Archive for December, 2009

White Oak Farm – Williams, OR

Instructor: Taylor Starr & James Haim

http://www.whiteoakfarmcsa.org

Tuition: $640

Join us this Summer as we build a small cottage in the woods designed to demonstrate a wide range of natural building techniques. Over eight days you will learn how to build with cob, straw bales, lights-straw-clay, adobe, and poles. You will also have the opportunity to use earthen plasters. Lectures, discussions and demonstrations will focus on passive solar design, alternative energy, foundations, living roofs, load-bearing and non-load-bearing construction, cob ovens, and much more. We will also tour several finished natural homes.

Participants will Receive detailed instruction and hands-on experience in small cottage construction from laying the foundation to application of a living roof. This extended workshop allows for a deeper sense of community, and the opportunity to sink into the beautiful Williams Valley (an afternoon off is scheduled mid week).

Tirelli, Dogon Country, Mali, West Africa

Instructor: Scott Howard

http://www.earthenhand.com

Tuition: $1800 USD

Let’s build a schoolroom with the Dogon people of Terelli, Mali.

The Dogon will share with us their languages, music, cuisine, farming, and building techniques. We will build alongside the Dogon villagers to complete a one-room schoolhouse. A 5 x 5 meter earthen dome, its construction will be our main activity. Students will learn dome design methods while gaining skills in stone, rammed earth bags, and cob. We will also learn about traditional Dogon building techniques by assisting several local builders with their work. Tour the country by foot and bus to see Dogon Permaculture in action. Visit spectacular ruins of old Dogon towns comparable to Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. Experience the daily life of the people of Terelli, an off-grid traditional village. Each day will be packed with learning, work, wholesome food, fantastic scenery, and great company. We will be surrounded by learning opportunities throughout our stay. The workshop will be a muti-lingual event with translation between French, English, and Dogon.

Participants will learn everything that they need to build structurally sound domes using little more than earth from the site. The design is a caternary dome with two windows and a door. Lectures and instruction will total in time approximately as follows:

Earthen Dome construction
◦Earth Bag construction
◦Cob construction
◦Stone masonry
◦Rubble trench foundations

Dogon culture and society
Drylands Permaculture
Dogon grainery construction
Dogon Adobe brick construction

NW Newberry Rd. Portland, OR

Instructor: Scott Howard

http://www.earthenhand.com

Tuition: $225 before Sept. 5th, $275 after.

Explore the art of finishing a wall or floor with earthen plasters, paints, pigments, and oils.

Come experience the finishing of an earthen building near forest park.
The final phase of an earthen cabin includes plastering, adding color,
detail, and invites you to use creativity, and construction skills in
this hands-on workshop. We will be mixing and applying cob,
creating natural final plasters from local materials, adding color,
and finishing out the building with the materials we prepare. We’ll
sculpt finishing details such as niches. We will also finish an earthen floor.

The design is a 16 ft x 12 ft earthbag ellipse with a loft and a usable living
roof space.

Skills you will learn & practice: Sculpture with Cob, Earthen plaster
and paint mixing and application. Earthen floor construction.

Ignacio, CO

Instructor: Culture Brothers

http://culturebrothers.org

Tuition: $888

Permaculture is a design method that organizes ideas and techniques from agriculture, appropriate technology, renewable energy, natural building, economics, and other disciplines into a pattern of mutually supportive relationships. We use principles from nature to thoughtfully integrate land, water, plants, animals, people, shelter and community. Permaculture gives us the tools to provide for the well being of people while protecting our natural resources.

Culture Brothers is pleased to offer our second PDC of 2009. For 12 days in sunny SW Colorado, we will create community on the land and immerse ourselves in the improvement of landscapes and society. We’ll also visit people and places in the region that show nature’s wisdom can create abundance in many forms.

The course will run October 19th through the 31st with one day off.

BETTER YOUR LIFE, LAND, WORK AND SOCIETY THROUGH:
Proper Design, Energy Accounting, Pattern Recognition and Use, Regenerative Resource Management, Collective Security, Consensus Process, Sustainable, Natural and Regional Agriculture, Architecture, Wildcrafting, Landscaping, Healing and CULTURE

Cost is $888 and includes tuition, organic meals and camping.

For more info email chris@culturebrothers.org or call Michael at 970-903-1764

Please Donate: Help shape the future with a contribution for scholarships.
Your donations are tax deductible.

VISIT www.CultureBrothers.org FOR MORE INFO ON THESE OTHER FINE LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Mushroom Walks
*Every Friday*
Call or email for times and locations.

Introduction to Permaculture Design
September 17 – October 8
Fort Lewis College
$79
Thursdays, 6-8pm

Introduction to Mushroom Cultivation
September 17 – October 1
Fort Lewis College
$79
Thursdays, 6-8pm

Fermentation 101
October 6 – October 13
Fort Lewis College
$59
Tuesdays, 6–8pm

Tuition: $250

We are happy to announce this year’s West Coast colloquium taking place in Southern Oregon. This “peer-only” gathering will take place at beautiful Camp Latgawa, the site of several colloquiums over the last 10 years. Natural builders from around the region and the country will come together to re-connect, reflect, and rejuvenate during a week of informal presentations, conversations, and hands-on building projects.

About the Natural Building Colloquium:

The Natural Building Colloquium began almost 15 years ago as a way for the members of the fledgling Natural Building movement to gather, share information, learn from one another, get inspired, and basically have a good time. The movement has grown a lot since then, and the colloquiums continue to be a valuable opportunity for people in the field to connect with one another.

If you did not receive an invitation to this event and would like one, please contact James: james@housealive.org.

Asheville, NC

Instructor: Mollie Curry & Steve Kemble of MudStrawLove

http://www.ashevillage.org/avi/events_projects.php

Tuition: $200

Location: Ashevillage Institute (AVI), Asheville, NC

Fee: $200 includes tuition & materials
Contact & Registration: info@ashevillage.org, 828.225.8820
www.ashevillage.org
AVI is a project of Kleiwerks International

Greener than green…Learn how to make and apply your own beautiful, customized, totally eco-friendly plasters and paints with clay, sand and other organic materials. Create textured finishes; trouble shoot for various surfaces; play with color options — while actually practicing on real walls. By the end of the workshop, you will have enough information and techniques to make your own clay-based plasters and paints and you will leave with your own sample board.

Stillmeadow Retreat Center, Damascus, OR

Instructor: Michael Rise

http://holistichouseplans.com

Tuition: $660 Meals included

This workshop is designed to present a thorough grounding in the science and art of Sacred Geometry, as well as practical applications and exercises. Areas to be covered include design, art, architecture, healing, vibration, harmonic resonance, the workings and movement of the human body, sun-earth-brain-heart coherence and how to create truly sustainable environments and communities.

Nepal

JAN 17 TRIP POSTPONED, DETAILS TO FOLLOW SOON

please contact Jeff for questions oikosdesign@gmail.com

Instructor: Jeff Empfield

http://http://sites.google.com/site/oikosdesign/Home

Tuition: $10/day as your guide. Other costs such as room, board, and transportation are remarkably inexpensive in Nepal.

Participants needed to assist in the establishment of a Natural Building Program in Nepal

Several opportunities exist in Nepal that point to the need for establishing a program focused on natural building. The primary needs are rural development, the problem of modern high-embodied energy materials replacing traditional natural materials in Nepal, and the world-wide need for a return to more natural, vernacular building systems. Rural development will come in the form of eco-tourist activity, a new destination (Natural Building Center) in a Himalayan trekking region, and a new form of income for guides and craftsman builders.

People from all over the world travel to Nepal and are impressed by the natural building traditions there. During a months-long visit this past winter I researched an article on timber framing and the masonry/timber building system of Nepal published this June in Timber Framing: The Journal of the Timber Framers Guild. The proposed program in Nepal will facilitate foreign travelers who want to learn more about natural building and it will help Nepali people see the value of their natural building traditions. It will do so simply by existing, by drawing attention to the appeal of naturally-built environments and building skills. Perhaps more significantly, it will provide income related to guiding, interpreting, guesthouse visitation, and natural building instruction.

In January the focus will be on a demonstration project at Seti Valley Integrated Organic Farm which is located 12km northwest of Pokhara (www.sadpnepal.org). Mr. Ramesh Sharma wants help building a demonstration cob building. Clay-based plaster and earthen ovens are traditional and still common in Nepal. Mr. Sharma reports that Nepali people are turning away from such traditional material in favor of concrete, however. He wants to construct a building as “demonstration so people can learn about the value of such building but it should be new and attractive design.”

I’ve recently been contacted by Mr. Gokul Gurung of the Annapurna Eco Village Resort, also near Pokhara, who has similar concerns and interest in developing natural buildings and education programs of some kind. More on that as communication continues.

I have established partnerships with several Nepalis who work in tourism and are interested in taking their industry and country in a better direction. One is from a family who operates a guesthouse in the Rolwaling area, west of the Everest region. This family guesthouse will serve as a Natural Building Center with a small library. It will be the base for natural building-themed treks with access to a network of area builders. During the first half of February, we will travel to Suri Dobhan village to do the initial research for establishing the center. Once established, it will provide information regarding what building projects are underway in the area as well as contact information for participating builders. They will constitute a network of area builders who will be Natural Building Center partners in working with visitors. The network of area craftspeople can provide demonstrations and explanations of what they do for a small fee and provide a year-round attraction for interested tourists. This network can also create income for locals who organize, guide, and translate for eco-tourists.

The Natural Building Program in Nepal will also include special programs organized periodically such as river trips that would take extra time to explore and document isolated villages. In the later half of February we will make a 270km trip on the Sunkosi river with extra days set aside for architectural exploration. Students of architecture and anthropology, architects, and architectural historians as well as natural builders would be interested in this “documenting villages river trip.” These architectural expeditions have the potential for leading to short documentary films and both popular and academic articles.

These are tentative plans with great potential. Participants can play a role in developing this program. Details are to be worked out depending on who gets involved. Come for the entire month and a half or for the weeks that interest you most. You will love Nepal.