School of Constructive Arts: Homes from the Earth in Big Bend

Out on Terlingua Ranch, between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, the School of Constructive Arts is building a campus from the earth itself. The nonprofit field school teaches regenerative design, natural building and ecology through hands-on work, blending ancestral knowledge of earthen materials with contemporary building techniques.

The school grew from the homestead of Don Bryant, a longtime Terlingua Ranch resident known for his ferrocement domes, whose land passed to the school. Students and volunteers have built a solar array and an earthen oven, worked on campus structures, and crossed to Ojinaga to learn from local adobe makers. Its guiding question, in the spirit of its director’s words: how do we make homes from the earth without harming our home, the earth?

Sources: Terlingua’s School of Constructive Arts launches fundraiser (Big Bend Sentinel) · The School of Constructive Arts (Natural Building Blog)