- This event has passed.
Complete cob and natural building intensive (includes building an earthen oven and a wood-fired hot tub)
July 3, 2019 ∞ 3:00 pm - July 13, 2019 ∞ 2:00 pm
$1275
(The workshop start with dinner on the first day and end with lunch on the last day)
Fee: $1275
Maximum class size: 16 students
Our 2019 workshop “complete Cob and Natural building” is already full; send us an email if you would like to be added to the waiting list. We will be doing several workshops in 2020 and will post them on the web in September. To get an alert about this, please sign up for our newsletter.
Included in the fee:
- Instructions
- camping spot
- 3 vegetarian meals, Coffee, tea, water
- Our book “House of Earth”
- VersaTerra Certificate
- Transportation from Medford airport or bus station.
Instructor Conrad Rogue and Kyle Chandler-Isacksen
Overview
This is the most comprehensive workshop you can find. Decades of teaching on four different continents has helped us design this rich learning experience, giving students the tools they need to become confident earthen builders.Earth is the mother of all building materials. For millennia, and all over the world, people have used earth 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.
We will teach you how to use clay-soil to build just about everything. From strong structural walls (cob and Adobe) to beautiful floors, plasters and light-straw-clay walls. Because the materials are fireproof, they are ideally suited to sculpt ovens, fireplaces and cook stoves.The essence of your learning experience will revolve around developing a deep understanding of how to process and combine a few simple materials: clay-soil, sand and straw. How you apply that in your building adventures is then up to you, but you will find the possibilities endless and exciting.
During this workshop we will build a beautiful garden wall and an earthen bread/pizza oven. Within the wall, we will incorporate all the features of a wall that would be part of a earthen house: Windows, doors, electricity, plumbing, arches, niches, and artwork.
(We don’t think it’s a good idea to start a whole building in a shorter workshop (as attractive as that may sound); it will have people do too much of one thing (mixing cob and wall building) and will not able to learn the other important aspects of natural building in a meaningful way, such as roof variations, natural plasters, earthen floors and design.)
What will you learn
After this workshop, you will feel confident that you can
- build yourself a cob cottage
- remodel, renovate an existing home, using natural materials
- build and use an earthen oven
- build and use a wood-fired hot tub
- use cob to create garden walls, outdoor fireplaces, patios, benches, etc.
- design small cottages
- teach a one-day natural building event yourself!
Specifically, you will get hands-on experience and skill development in the following areas:
- Foundation systems, rubble trench, stem walls, earthbag construction (as a stem wall)
- Identifying the right materials, screening, processing, testing, costs, amount calculations
- Mixing cob efficiently, making adobe bricks
- Building with cob: strong sculptural walls, arches, windows and doors, niches, artwork and mosaics
- electricity and plumbing, how to install wires and pipes in the walls
- roof attachment and roof design
- Light-straw-clay: this is an infill techniques perfect for code approved buildings and natural renovations of existing homes. You will learn how to make the right materials and how to install them
- Natural plasters, tools, making your own plasters and paints, colors, applications, how to apply it on earthen walls, drywall, wood, concrete
- Tamped floors, finish earthen floors in natural buildings, earthen floors in existing homes on plywood, oriented strand board and concrete
- Earthen ovens: from start to finish and how to use them (we will be baking pizza in the oven we will build)
- wood-fired hot tubs: size, materials, chimneys
- Different design strategies, natural design essentials, passive solar, using cob to make models
- Building codes, how they work, how to work around them
During every workshop we make time for specific issues related to individual situations. This usually include a careful look at different climates and regions, living with families or in communities, dealing with the building code, physical and financial challenges, appropriate technologies and more.
Our book “House of Earth” will be used as a textbook for the workshop.
The daily schedule
We are aware that students make a big investment in a workshop such as this. We honor your time and do the best we can to share our knowledge and experience. Expect long days with lots of building and learning. In the evenings we will show slides and films, featuring our previous projects and that of other people and cultures. Believe it or not, we also still like to make time for a campfire and some music. We always strive to make the workshop itself a comfortable, memorable and fun experience.
7;30 breakfast
8:30 building with cob
1:00 lunch
2:30 other techniques, lectures and oven building
6;30 Dinner
7:00 free time/slide shows/campfire
The workshop will take place at the House Alive homestead in Southern Oregon, 15 minutes away from the historic town of Jacksonville (check out the Britt music festival to see if there is something you want to see while you are nearby!) Our site is dotted with a dozen or so cob cottages, garden walls, ovens, and also has a code approved hybrid house (straw bale, cob, conventional).
As a student you will get first hand experiences of composting toilets, solar cookers, solar showers, off-grid photo-voltaic charging and other forms of appropriate technologies.
House Alive is located in the Siskiyou mountain range and has a mixed pine/oak/fir forest. Our homestead is peaceful and safe. The weather this time of the year is sunny and warm (sometimes hot) and the evenings/nights are cool. Rain is rare, but possible.
You will be provided with a flat, private and shady camping spot. We also have hot showers, composting toilets, and internet.
VersaTerra* certification
After full participation, every student will receive a VersaTerra certificate. We believe that after taking this workshop, participants are qualified to teach at least a one-day event in their neighborhood. The certificate will also allow you to promote your event(s) through the House Alive Facebook page. By providing a certificate, we want to empower our student to become facilitators of community revitalization through building with earth!
*VersaTerra is a holistic design, building and living philosophy, celebrating clay-soil as its primary building material. Clay-soil is:
- plentiful, inexpensive or free, durable, easy to maintain and modify, and endlessly reusable
- non-toxic, breathable, soft, beautiful, and displays superior performance in a wide variety of climates
- sculptural by nature, inviting to work with needing only simple tools and methods, and easily combines with other natural and human made materials.
By focusing on these specific qualities of clay-soil, we can make the design, building and living process a conduit for community revitalization and personal transformation, while creating housing with dignity for the people of this world.
Bringing kids!
We welcome the participation of young ones. In past workshops they have always been a welcome addition to our group and have participated in the learning process at different levels, depending on their age and interest.
- Children age 0-3 can come along for free,
- ages 4-12 the fee is $450
- ages 13-17 the fee is $700
Registration
It’s easy to register for this workshop, go to our registration page, fill out the simple form and send in a deposit to secure your spot(s). These workshops have often have filled to capacity, so don’t wait too long if you think this workshop is for you!
