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| Natural Building Skillbuilder 2009 - looking back |
Thursday, August 13, 2009 |
Middle of summer and I look back at 6 weeks of Natural Building with a group of people who came together from very different walks and formed a tight team: the Natural Building Skillbuilders of 2009.
As every year we started with a few days of orientation, or what we call “permaculturalization”: it’s about landing here, getting familiar with place and people and laying out the group intention. In a setting like ours you don’t just come in and learn building- if you’re going to make it through a few weeks of close-up camp life you need some good survival tools. We make agreements, create a vision, play games and get to know each other.
The skillbuilder program is laid out to be largely practical, hands-on learning, and most of us were eager to get on with it. We had two projects waiting: first up Natural Plaster work with Cindy Walker in the lead. In 6 days we worked through multiple recipes, layers and tools and transformed the top floor of the Art Studio. The “Wishing Wall” at the Chillage also received a browncoat of earthplaster defining its shape and sculpting its edges.
 
This was followed by a few days of theory: natural building systems, project management, alternative systems and a site visit at Elkington forest. To top it off a small rammed- earth wall was built to create a colorful thermal mass backdrop in the lower Art Studio space.
Week four was set up for cob. The earthbag foundation at Freya’s house was ready to go and we built the curved east wall containing entrance, kitchen and eating space. The rhythm of mixing and building fell into place after a couple of days and many decisions had to be made regarding window placement and cabinetry. I was grateful to have Melisande from the Mudgirls collective as co-facilitator. And finally arches! Both hand formed and built over formwork were done. By the end of this 6- day period our wall was to the level of top of windows and our bodies were tired.
A short week of some more theory, and some site organizing and preparation for the strawbale workshop that our French second year intern Nydia brought as her teaching part. Nydia completed her apprenticeship with Botmobil in France before she came to us this year. She introduced a bale building system developed by Tom Rijven in Europe (see: http://www.habitatvegetal.com/theorie).
In short the bales are sized, dipped in clay-slip (the “French dip”) and tightly squeezed between two studs in the wall. After completing the stacking, things got really muddy: for the “bodycoat” we mixed clay, sand, chopped hay,horse-manure,wood shavings and chopped straw and covered the pile with black plastic to ferment. Soon the mix warms up and you can smell the action! In the meantime the wall got prepared to receive the mud: nails on wood, some trimming and then clayslip to provide good adhesion of the bodycoat.
 
And then the last days were suddenly there- design projectsgot completed and presented and we’re having our graduation day. Celebration began with an appreciation walk from Freya’s house to the kitchen where we had a great meal- one of so many prepared by the kitchen goddesses Jan, Marisa and Laura. A ceremony at the yurt was followed by drinks from the Strawbale Bar and dancing into the night. That’s going out in style!
Highlights? The people, the languages, the fun, sunshine most of the time and the food! …Hands in the mud and swimming in the lake.
Visit our web album with images from this year and send us an email if you want to be considered for next year’s program: naturalbuilding@ourecovillage.org . |
posted by Elke Cole at 9:01 pm |
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