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Natural Building Intensive

July 17, 2023 - July 29, 2023

Instructors: Michael G. Smith, Avani Leitz, and Blair Phillips

Want to build an earthen sauna?

In this two-week course, get your hands muddy and leave with the skills to build a small structure from the ground up. We will be building the foundation for a  sauna, then adding earthen walls and a round-pole roof structure for a living roof. This workshop will include:

• Wall systems including cob, redwood bark and slip, and others

• Gravel bag foundations – a simple, low cost, low-carbon foundation

• Intro to natural plasters including clay-straw and lime-sand base coats

• Simple roof structure for a living roof

Daily hands-on building sessions will be supplemented with lectures on the theoretical background you need to design and build effective natural structures, including a thorough grounding in both the structural and thermal properties of different natural materials and the fundamentals of passive solar design.

The course will be five days of intensive learning (17th-21st), followed by a weekend tour (22nd & 23rd) of local natural building sites and a restorative nature excursion, with the hands-on intensive resuming from 24th-29th. Camping is included and all meals are prepared for you with food grown on site or locally sourced with your optimal health in mind. Families are welcome. Inquire for kiddo participation.

Get a 5% discount off the price of this or any other 2023 Wanosh workshop by entering the coupon code “Michael5” when you check out. Other offerings this year include round pole timber-framing, Rocket Mass Heaters, and more! https://wanosh.org/