Welcome to Aprovecho! This year is the first of an annual offering called the Sustainable Shelter Series. It's an amazing overview of natural construction techniques at a very beautiful place near Cottage Grove, Oregon. I'm here teaching the week-long insulation section of the series. This first picture is of the structure as I arrive to it, a beautiful hybrid timberframe ready for strawbales on the northwall, light clay straw on the east and west and chip-slip infill on the south. Talk about a lot going on in a little playhouse!
Bale infill begins the first day
Bales make great scaffolding too!
starting the mud mix for the light clay straw
this is a great screen system for a wheelbarrow, I want one of my own!
chinking the bales
ramming the straw clay
mixing table
making slip from the nearby pond's pure clay, what a resource!
more mixing!
the forms leap-frog up and before you know it, we've got solid walls!
reed mats for forms for the chip-slip sections
uh-oh, no workshop complete with out a mud fight!
one week and a dozen hard workers... and we've got some naturally insulated walls!
