Leo, your description of the layers is just what I was looking for! The BAIRA in Bangladesh video is very interesting, and it looks like they have a layered approach. BAIRA is also mentioned in the link that Instar linked (Excellent article by the way)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWGRX_cH3oM(Air)
* Grass/creeping weeds/flowers
* Mixed 15% fine sedimentary and top soils (can be woody compost), 3 inches,with root zones reaching down to 6 inches
* Intertwining of coarse sediment, dead/live moss bed, mushrooms, and lateral roots from various plants,roughly 2 inches.
* Mixed of rotted woody materials from tree barks and stringy leaves (aquatic grasses). Same as rotting mulch based materials.
Any idea on the depth of the bottom layer?
For this idea, I'd like to avoid all the manufactured approaches, or approaches that use manufactured waste like plastic bottles The island itself would use natural parts like soil, compost, roots, branches, bark, etc.
Of course, you could use manufactured tools to build it or as part of the launch (Like the tarp/platform I mentioned)
I'd like to hear some more ideas from you all! Maybe we can put together a plan that I can try to implement this fall/winter
