First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture

Synopsis
FIRST EARTH is about a massive paradigm shift for shelter—building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over four years on four continents, it proposes that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world and that we must transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages. FIRST EARTH is not a ‘how-to’ film, but a ‘why-to’ film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countryside, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles. In the age of collapse and converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, for material reasons and for spiritual reasons, both personal and political.

The film features curving art-poem dwellings in the Pacific Northwest in Canada and the US; thousand-year-old apartment-and-ladder architecture of Taos Pueblo; centuries-old and contemporary cob homes in England; classic round thatched huts in West Africa; bamboo-and-cob structures now on the rise in Thailand; and soaring Moorish-style earthen skyscrapers in Yemen. Featuring appearances by renowned cultural observers and activists Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, James Howard Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, Starhawk, Chellis Glendinning, and Mark Lakeman as well as major natural building teachers Michael G. Smith, Becky Bee, Joseph Kennedy, Sunray Kelly, Janell Kapoor, Elke Cole, Ianto Evans, Bob Theis, and Stuart Cowan.
Language
English
Country
United States
Year of release
2010
Year of production
2010
Subjects
Architecture; Environmental science
Keywords
architectural design; earth walls; ecological design; sustainability

Credits

Director
David Sheen

Distribution Formats

Type
DVD
Format
Region 1 NTSC
Price
$19.95
Availability
Sale
Duration/Size
90 minutes
Year
2011

Distributor

Name

PM Press

Email
info@pmpress.org
Web
http://www.pmpress.org/ External site opens in new window
Phone
+1 510 658 3906
Address
PO Box 23912
Oakland
CA 94623
USA

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