Events

[ May 29, 2010; ]
A one day introduction to cob building that covers history, advantages, essential aspects, materials (testing and location), siting, foundations, drainage, tools, mixing, sculpting and plasters. Hands-on learning.

[ May 2, 2010; ] Making adobes is something best done in a group, and a group is happier when there is music. The Malinke people know this better than anybody: kassa in their tradition is a ritual, very energetic, interchange between work and music during harvest time; and kassa also refers to the drum rhythms that are [...]

[ April 25, 2010 to May 1, 2010. ] Start Date / End Date:: 4/25/10-5/01/10Over the last two decades, the historic craft of timberframing in residential construction has experienced a revival. Students will learn the fundamentals of designing and constructing a timberframe using mortise and tenon joinery. Layout techniques, tool use and sharpening, and joinery cutting methods are taught as we work on a [...]

[ May 1, 2010 to May 2, 2010. ] This hands-on workshop will provide students with basic skills for working with stone and masonry. Students will learn various methods of constructing stone walls and will be exposed to a variety of examples of stonework incorporated in residential design. Each student will have the opportunity to work firsthand with footings and dry-laid, masonry-laid and masonry-veneered [...]

[ May 2, 2010 to May 7, 2010. ] Have you always wondered about strawbale construction? Heard it is only for hot and dry climates? Think again! With their combination of insulation and thermal mass, plastered strawbale walls can be perfect for cold – and even wet – climates if they are designed and built according to a set of time tested principles. This [...]

[ May 8, 2010 9:00 pm to May 9, 2010 9:00 pm. May 8, 2010 to May 9, 2010. ] Start Date / End Date:: 5/08/10-5/09/10Mud, earth, clay, soil – an awesome and versatile building material which can act as a thermal battery, holding heat. People have used this technology for thousands of years to bake bread and other staples. Today wood-fired earthen ovens are seen as an appropriate technology in an increasingly over-complicated world. [...]

[ May 9, 2010 to May 14, 2010. ] Henry Beston noted how the hand-made thing has the mark of the living soul. This course will teach you how to create and apply beautiful hand finished plasters and paints on many wall surfaces. People around the world have been using clay, gypsum, and lime as plasters and paints for millenia, and these materials have [...]

[ May 30, 2010 to June 4, 2010. ] Start Date / End Date:: 5/30/10-6/04-10Green roofs are gaining popularity for several reasons. They are super efficient at insulating a home. They also minimize our ecological footprint by retaining and filtering water before it reaches our rivers and streams. In this course, we will explore intensive and extensive green roof systems. We will discuss various [...]

[ May 8, 2010 to May 15, 2010. ] Start Date / End Date:: May 8 – May 15, 2010Join us for a week of natural building and living in the beautiful Texas Hill County outside of Austin. Professional builders Kindra, John and Sara will take a week off from their packed building schedules to share their passion and knowledge of cob construction. [...]

[ May 29, 2010 to May 31, 2010. ] Learn the basics of mud, w/an emphasis on plasters. Identify and mix various muds for covering existing walls and buildings; sculptural mud for shaping and decorative ornaments; natural (fireproof!) insulating mud; mud for natural colors and paints; and cob or adobe mud for walls, ovens hearths and entire homes. Yurt weaving, begun May [...]

[ May 1, 2010 to May 2, 2010. ] May 1-2- Weave a Willow Building, $50/day
This continues a project begun last October with Yurt Master William Coperthwaite, who led the frame and roof raising of the beautiful, two-tiered wood yurt. Now we start weaving the willow wattle walls, so that later in May we can apply mud to weatherproof and insulate (see separate [...]

[ May 8, 2010 to May 15, 2010. ] This is an 8-day, intensive cob workshop. We will be learning not only the basics of mixing and building with cob, but will be studying how to integrate windows, and a door frame into the building. Students will build a cob archway, and will get the opportunity for sculpting shelving and niches in the interior [...]

[ May 21, 2010 to May 23, 2010. ] Learn the basics behind mixing and building with cob. We will spend most of the weekend getting muddy at our cob mixing site, learning how to make an appropriate mix out of the most local materials.

This is the fourth cob workshop, so we will be applying the last of the cob, with consideration of how [...]

[ May 28, 2010 to May 30, 2010. ] Learn about all the layers of an earthen floor, and how to apply them. Students will get hands-on experience in laying the first two (of three) layers of the floor – how to make the mix, and how to pour/level it.

Because the sub-floor then needs to dry for a number of weeks, we will not [...]

[ April 30, 2010 to May 2, 2010. ] Learn the basics behind mixing and building with cob. We will spend most of the weekend getting muddy at our cob mixing site, learning how to make an appropriate mix out of the most local materials.

This is the second cob workshop, so we will be applying cob a couple feet up the wall, and beginning [...]