Eco Technology

Tokyo Farm Village

Proposed design for an integrated urban farming village.  Incorporating single residences, 3 floor apartment block, and combined aquaponics greenhouse/restaurant/education center.  The modular homes and apartments are designed for affordability and include farming space.  The concept it that residents can participate in the farming activities, and cooperatively produce fruits and vegetables for themselves, use in the restaurant, and for sale in local markets.

Indoor Mushroom Farm

An indoor mushroom farm in the dining room. This little organic restaurant in Ginza has a delicious lunch buffet with hearty foods and pictures of each farmer and farm above the spread.  The mushrooms are grown right there, in a big humidity and temperature controlled glass box with rotating shelves like an industrial oven.  Now that is truly freshness embodied.

Herb Drying Room

Angela and Christian put the final touches on our Herb Drying Room, built from a recycled grain silo and some windows we removed from one of the Shojiko House reforms. Many thanks to Angie and Chris for all their hard work and getting our farm ready for the 2011 harvest.

Dylan’s Front Yard Farms

Dylan Liccopoli, who interned at the Earth Embassy farm in 2008 & 2011, is back in North Port, New York and has parlayed his experience on our farm into a successful small business, HOGS, Home Organic Farming Service. He is building Front Yard Farms for suburban Long Island families, complete with raised beds, organic soil, and full planting, training and maintenance services. Good work Dylan. Look forward to seeing your gardens grow and grow.

For more info, and to contact Dylan about installing your own farm, see his website
http://www.homeorganicgardeningservice.com/

Also on Facebook here
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hogs-LI-Home-Organic-Gardening-Service/258831897476111?sk=info

http://www.homeorganicgardeningservice.com/

オーガニック農業認定ワークショップイベント

Aquaponics Greenhouse Addition

Nick Savidov was in Yokohama for a few days to discuss implementing aquaponics farms in Japan, specifically to provide fish, vegetables and jobs for the earthquake afflicted families.  Nick operates one of the world’s largest and most advanced aquaponics systems at the Alberta Crops Diversification center in Canada. He visited the demo aquaponics (a.p.) system we are building, here informing Brian Fry about the delicate ecological balance the systems require.  A greenhouse to hold the fish tank and planters is being attached to the house, and will also serve as extended living space and a passive solar heating source for the home. The old fellow with the shovel is digging up bamboo roots, so they wont push shoots up under our house every year.

details on Mick’s work … http://www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/965/38/

Relief Eco Villages

The Earth Embassy teams are working on a set of business plans for relief villages. Combining our eco homes and organic farm developement, we are trying to amp up the schedule and funding asap now to get 2 locations going by late spring/early summer if possible.

1) Shojiko Reformed Village – to prepare 10-15 homes, with 5 small “cottage industry” shops (soap making, paper making, etc), and job training for new residents

1a) Gelato Farm – at Solar Cafe, to offer jobs and farm training for new Shojiko residents, and make a small fruit & herb farm business incubator

2) Mini Farm Home Village – mix of shipping container base / vinyl greenhouse / recycled materials. Plan is to build 30 to start, centered around a farm/education center. Hopefully locate first one in Tsunami afflicted areas, but be able to offer to other rural communities willing to develop a village to take refugee families.

3) Farm/Cottage Industry Education Team – to establish, manage and train new staff for each location. In addition to the small businesses we can set up oursleves to start, we want to send out consultants, community builders, branding experts etc to work with new residents, help identify local talent and specialties, and empower residents to re-establish their lives/careers.

Our most immediate need for funding is to get one demo Mini Farm Home built asap, so we can have one ready to show as we approach other big investors/partners to work together to get a proper village of these going. Costs will come down as we ramp up production and gather companies willing to donate materials, containers etc. For the first prototype we need about 3M jpy to get built quick, and produce some promo materials, catalog, etc.

Anyone willing to help with these projects should contact us at info@earthembassy.org
We are fielding a lot of mail, so please indicate your interest in the subject line.

Earthquake Relief Housing – Mini Farm Homes

The Earth Embassy is putting together a team to quickly build relief shelter for residents of the Sendai area and coastal regions who recently lost their towns to the Tsunami. Mini Eco-homes, built from shipping containers, can be done quickly and inexpensive. They will include rain water collection systems, passive solar heating, and greenhouses to provide residents with secure locations for now and any future scenario.
We will also provide agricultural training and small farm incubation support, to efficiently create a stable food source and small income producing fields. Ideally these temporary locations will become permanent villages and act as a hub for rebuilding more sustainable communities. Immediate need is for funding, and as we build we will also be welcoming volunteer support.

Special Blueberry Mulching

Rooftop Rice Farming

Organic Cowgirl

EARTHSHIP GREENHOUSE, The Foundation is in!!!

With a lot of great help from interns and students, we have the foundation in and the rainwater and fish tanks ready to be filled.
Tyler helped cutting grass, Natchan drove the tractor (!!!) and Rob and Alex did all the heavy tire packing.
the barrels will collect rain water for plants and also to fill the fish pond and fish tank installed on the East end.

The in-ground foundation will help mediate temperature, as well as the tires and water tanks providing thermal mass, so that we will be able to do hydro-ponics and aquaponics year round, and not freeze our fish in the winter. Hoping to get the roof on before the snow flies!

Eco-Greenhouse & Earthships Building Workshop

This summer we will build a passive solar Earth Ship greenhouse that can be used as a living space or for growing plants year round.

Earth Ships are built largely with recycled materials, most of which are easily available and free for the asking. Used, steel-belted automobile tires, packed solid with earth, become giant 400- pound bricks that create sound-proof, fire and earthquake resistant, fortress- like walls.

Once built, Earth Ships collect rain water from potable roofing material into water storage tanks that provide an abundant source of water, even in areas with minimal rainfall.

Dates: July 28 to August 1, 2010 (tentative)
Cost: ¥ 48,000 (weekend only: ¥20,000)
Location: The Earth Embassy Solar Café and Farm, on the foot of Mt. Fuji.
Contact: info@earthembassy.org

The Experience Includes:
• Classroom overview of Earth Ship building and its environmental advantages. Discussion in English with Japanese support.
• Hands on experience building an Earth Ship. We will line a 4m x 8m hole with earth-packed tires and build a roof and south-facing wall designed to function as a passive solar greenhouse.
• Farm tour and organic farming activities.
• Hike to nearby Ice caves.
• Three home-cooked meals a day prepared with locally grown organic foods.
• Lodging in the Earth Embassy Guest House.

The Solar Shower is heating up!

The solar shower at the Solar Cafe & Guest House catches rainwater from our roof, which is stored in 3 (200litre) tanks in an insulated box which heats up in the sunlight. The building itself was done with recycled floor boards from the Shojiko High Village house second floor. The boards are over 150 years old, with the original ax marks still showing where they were hand hewn long before advent of power saws, and the natural coating of creosote was layered on over years of smoke from the fireplace, and are thus the wood is naturally water resistant and will last for another 150 years. THAT’S sustainability baby!

New Mini Eco Home!

David Howenstien and the Jambo International crew have sponsored a new mini-eco house for our farm.   We got an old grain silo from a local farm and set it in the garden next to the cafe.  Koji Watanabe helped prepare the foundation and brought the big truck to drive it in and unload it.  In June, David and the Jambo team will come up for a weekend and help us put in the new floor.  We will be using twice recycled wood that was once floor boards in a barn, then used at the Tokyo International Flower Show for a country-style garden, then came to us!  Contact David if you would like to join the Jambo farming and building weekend on June 25-27.  jambodave@green.email.ne.jp

“The stairs to heaven are paved with stones our grandfather laid”

The Shojiko High Village House ( available May, 2010 ) , sits atop an ancient stone wall at the very highest point of the village.  The stones (and much of the woodwork in the house) predate power tools and were built long before the current road around the lake connected the village to the rest of the prefecture.  The stones and wood were mostly crafted right in the village, and the original thatching for the roof came on small boats from the grassy plains on lower My. Fuji from across the lake.

visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright coined the term Organic Architecture nearly 100 years ago and the advances in design, materials and natural architecture he developed are seen ubiquitously in our homes and communities around the world today.  I arrived at Taliesin outside Scottsdale, Arizona after closing hours just at sunset.  Not wanting to miss a chance to see my hero’s winter encampment where he and his students built an oasis out of the desert rock, I wandered into the library and met one of the current fellows.  We got into a long discussion about developing eco-sustainable communities and I was invited in to share dinner with the fellows.  The exterior of Taliesin West flow seamlessly up from the desert floor, appearing as if they have been there for a thousand years, or perhaps are just natural features f the desert itself. The interiors are the most comfortable, human-sized rooms you could imagine, with natural light filling the space and the boundary between inside and outside delightfully blurred. 

WIND POWER- if California can, why can’t Japan

Driving out of LA traffic through the valley towards Arizona, I came across this huge array or wind generators.  In a way it made up for all that consumption in LA, seeing all this natural energy being harvested.  With Japan’s high unpopulated mountains and long coast line, and amazing technological skills, why arent we seeing more wind farms popping up.  Social responsibility is stronger here than NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard), so I dont think the opposition of  ‘environmentalists’ is what is holding us back.    2 BIG wind turbines along Tokyo bay are an encouraging site these days.  Is Japan on track to become a leader in renewable energy?