First House
Adobe in Action is in the process of building its first house. It will be built in conjunction with volunteer labor, a willing and qualified low-income family, and the knowledge, expertise, and generosity of institutions and businesses in the community at-large.
How did Adobe in Action form and begin to collaborate with its first family? Adobe in Action's Executive Director & Board President, Mike Lopach, has been involved in issues pertaining to poverty, social justice, and housing for the last decade. After spending time working on adobe related projects in Mexico and as a social worker in urban public housing, he was inspired to try and integrate these two seemingly disparate areas. In 2008 he enrolled in the only certified adobe home building program in the country: the Northern New Mexico College Adobe Home Building Program.
Mike spent a year completing the certification program under the very experienced and talented adobe expert Quentin Wilson (www.quentinwilson.com). Quentin is now on the Board of Adobe in Action. It was through course work at Northern that a real plan of action to put together Adobe in Action as a non-profit began to coalesce. Another student in the program, Rocky Olsen, was keenly interested in building an adobe home. Rocky lives in Espanola, New Mexico where approximately three years earlier his family's ancestral adobe home had caught fire, and because of subsequent damage was ultimately razed. Rocky enrolled in the adobe courses at Northern to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to help rebuild the family home.
Where Rocky's family's adobe home sat, before the fire.Rocky's family owns the land where the former home sat. The family consists of Rocky's mother Aggie Lujan-Olsen, Rocky, Rocky's fiance Stacy, and four children: Alan (11), Winter (5), Stasia (5), and Penelope (3). All are living in a two bedroom, one bath trailer located on their property. It was proposed, in an effort to ameliorate living conditions for this young family, that a new adobe home could be built to replace their former ancestral home. They are truly a family in need, being classically under-housed in a dilapidated trailer. The family was excited about this vision to build a house together with our emerging organization as a sort of pilot family.
Penelope, Stasia, and Winter with some feline friends. These young ladies have not been shy about interacting with the volunteers and assisting them in any way they can to make the adobes for their new house...When our plan with the Lujan-Olsen family was coming together Adobe in Action did not yet exist as a formal entity. The family however agreed to move forward and try and obtain a loan to build an adobe home on their property. Rocky's mother Aggie, the actual deeded property owner, initiated contact with the Department of Agriculture's Rural Home Development program, dedicated to providing low-income families affordable home and construction loans. The family was pre-approved for a loan and is currently in the final stages of obtaining a construction loan to build in conjunction with Adobe in Action and other partner institutions.
Then another exciting development began to unfold. Mark Chalom, the celebrated passive solar architect, was approached about designing this first home. Mark graciously agreed to donate and adapt one of his existing passive solar plans to Adobe in Action to be utilized to assist needy families transition to affordable, sustainable housing. A primer on passive solar design can be found here.
A special thanks to Mario Sanchez of Gallina, New Mexico--the draftsman that works in collaboration with Mr. Chalom.
Rocky, Quentin, Mark Chalom, and Stacy discuss and analyze potential floor plans for their Mark Chalom passive solar adobe home! A family, once its financing is finalized, will work in conjunction with Adobe in Action and skilled instructors and students from Adobe in Action classes. We envision a process that will allow students to be involved in a real world adobe home building project from foundation to roof. The community will also benefit as a sustainable and traditional adobe structure will be replacing a blighted and inefficient manufactured unit.
We are hopeful that our vision for a synergy between motivated citizen volunteers and experienced adobe home builders is achievable. We believe that we will be successful, and will move on to build more houses with more families in need. Adobe in Action will utilize a transparent and non-biased process to petition and select future low-income families with whom we will partner. It is our great privilege to build homes with needy families, and we thank the Lujan-Olsen family for their willingness to collaborate with us, in this our initial endeavor.
The floor plans are for a 1700 square foot 4 bedroom 2 bath passive solar adobe home. A big thanks to Mark Chalom!