4D Quick Cabin Build

We’ll build a 120 square foot bath house/sauna over six action-packed days. The foundation will be completed ahead of time but we’ll build the walls, put in a door and windows, and build an insulated roof on top.

The structure will be post and beam using wood harvested from the property. The walls will be stacked straw bales that we’ll cover with a thick base coat plaster. We’ll use cob for sculpting and relief work and slipstraw to fill the wood framing above and below the windows.

There has been a lot of interest in 3D printed houses using concrete with claims to be super-fast to build as well as green. It’s great if people want to spend time pursuing faster ways to build small houses out of concrete using giant machines but these buildings are certainly not complete in a day nor is concrete a natural or green building material. Our 4D build will show that it’s possible to build a small house quickly, and better, using almost entirely natural materials.

The 4th “D” or dimension in our approach, is time. We’re honoring the vernacular methods and communal nature of building from the past while at the same time projecting these techniques and knowledge forward to create a brighter and more sustainable future. The basic techniques we teach are timeless and use clay-rich soils, straw, sand, stone, and wood. They also require a group of people – lots of hands and minds and hearts learning, laughing, and creating a beautiful, functional and comfortable, and green structure together. These factors are, we believe, even more important than putting up something super fast.

This structure will have a straw-bale centric wall system but it will be covered, protected, and enhanced with earth. Earth is the mother of all building materials and for millennia people have used it to build beautiful, simple, efficient and inexpensive homes. It’s plentiful, ecological, and non-toxic. Plus, it can’t burn, won’t rot and is much simpler to build with than conventional construction. When we combine earth with straw (which used to be considered little more than an agricultural waste product) we can speed up construction, increase insulation, and provide the fiber for cob, floors, plasters and other infill techniques.