Final Summary

Last quarter, I read several texts in order in get a strong handle on the scope of building with natural materials and techniques. I studied responsive design, energy efficiency, and earthships; foundations, timber-framing, windows and doors, cob, rammed-earth, wattle-and-daub, insulation, where to put electricity and plumbing, roofs – post and beam, thatch, and green, roof shapes, waterproofing, and anchoring; plastering, paints and finishes; floors; and all the natural materials possible to use with each of these techniques, such as: adobe, cob, bamboo, cordwood, earthbag, earth, light-clay, papercrete, stone, straw-bale, and lime. This broad range of research gave me an excellent base with which to begin my studies. However, because no one structure manifested itself for me to concentrate on, I felt a little – all over the place, academically speaking. This quarter, I’ve been satisfied to concentrate on bringing a few meaningful projects to fruition. I focused my attentions on reading and implementing one text: A Pattern Language, which I used as a guide to create both the plans for a complex home: Seed Pod in Hexagons, and a model of a small home: The Spirit House; and these pleasures alongside the creation of a true life-size structure: “La Calera.”
A deep-rooted grievance I carry for the built society of the human race was finally spoken to at an equal depth in A Pattern Language. Put forth as a living language of holistic patterns for towns, buildings, and construction, it offers “…an alternative to the technocratic and rigid ways of building that have become the legacy of the machine age and modern architecture” (pg. 936). Starting with patterns the authors believe should be present in entire regions, towns, and subcultures, they continue on down through streets, neighborhoods, and communities to workplaces, homes, and alcoves. I came away with the sense that we can solve the conundrums, and their effects, of our built environment. “We do not believe that these large patterns, which give so much structure to a town or of a neighborhood, can be created by centralized authority, or by laws, or by master plans. We believe instead that they can emerge gradually and organically, almost of their own accord, if every act of building, large or small, takes on the responsibility for gradually shaping its small corner of the world to make these larger patterns appear there” (pg. 3, authors’ own italics).
I used these patterns to draw up design plans of a “house for a couple,” named Seed Pod in Hexagons, and then to create a model of a “house for one person,” named The Spirit House. The “languages” I compiled included patterns that gave me some of the very practical details I’d yet to work out in my designs, such as: “site repair,” “wings of light,” “entrance transition,” “sheltering roof,” “indoor sunlight,” “sleeping east,” “light on two sides,” “cooking layout,” “alcoves,” “ceiling height variety,” “staircase volume,” “thick walls,” “waist-high shelves,” “roof layout,” “floor and ceiling layout,” and “columns at the corners.”
I’d already learned, and this book reinforced, knowing the nature of the site (the trees, the sun, etc.) and the materials comes first in the actual design process. One example the authors describe is in the “site repair” pattern: “On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now” (pg. 511), so as to enrich this space by giving it your added attention.
However, without knowing the site or the materials for Seed Pod in Hexagons, my focus was more on the practice of conceptual design. Its language stemmed from the pattern “house for a couple,” which emphasizes “It is essential…that a small house [shared by two] be conceived as a place where the two people may be together but where, from time to time, either one of them may also be alone, in comfort, in dignity, and in such a way that the other does not feel left out or isolated” (386). It turned out to be a rather complex structure, in its completeness; I envisioned it serving also as a gathering place for a bigger family/community. In addition to giving space to my art studio, workshop, huge kitchen, central fire, secret passages, and plant medicine cave, my so-inspired water-creature-self got together with the “bathing room” pattern to give special attention to this very crucial, and often neglected space. “In bathing we tend to ourselves, our bodies. It is one of the precious times when we are awake and absolutely naked. The relaxation of the bath puts us into sensual contact with water. It is one of the most direct and simple ways of unwinding” (pg. 682):

I called it Seed Pod in Hexagons because that’s the shape it took on, with the bed at the head and the entry at the feet. I like this concept a lot because it reminds me of germinating my dreams, growth and generation. Hexagons because it is the sacred geometry of the bee, and leaves no space unused. All the rooms step down into the south-facing indoor greenhouse (or outdoor room). The plant medicine and bulk material storage are on the north side because they like it cooler. I feel the need to also explain, that blurry circle in the bathing room above the steps is the compost toilet, with a view out the window. In all my travels, my favorite solution is a simple 5 gallon bucket layered with dried plant material - it’s so easy to deal with.

From left to right: the entry way; the workshop with a door to the bulk material storage behind; the reading room with office alcove to the right and the art studio on the second floor; the kitchen, which shares a fire with the reading room, with a door to the plant medicine cave behind , the bathing room with a terrace for a roof, and the bedrooms with their alcoves for the beds. In front of it all is one big, in-door greenhouse which each of the rooms open into.

This shows the face of the salvaged windows that will make up the exterior, south-facing wall. In case the curvature would be a problem, either a solid sun-blocker could be set on sliders, of the east and west sides could be solid.

This roof is designed for rain water catchment. It dips down above the bathing room where it will be filtered and collected. I’ve focused all the water needs of the kitchen, bathing room, and greenhouse sinks in this area (as you might be able to tell from the first image). The slope and capacity of the structure should be modified according to the amount of rain-fall on site.

This is the view from the north side. There’s the entryway to the left, and an outside access to bulk material storage to the right of that, on the other side of the workshop. Both this room and the plant medicine room are dug into the hillside for further insulation. A door comes out from the art studio that can leads across the hillside to the terrace above the bathing room or into the second floor bedroom (mine!).

Modeling The Spirit House to leave for the Deva, spirits, and human caretakers of Valle de Sensaciones, empowered me to design with accord to the nature and materials of the site (please refer to previous blog entry). For example, because the summer sun in Spain is so intense, a passive solar system of open/glass on the south-side must only be directly south, without curves facing any other direction. (Versus Seed Pod in Hexagons which has a huge, south-facing, curved wall of glass wide open to the spaces inside.) So, though the glass of the south-facing wall of the attached greenhouse/bathing room is slightly curved, the inner wall is plumb. As for material, cob is an obvious choice for the walls since, on this site, it is abundant and ready to use; dried logs, too, are available as roof rafters.
When envisioning The Spirit House, a house I’m more likely to build to begin with, I wanted to contrast the complexity of Seed Pod in Hexagons with simplicity: “every[thing] is placed according to the simplest necessity, and supports the person’s life directly, plainly, with the harmony of nothing that is not needed, and everything that is” (pg. 390). Besides, when “…many patterns…overlap in the same physical space: the building is very dense; it has many meanings captured in a small space; and through this density, it becomes profound…[it is] the only way of using a pattern language to make buildings which are poems” (pg. x/iv).
In addition to a large plane wall for painting on, a “bed alcove,” “window place,” tool shed, “fire,” wood storage, meditation place, plant medicine shelves in the north, a huge tub in the attached “greenhouse,” and a “sheltering roof” under which a loft fits above the more private spaces (patterns in quotes), I also gave special attention to the “entrance transition:” “What matters most is that the transition exists, as an actual physical place, between the outside and inside, and that the view, and sounds, and light and surface which you walk on change as you pass through this place. It is the physical changes – and above all the change of view – which creates the psychological transition in your mind” (pg. 552).
In both the design drawings for Seed Pod in Hexagons and the model of The Spirit House, I focused on “indoor sunlight,” which “summarizes the relations between parts of the house and the morning, the afternoon and the late afternoon sun…along the south, southeast, and southwest of the building to capture the sun” (pg. 616), creating a house that is bright, sunny, and cheerful, heated in the winter, and cool in the summer. I also incorporated the inspirations I discovered at at Valle de Sensaciones, such as cooler spaces built into the floor to use as fridges, and in-cupboard step-tab bins for the compost, recycling, and rubbish (see blog entry: Structures of Valle de Sensaciones).
During the time of all this design and model building, I was also, finally, able to build a full (small)-size, log-framed and -raftered, cob-walled structure (see blog entry: La Calera). Going back and forth between The Spirit House and La Calera gave me a unique perspective of the relation between the design and building phases. Through La Calera, I got practice in planning for drainage, preparing the logs, giving a natural base to the door frame, and building cob walls over a 2 week period. And, once again, using the materials available on site gave me immense satisfaction, fulfilling my overall objective to learn the skills to build with the materials that come from, and return to, the earth – without unnecessary embodied energy.
Through the course of this contract, both winter and spring quarters, I’ve accomplished, as well as design, the physical building skills I set out to gain: I experienced site and trench layout at Bridget’s house site in Mexico (see blog entry: Site Preparation), and the Communal Space (see blog entry: Communal Space: Laying a Rubble-Trench Foundation) at La Molina; drainage, foundations, pillars, and their joinery with walls with the Communal Space and La Calera (see blog entries); the joinery between walls and windows with La Calera; and building door frames and roof rafters with the Communal Space (see blog entry: Building Frames and a Roof) and La Calera.
And I’ve expanded my familiarity working with the materials: wood (see blog entries: Communal Table, Building Frames and a Roof, and La Calera) – also with some chiseling in the treehouse, stone (see blog entry: Building Stone Walls), cob (see blog entries: Preparing Cob, Cob additions, Building a Cob Oven, and La Calera), lime plaster (see blog entry: Lime Plastering the Wellness Spa), and – unfortunately not natural – concrete (see blog entries: Building a Cob Oven, Communal Space: Laying a Rubble-Trench Foundation, Building Load-Bearing Pillars, and Building Stone Walls).
The theoretical knowledge I’ve yet to physically practice: attaching and completing a roof, putting in wires and piping, (heated) flooring, natural ventilation and heating, supplying water and energy – these are the finishing touches I will come to know as I continue along the path of turning these studies into reality, putting into practice natural shelter and systems, food and medicine within my home and community.

Work Cited:

Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, et all. A Pattern Language, New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Other Home Designs:

Summary of Activities
for
Winter and Spring Quarters, 2008

ϖ CONSTRUCTION!
o In Zipolite: some cob finishing on a house built last year, a cob oven for the same house, laying out a site from plan, digging the trench, and beginning a wattle-and-daub outhouse.
o In Spain: a large, hexagonal table, the design and build of a communal space including: foundation, load-bearing pillars, door frames, roof frame, and about a ¼ of the stone walls; lime plaster and color on a concrete block wall, chiseling in a treehouse, and log framing with cob walls and a window for la calera.

ϖ Developed design drawings of projects, real and imagined:
o 11 drawings of 6 versions of “home,” including an in-depth study “Seed Pod in Hexagons;” one of the cob oven; 2 of Bridget’s house; and 5 of La Molina’s communal space.

ϖ Built a model of a small home: “The Spirit House,” for the spirits of the land.

ϖ Kept a sketchbook/journal which includes these drawings as well as the design plans of others, daily notes, how-to notes from texts on everything from top to bottom, beginning to end on materials and building.

ϖ Examined local, traditional villages and Eco-villages:
o In Zipolite: the structures of Zipolite, the architecture of La Loma Linda, and Sarah’s cob house.
o In Spain: Setenil de las Bodegas, and Valle de Sensaciones.

ϖ Took photographs to document these case studies.

ϖ Talked with locals about the methods of construction and materials of the region:
o In Zipolite:
♣ Traditional materials: Coconut and Palma Royal trees(best for thatching and so less and less available), earth, and granite composite rock.
♣ Traditional methods of building: open palapas or wattle-and-daub walls, thatch roofing or a pitched wood roof with wax sealant, and thatched teepees. Most everything is done by hand.
o In Spain:
♣ Traditional materials: stone, clay, or clay with small stones for the walls; poplar, chestnut, and eucalyptus for the roof timbers; followed by black stone shingles, and topped with a CAL/sand mix. Ceramic tiles (“Monk and Nun”) have been used for the last 80-100 years, river stones before that.
♣ Traditional buildings: rectangular with flat roofs

ϖ Researched legal logistics of building naturally and owning land.
o It seems one has to generally avoid the bureaucratic ney-sayers by building under the codes, when a space is less than 12’ squared is considered a shed, for example, or by giving the structure a green roof so as to hide it from above.
o One must write Mexican and Spanish Embassies for the official word on the legalities of owning land as a foreigner (I’ll do this when I’m not traveling).
♣ What the people say about owning land in Mexico: It seems the easiest way to legally own land in Mexico is to put your trust in a Mexican friend willing to sponsor the title and paperwork. Though there is a secondary paper saying this is done for the foreigner this is risky, as the papers are ultimately in the Mexican sponsor’s name. The most direct ownership would come after 2 years of filing for a form called FM2 which would lead to a dual citizenship, and limits travel away during this time. Another way would be to start a legal, for-profit company which could legally own the land. Then there’s marrying, having a baby, etc.
♣ And about owning land in Spain: you have to get legal residency.

ϖ Participated in a weekend workshop on geodesic domes, in which we put together an icosiera dome, 3 meter diameter, of cane poles and leather connection sleeves - which can be taken apart and put together again

ϖ 5 months of practical experience in Spanish!

Summary of Readings:

ϖ The Art of Natural Building, edited by Joseph Kennedy
ϖ The Natural House, by Daniel Chiras
ϖ A Shelter Sketchbook, by John Taylor
ϖ Blueprint Small: Creative Ways to Live with Less, by Michelle Kodis
ϖ The Hand-Sculpted House, by Evans, Smith, and Smiley
ϖ Homework: Handbuilt Shelter, by Lloyd Kahn
ϖ A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander, et all
ϖ Solar Power: The evolution of Sustainable Architecture, by Sophia and Stefan Behling.

This, then, completes my academic studies of “Natural Building: Abroad.”

< previous - - next >

< Blog Home - - Blog Archive >