Ananda Earth Atelier

Ananda Earth Atelier is a creative and educational project that teaches people to design with clay, earth and other ecological building materials. Katharina founded it. She is a certified earth builder and a registered architect (ZT:Austria, Austrian Chamber of Architects), and she believes architecture can be healing and deeply soulful. The work is meant to help people create spaces that support wellbeing and a connection to nature. Its main offer is a four-week live online group mentoring programme, run on Zoom, with daily community support in a Telegram group. It's designed specifically for women in architecture, planning and creative fields. Participants go from a first vision to a fully developed design concept, ready to hand over to a local architect or planning authority. The sessions combine theory with hands-on practice, including clay modelling as a way of exploring a design. They also use elements of Katharina's proprietary “EARTH Doula Method”, which brings together sustainable architecture, intuitive creativity and shamanic principles. In Portugal, the atelier has hosted in-person natural building workshops, with immersive sessions in ecological construction techniques. It also works with conscious landowners who want to realise off-grid retreat and healing space projects, and supports them from concept to a build-ready design. The people it serves are an international community of architects, designers and creatives who feel disconnected from conventional construction and are looking for a more authentic way of making spaces, closer to nature. The atelier is particularly committed to building confidence among women who feel isolated in their sustainable design vision. It gives them practical tools, expert mentorship and a peer community to help them turn those plans into reality.