I've been drawing and imagining houses since my teenage years. My first sketch, when I was 15 or 16 looked a lot like the fortress I imagine the first settlers built when they arrived in America. A log house, 2 floors with the animals living on the ground floor would provide heating. I needed a river for a water-wheel and a palisade to protect the garden and the flock.
At 22 I discovered the Caribbean and started dreaming of a hut on a deserted island with a boyfriend and some chickens. While waiting to find the right person who would accept the exile to the south, I continued refining plans for Quebec.
My inclination towards good food, warmth and gardening bring me to the conclusion that I want to live in a greenhouse and to the idea of burying the north side of the house.
The circus school I attend for a few years (for fun and exercise) temporarily add a huge gymnasium. From there, around 1993, a daring structure takes shape… which is totally out of my means.
Then come Tai Chi, Alain and the project of Centre Pierre Boogaerts. I retire (or take a sabbatical as it turned out) and without really noticing it, we adopt our own form of "simplicité volontaire" feeding off our eco-friendly nature. Right from the start of our involvement into the building project for the Tai Chi Centre, we know that the three of us (with Sushi my amazon parrot) won't want to live in the small studio for too long. I share with Alain my crazy dreams. He listens and encourages. We start looking for a place close to the Centre where we could build our nest.
Surfing the web, I discover other people who've had the same idea to live in a greenhouse and bury it. They call it an "earthship". I'm astonished, excited and, intrigued; perplex also because all these houses seem to be in the American south-west. I spend hundreds of hours in the following years to read on the subject.
In the fall of 2001 we go to Ontario to visit the Potter house. A real earthship of tires and dirt! They're not connected to Hydro. They use only 4 to 6 cords of wood per year in a good old woodstove they use for cooking and heating. We spend a good 2 hours listening to them and they have no trouble convincing us that it's what we're looking for.
All we have to do now is find the ideal piece of land…