Project Blu, A Right to Build

Project Blu

Greetings!

We are Cassius Pickens Rich and Angel Cherman, both students at the Rhode Island School of Design, (RISD), and we welcome you to project Blu. With Project Blu we are converting a shuttle bus into a nomadic community studio. The finished bus will be a space where we can cultivate and share our passion for natural building during our remaining time at RISD and beyond. Our objective being to give and gain access to knowledge in a way that furthers our education and builds positive connections, we need your help to bring this project to reality.

I am Cassius (he/him). Born and raised in Paris, France, where I developed a love for hands-on creation. At age 11, I began learning how to build musical instruments and started playing bass at 14. In my practice, I experiment with forgotten ways of archiving, using methods such as storytelling through physical form rather than paper documentation. Currently a senior at RISD, I am pursuing my passion for building and designing musical instruments, majoring in Furniture design. In learning how to make from recuperative materials, I was led towards sustainable living and natural building. Instagram:@cassius_rich

My name is Angel (they/them), and I am from Saint Petersburg, Florida, with ancestral roots in Grenada. As a sculpture major, I let my messages choose the medium that best conveys them. I believe there is no single correct way to express a thought, feeling, or purpose. Research is an integral part of my artistic process. My experiences, those of my family, friends, and the surrounding community, drive me to infuse intention and purpose into everything I create. This synergy between research, inspiration, and a commitment to community involvement shapes my work and allows me to bring meaningful art to life. Instagram: @angelcherman

Of the combined knowledge from our respective majors, Furniture design and Sculpture, the two of us intend to convert a 23 foot shuttle bus into a fully functioning, nomadic community studio that we will use to travel the Americas, conducting research, hands-on experience and storytelling - all to do with the subject of healing through natural building.

Our experiences will be documented through a variety of mediums that we will make available for sharing. These include 1) Project Blu youtube channel hosting informational videos on natural building and available to the public 2) informational zines 3) merchandise. By supporting this project, you will help us finalize our educations, with Project Blu being our interdisciplinary, undergraduate thesis work. You will also help us continue our study beyond graduation, as our ultimate aim is to educate, connect with and nourish others who share the same desire to exercise natural building practices.

Below is the link to our Project Blu youtube channel:

Project Blu youtube

Born of our individual passions for sustainable making, we created Project Manara in 2022. This collaborative work focused on cob (a natural sustainable building material), and offered us the opportunity for hands-learning while sharing our newly developed skills with our RISD community. Following the success of Manara, we are taking to the road with Project Blu.

(Project Manara)

Ours is a quest to learn how to put knowledge of home building back into the hands of the people. We aim to offer successful alternatives to modern living by refocusing how to build using natural resources. In order to do so, we have started Project Blu. Project Blu is our multidisciplinary and cross-departmental thesis project. It is backed by our respective faculty and department heads at the Rhode Island School of Design, supported by our peer community, designed and built by us.

Where will we go?

Keeping in mind our objective is to both give and gain access to knowledge, we seek hands-on experience using those natural building practices which have been disregarded by mainstream society, such as adobe, cob, wattle and daub building and more. Our first destinations will include but are not limited to:

North Carolina: (for their cob house building community: Mud Dauber School of Natural Building)

Pulaski, Tennessee: “Cruzincobglobal”

Taos, New Mexico: (to study earthship construction)

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: (we are currently in touch with several farmers and natural builders there)

Portland Oregon: to connect with organizations like The Natural Repair Project

<<< Message us and we will come to you! >>>

At our core, we are builders. Humans carry a history of making homes out of our surroundings. Earthen construction techniques, such as adobe and cob, have been used by civilizations around the world for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are known to have used mud bricks and adobe for building homes and structures. These practices live on to this day, but are alarmingly decreasing. “Although the proportion of people living in earthen homes has dropped sharply, it is estimated that between 650 and 700 million still currently inhabit buildings constructed from natural materials”

Source: Shift Away From Earthen Homes Is Environmentally Damaging, 2021

We find it important to exercise our human right to build. We intend, by example, to inspire that in others. Factors such as local climate, governmental building codes and available resources influence modern construction feasibility. As sustainability and environmental solutions are becoming increasingly imperative, we see natural building techniques playing a growing role in shaping the future of modern construction practices.

By helping us along our process, you will also afford others the opportunity to engage in hands-on experiential learning about bamboo framework, cob construction, solar setups, a global history of earthen building, the varying uses of composting as well as all we have yet to learn on the road.

For more information, here is the link to our website.

We thank you for having listened.

In peace,

-Angel and Cassius