Natural Building Intensive

This workshop will familiarize students with the basic family of natural building materials: clay or earth, straw, wood, and stone, and what can be accomplished with each alone and in combination with the others. At least half of each day is spent on hands-on building with a high ratio of experienced instructors. This year’s projects will focus on earthen infill techniques (slipstraw or light straw clay, slip-and-chip, clay wattle and wattle and daub) and on rough and finish earthen plasters. We will also build an earthbag retaining wall. Our site has examples of many other natural building techniques: cob, straw bale, cordwood masonry, adobe floors, round pole timber framing, living roofs, lime fresco, clay and casein paints, and much more. Lectures and discussions cover passive solar and other design principles for energy-efficient, compact natural homes. There will also be an extensive tour of the most complete natural building demonstration site on the West Coast, with an emphasis on natural materials harvesting, off-grid electrical generation, greywater reclamation, composting toilets, and more. Evening slide presentations and videos, a sauna with a dip in our pond, and wood-fired pizza from our earthen oven round out this 7-day intensive experience. The workshop begins Saturday evening the 7th and ends Saturday afternoon the 14th.

This post was submitted by Michael G. Smith.