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handed me a newsletter called Earth
Quarterly by Gordon Solberg of Radium
Springs, New Mexico.
Inside were some photos of building
experiments done with paper, cement or earth
clay. I’d heard of straw bale building, earth
ships and so on but nothing about this
fascinating new alternative discovery. Having
a little experience while working on an adobe
house, this seemed like something to learn
more about.
Back in Alpine and talking with a friend
who had just moved here from Dallas, Bob
Brewer, who was also intrigued by the idea,
we decided to check out a workshop on
papercrete (PC) and earth bag construction
we’d heard about in Columbus, NM. It was
there we met some of the pioneers who were
making some interesting experiments using
recycled paper and adding cement. During the
workshop, everyone was trying different
things and some crazy looking structures
were forming up on the outskirts of
Columbus, in an area they called “City of the
Sun.” There were underground rooms with
papercrete domes, round looking houses,
earth ships, and other weird looking and
unusual structures that looked like a scene
out a Mad Max movie. One guy built a tiny PC
house that somehow caught on fire, but it
didn’t go up in flames. His house burned like
a giant cigarette, leaving nothing but a stack
of ashes. It obviously had too much paper and
not enough cement. But on the whole, there
were some innovative ideas by some creative
people all looking to build cheaply and in a
very environmentally friendly way.
No one knows for sure who actually came
up with the concept of using wastepaper as a
building material. Rumor has it there was an
attempt to patent it back in the 1920s that fell
through and never really caught on. Most
8
Cenizo
Spring 2020
Nubian vault Papercrete house and sculpture in Alpine.
likely, it was because lumber was plentiful
and cheap and energy costs were low, so it
didn’t make much sense back then. More
recently, Eric Patterson from Silver City, NM
noticed something his daughter made for a
school science fair where she made a papier-
mâché block and happened to add a little
cement to it. After it dried Eric was curious to
see that it was very strong. Being a part-time
builder, he shared the idea with other like-
minded friends in the area. Interest grew and
papercrete construction had a modern day
beginning. Another builder and inventor,
Mike McCain of Columbus, came up with a
contraption known as the tow mixer, which to
this day seems to be the preferred way to
make papercrete. He took the rear end of a
vehicle and made a trailer out of it with the
differential inverted vertically into a tank. A
blade is attached to the yoke and when towed
by a vehicle, the blade spins, which makes it
look like a giant Cuisinart on wheels.
After the workshop in New Mexico, feeling
inspired, I shared some things I learned back
home in Alpine. Working with friends Randy
Guillotte and Alan King, we put together a
tow mixer. After much trial and error we
finally got the thing to work, but in our first
attempt, the blade in the mixer was incorrect
Pump house at Sunny Glen barrel vault 1999.
with the baffles pointing upward, and the mix
shot up in the air. Then the welds on the rear
differential platform came apart and the
whole thing collapsed. After a few expletives
and almost giving up, we made some
necessary modifications and test runs and the
thing began working like a champ. After
adding water and cement and pulling it with