naturalbuilda.ca Workshops 2009

Joshua Thornton and I have teamed up to bring natural building techniques and other 'benign craft' skills to the masses!

This is our first year working together. I am the Coodinator behind most of the workshops and am designated as the Chancellor-General of Communique, heading the Ministry of Proper-Propaganda. I also helped to teach the two timber framing workshops this year - square rule and plumb-line scribe.

The workshops we are offering are:
- Bau-Biologie
- EcoNest "Turning Your Dreams Into Reality"
- Rocket Stove
- Square Rule Timber Framing
- Plumb Line Scribe Timber Framing
- Econest Straw/Clay Builder Training
- Natural Building: Low-Tech & Low-Key
- Adobe Floors
- Earth Plasters

Please visit our website for more information:
naturalbuild.ca>>


Students cutting during the square rule workshop.
Hand hewing during the plumb-line scribe workshop.
Cleaning up the shoulder of the tenon for an incline post that the students hewed. These cherry posts will fit into the square ruled frame.

The square rule frame with scribed incline posts.
Robert Laporte and Joshua during the EcoNest Builder Training Workshop.
The Zimmermann Residence's bare bones before straw/clay infill. Unlike the Riverstone project, the straw/clay walls are load-bearing hence why the larsen trusses are so close to each other (2' centres).

Stuffing the walls.
The walls completed. There is a timber frame in the middle of the house (under the makeshift roof).
Barley straw sprouts. The straw/clay walls sprout and act as built-in moisture meters - once the sprouts die, this usually indicates that the walls are sufficiently dry and are ready for plaster.
     
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