The rising ecological awareness of people create demand for new approaches in building industry. Nowadays we build low energy and passive houses, and the next step to lower energy further and live healthier, is to use natural materials in new buildings as well as in old house renovations. Our project Hlinarch is focused on clay - one of the oldest building materials with very low primary inbuilt energy and with lot of positive qualities and ways of use. Using clay for wall plastering has become an attractive alternative for builders and building companies, however, the non-standardised characteristics of these materials require special knowledge and experienced handicraft skills.

Project Hlinarch is aiming to provide professional qualification for working with clay, by transfer of the Clay plaster curriculum, which was developed by several international partners in Germany. The curriculum resulted from The LEONARDO DA VINCI project “Clay Plaster”and has won the “Best Practice Award” of the German National Agency. The Curriculum is very flexible, has a modular structure and enables thus to take into account the various skills levels of the learners and the various requirements of their clients.

Project Hlinarch is a logical continuation of spreading such a good quality curriculum in the partner countries such as Czech rep., Slovakia and Slovenia, where skills using clay were forgotten in the past years. “Hlinarch” project is supported by the LEONARDO DA VINCI program – Transfer of Innovation. The Manager of the project is the Czech organization KTP - Společnost pro kvalifikaci na trhu práce. Partners of the projects are clay specialists or re-qualification centers such as: Sdružení hliněného stavitelství, o.s., from Czech Rep., ArTUR o.z. – Sustainable architecture from Slovak Rep., INTEGRA and HISA, from Slovenia

During the project, all the partners will adapt learning materials by a linguistic, cultural and sociological customisation for the specific requirements in each of the three target countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia).

The product of the project will be the Curriculum for clay plastering translated and modified for partner countries needs. Curriculum will be available in paper form, CD-ROM and on DVD. As added value, each target country will appoint potential users and will be provided by Didactic Guidelines on how to incorporate materials within the framework of existing teaching schemes and take into consideration the specific requirements of each country as well as the specific learning cultures, the requirements of vocational training providers, and aspects of transparency, validation and recognition of the competences acquired in such training measures.

Translated and adapted Curriculum - the product of the project Hlinarch is assigned for vocational schools, training and re- qualification centers, for NGOs, which provide formal and informal education in each partner country. However, end users of the project's product will be craftsmen, designers, architects, builders and people interested to require clay plaster skills.

Further information and more details about project Hlinarch will be available at the website www.hlinarch.eu, produced as a part of the project. Part of the curriculum will be also available for download at the project’s website.