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Natural Building Colloquium—East
Bath, NY; 2004
(This is a large, quickly-assembled, temporary page of digital snaps with half-done captions. The film shots haven't been processed yet. Eventually this will be spread out over a few pages in consideration of low-speed connections. Images from the previous East Coast Natural Building Colloquium, held in 1998, are also available.)
Rob Roy (author of Stone Circles, Mortgage-Free, Timber Framing For The Rest Of Us, Sauna, and a spate of titles on cordwood masonry and underground houses), along with his wife Jaki, led the raising of a monolithic stone at the beginning of the colloquium.
This building was framed with sawn wood and round poles, and infilled with straw bales. Earthbags were used to create an arched doorway. Earth plasters were the finish material, and an earthen floor will be installed. The giant concrete foundation was way overkill, even for such an overbuilt structure. I'm not sure how (or if) they're going to insulate the roof. Sun Ray led the timber framing; Doni Kiffmeyer did the earthbags; Thangmaker Frank Meyer was on bales; Dan Chiras led plastering. (Note that all of the large projects are stamped, inspected, and code-approved.)
They called this a retreat building. Again, timber frame with bale infill. Mark Hoberecht on bales, Paul Lacinski on plaster.
A Japanese gateway was cut, assembled, and raised over the path.
The Guest Cabin had straw-clay infill. Historically, German half-timbered houses often used straw clay (leichthlem); centuries-old examples exist.
Two methods of installing straw-clay: using removable slip-forms (already removed), or stay-in-place lath.
An enormous straw-clay mixer, the likes of which I'd never seen. (They're more typically made with 50-gallon drums.) I hear that the guy who made it said that the small ones are better.
Earthen oven, horno-like, with sculpted dragon.
Bamboo joinery. This will be part of a roof structure over the dragon oven.
Ianto Evans, co-author of The Hand-Sculpted House and co-founder of the Cob Cottage Company, stompin' cob with a friend.
The bottom courses of a cordwood sauna can be seen in the background.
At the playhouse, which was largely designed and partly built by the kids in attendance. Tony Novelli of DCAT is in the foreground, in front of Kim Thompson, a strawbale pioneer from way back. David Eisenberg, director of DCAT, in the center. Next to him, in the straw hat, is Laura Struempler, writer and educator with SEI.
Kids (and adults) also had the opportunity to make wattle-and-daub birdhouses, led by Ed Raduazo.
This small round strawbale shed wasn't a scheduled project. Clark Sanders wanted to try out an idea he had... and did so.
Bales were stacked in a circle and tensioned with wire and Gripples through the door and window frames.
A reciprocal roof went on top.
Context.
An impromptu gallery of temporary art sprang up on the shore of the pond.
Most participants slept in tents.
This wasn't at the colloquium. Afterwards, we stopped in Ithaca and visited a straw-clay infilled timberframed house under construction. This is Sarah Highland and Catberry's place.
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