Dorus Rijkers
Dorus was born in 1977 and raised on a small farm in Holland until emigrating to New Zealand with his family in 1988. After dabbling in computers and mathematical sciences at university for two years, he finally followed his heart and completed a three year carpentry apprenticeship.
On obtaining his carpentry papers Dorus moved back to Holland in 2000, this time settling in Amsterdam to jointly-own and direct the building side of several businesses, culminating as a freelancing building contractor leading a small dedicated team of subcontractors in various major renovation projects of private houses, creative agencies and a hotel on the canals of Amsterdam.
More and more, both the decadence and wastefulness of the industry and the long dark winters started to upset Dorus and over the years he began the search for more meaningful ways of building. That began with projects such as a mudbrick house in New Zealand, a renovation of a school in Nepal and another in Romania with a 10 man building company, plus involvement with the Ceuvel project (rejuvenating a polluted shipbuilding yard in Northern Amsterdam) and an Earthship build in Malawi.
Then finally Ibiza called. A quick internet search on “eco build ibiza” turned up Casita Verde several times, so in January 2014 Dorus volunteered to help out at the centre, as well as to learn welding and rocket stove science from a well known friend of Casita Verde, Steve Fox from Yorkshire, who was busy bulding a barrel oven for a new wood burning kitchen project.
Towards the end of 2014 Dorus completed the permaculture design course at Casita Verde, and started to construct the raised bed greywater vegetable garden, later joined by Youri Post. He was also elected vice-president of the NGO leading Casita Verde.
After completing the gardens (including modular chicken tractor), many dots from the past and present connected to form the idea for the Eco Tiny-House Wagon. It’s a 2.5 x 6 meter self sustainable mobile home on wooden wheels made primarily from pallets and recycled joinery materials, then insulated with sheepswool (all abundant waste resources on the island). The eco wagon will stay at Casita Verde and serve as a home and a compact showroom of all the alternative technologies the eco-centre has to offer.
Most days Dorus can be found working in the garden or on the Wagon and is offering apprenticeships, workshops and ecobuilding-retreats, so that others may join in his enjoyment and learning. For more information e-mail him at ecobuild@casitaverde.com.