. I was also the chief storyteller, and shot more than 5,000 photos and videos.

Mia ran trash drives all over Tacloban with the city’s waste crew and became known around town as the plastic woman; she also got up at 4:30 most mornings to make breakfast for everyone. Paul, Jake, Phil and Janis built the toilets, the showers and the camp. Gigi helped the village organize a co-op that fed the whole build and spun off a riverside bar and a handful of small businesses. The men of Batug dug the dirt, sand, gravel and rock by hand. Shadow workers don’t get the spotlight; they get it done.

A pink sofa on a raised wooden platform among palms snapped by the typhoon — **After Haiyan,** Leyte, the Philippines.

After the build

Every week the aid groups met in the mayor’s office in Dulag. Most worked from handouts and scale. I put on my barefoot businessman shoes and argued for pilots: test small, learn, then grow. So we planned a learning village with the local 4Ps gardening collective: villagers would make mud bricks together and build a mud wall and a kitchen garden for each family in their group, and each group would teach the next. I ran adobe building workshops, worked with families on a co-op built on trust and open books, explored a livelihood in moringa, which grows wild there and sells as a superfood, and supported our local liaison in trauma and healing work.

Our aim was a system that designs us out of the picture. The Windship has since sheltered people through later typhoons. Between storms, it’s a classroom.

What I did

Ran procurement for the Windship out of Cebu, hunting down every tool and material the build needed on a budget of about $30,000
Worked as the go-between for the Earth Village Project and Earthship Biotecture, so the build had what Earthship’s design called for
Helped build the shelter alongside the Earthship crew, volunteers and the people of Batug
Kept the camp running: composting toilets, food waste, drinking water hauled by bucket chain and filtered overnight, and welcome packets for incoming volunteers
Helped run a visioning session that drew more than 200 villagers, and plant a community garden
Ran adobe building workshops and worked with families on a co-op built on trust and open books
Documented the whole build as chief storyteller, in more than 5,000 photos and videos

Deliverables

Materials and tools sourced and delivered for the Windship, a typhoon shelter designed by Earthship Biotecture
Base camp with composting toilets, showers and filtered drinking water
A community garden and a mud bench
Adobe building workshops for the village
A photo and video record of the build, 5,000+ files