Sunday, April 8, 2012

Aprovecho Sustainable Shelter Series 2011: Inside Insulation Course

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!


Friday, April 6, 2012

VBC 2011 - Boise Eliot Marketplace

This year at the Village Building Convergence, Portland's premier natural building and place-making event, I have teamed up with Mark Lombard to create a couple of cob benches for the future Boise-Elliot Marketplace at Fremont and Williams, in NE Portland.

Preparing the round poles for the roof structure

urbanite foundation for the benches

mark lombard :)

teaching cob



adorable round pole roof structures going up simultaneously

more cob!
dozens of people, from all walks of life get involved!




earth plaster base coat over the fresh benches, amazing how much we could accomplish in just one week


new friend kate!


living roofs planted as well!



Join us next year!
visit www.cityrepair.org for more info