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By: Nauhaus Institute

Eight weeks into the construction process, the Nauhaus Institute grows its army of volunteers, welcoming the Asheville Green Opportunities Training Team (Asheville GO) to experience and learn about the broad spectrum of materials and techniques being used in the Nauhaus prototype. Organizers created this work day and learning tour as a first step in developing a high performance, natural building craftsmen training program that will support the recruitment efforts of the Nauhaus Building system.

“I presented to the Asheville Go team a couple of weeks ago and was really impressed with the level of interest. It’s great to get the group out on site to be involved in our prototype project. We hope Asheville Go will benefit from our collective of knowledge and I am confident we will benefit from their willingness to learn and their muscle as we work to finish the prototype project,” said Clarke Snell Managing Director of the Nauhaus Institute

The Asheville Green Opportunities Training Team (Asheville GO) launched last fall to prepare disconnected young adults for living-wage, green collar jobs. The program’s core is service-based job training.  Instead of charging participants tuition, the program pays its members to complete service projects that improve community and environmental health while providing technical job skills and work experience.

For the first Carbon Neutral Urban Homestead of its kind in the US, the Nauhaus Institute (NHI) has designed the Nauhaus Prototype (NHP) as a community centered development. One of the project focuses is to begin to cultivate highly skilled local craftsmen so that the ambitious prototype can move into the mainstream. The NHP is on track to achieve both LEED Platinum certification and be one of the first 10 buildings in the US to meet the Passive House certification standard, one of the most rigorous performance standards in the world . The building combines high performance strategies such as super insulation, hyper airtight construction,  energy recovery ventilation, and on-site energy production with low-tech strategies such as passive solar design, site-made and locally sourced materials, and on-site food production.

 “We are all about creating opportunities for these great kids. When we empower and train today's youth, we benefit as a community because those individuals will be our future workforce. We are looking forward to the tour and the chance for our crew to experience building with clay and natural building materials,” said Dan Leroy, Go Co-Director.