Winter Quarter Review

Winter 2008, Mexico
Summary of Activities and Learning
By Fish TownsEnd

“Natural Building…assumes the need to minimize the environmental impact of our housing and other building needs while providing healthy, beautiful, comfortable, and spiritually uplifting homes… Natural building is personally empowering because it teaches that everyone has or can easily acquire, the skills they need to build their own home” (Micheal Smith, Kennedy 6).
I came into this contract having already gained significant confidence in understanding the necessity and beauty of building with natural materials, methods, and systems; having already learned the theory of physics, building, and natural systems such as lighting, energy, ventilation, composting toilets, and water conservation; sustainable architecture, design, and drawings; the necessity for observing the site; as well as how to mix and apply cob, earth plaster, and natural paints. (I’m also quite familiar with traveling, visiting and living in community, and navigating Self and World.)
My desire is to gain the skills to actualize this mostly theoretical knowledge in physical reality. I want my own hands to know: site and trench layout, drainage and foundations; the joinery between foundations, walls, windows, doors, and roofs; wires and piping; heated flooring; natural ventilation, heating, and lighting, water and energy. I also wish to increase my proficiency with those things I’ve already experienced: design and drawings, measuring appropriately, and hand tools, for example, not to mention my Spanish.
What follows is a summary, to this point, of my activities toward these goals:
Though there were two house projects planned for my time in Mexico, neither panned out. Instead, I enabled myself with a few smaller projects: 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 building a wattle-and-daub outhouse.
The cob finishing allowed me to practice skills such as: site soil and brick testing, cob mixing, and adding cob to an already completed structure. (For technical details, please refer to “Natural Building: Abroad” blog entries: “Preparing Cob” and “Cob Additions.”) Already having some experience with mixing and sewing cob, the main thing I’ll take away is the organic ease and pleasure of sculpting, taking away from, and adding to a home made of cob.
Through building a cob oven, I gained experience in locating and excavating a site, working with concrete, rebar, and stone masonry, as well as with the physics and physical characteristics of planning and building a cob oven. (See blog entry: “Building a Cob Oven.”) Specifically, with stone masonry, I learned to concentrate on the corners and horizontal courses of laying stone while avoiding vertical distances. In the design process, I learned the oven’s convection heating is best promoted by a perfect half-sphere shape with a 60-66% percent oven throat opening. The biggest revelation with this project was the huge psychological difference between working with the tension-causing concrete from the significantly more flexible natural materials.
While measuring and laying out a house site from the plan drawings, I learned to first choose an approximate center which will remain as a benchmark from which to measure all other points from the plan’s drawings. The lines connecting these points represent the inside walls of the house; which means the trench will be dug so that the entire width of the wall sits at the trench’s center. Exacting measurements follow this step. (See blog entry: “Site Preparation.”)
Finally, in order to fulfill my desire to build an actual structure, I began work on a wattle-and-daub outhouse. I chose this method both because these materials were available to me on site, and, logically so, because it is a locally-traditional method. (See blog entry: “My First Structure.”) This was my first time working with this method, and I learned a few things I will do differently next time, such as: using more, straighter, and stronger posts, digging them deeper into the ground, making sure there are “Y’s” to support the roof joists, and weaving the wattle closer so as to better support the daub. This being said, I gained immense satisfaction from not only building my first structure, but also from building it with only the materials at hand. This latter concept fulfills exactly what I’m looking for in learning the skills to build naturally: the materials come from, and return to, the earth – without acquiring unnecessary embodied energy along the way. Ianto Evans agrees, “Shifting your attitude from consumerism to self-sufficiency opens your vision and creativity, and is enormously satisfying” (Kennedy 13).
In my observations and conversations with locals about materials and methods of construction in the region, I learned the following: some of the materials readily available are Ash trees, Coconut trees, Royal Palm trees (best for thatching; used in excess of sustainability), and granite composite rock. Because this is a hot, tropical climate, traditional methods of building in the past were often open palapas or wattle-and-daub walls with a thatch or pitched-wood roof sealed in wax. These days, to prevent insect infestation, wood is first soaked in a Boric-acid solution. In addition, any metal used in the construction process must be thoroughly protected from the elements so as not to rust completely through; one very large building project in progress is actually coating every piece of rebar with iron-oxide. With the seldom exception of a modern excavating rig, everything here is done by hand. Even then, getting anything accomplished on a project, bureaucratically or logistically, is an incredibly difficult and long-lasting endeavor.
I did three studies examining local buildings: the first of a few of the structures found in Zipolite, the second of the architecture at La Loma Linda, and the third of Sarah’s cob house. (See blog entries: “A Few Structures in Zipolite,” “La Loma Linda,” and “Sarah’s Cob House.”) I view these studies as a catalog for both the how-to and the inspiration for potential building shapes, methods, and joinery.
Since my objective is to enable myself to build for my Self and my community, and because I’d like to do this internationally, I also want to understand a few basics in the bureaucratic logistics of both owning foreign land and building naturally - despite short-sighted building codes. (“Though resource issues are often identified as being at the heart of sustainable patterns for building and development, they are totally absent from building codes” (Ivanto Evans, Kennedy 27). For Mexico, I learned the easiest way to own land “legally” 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 still, 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 approach would be to start a legal, for-profit company, putting the land in the company’s name. Write the Embassy for exact legal details.
In order to improve my understanding of appropriate materials and techniques used in natural building, I read and maintained thorough notes of several texts, namely: The Art of Natural Building, edited by Joseph Kennedy, a virtual encyclopedia of ecological building materials, techniques, and systems. For example: “The primary challenge in designing a passive solar house is to balance the amount of sun coming in the windows throughout the year with the thermal mass” (Susie Harrington, Kennedy 66-67). Through this text, I have an excellent grasp of the options and scenarios available to me, and a basic understanding of how to pull any of it off. In The Natural House, by Daniel Chiras, I focused on the technical details of building a cob home. From A Shelter Sketchbook, by John Taylor, I got to see and practice drawings of shapes and joinery, which will help me to better understand my own design process. As the title of Blueprint Small: Creative Ways to Live with Less, by Michelle Kodis, suggests, I discovered a bounty of ideas for the design process. For example, “Bedrooms…should be designed to foster restful sleep and an atmosphere of reflection and retreat…this translates into lower ceilings, windows placed for light and also for privacy [bottom-up window shades], materials that soften the space, and generous but unobtrusive storage” (Kodis 97). The Hand-Sculpted House, by Evans, Smith, and Smiley, offered systematic technical details, drawings, and advice when I was most frustrated by not getting the practical experience I’d hoped for in this phase of the contract, such as: laying out the house plan according to earth’s tilt and spin, how to make a model, how to transfer the design drawing to the site layout using triangulation, building to conform to body measurements, laying wires and pipes, wall-anchoring systems, window/door framing and placement, roof structures, joinery, and flooring. Lastly, Homework: Handbuilt Shelter, by Lloyd Kahn, a treasure of inspiring images and techniques, is a text I will use more thoroughly when the time comes to begin my own construction projects.
I kept up consistent visual documentation of my work and studies as reference for both myself and others on this path, maintaining this blog as a means of sharing this education with others.
Lastly, I kept an extensive journal of notes on every bit of texts read, conversations, and daily activities. This journal includes many, many sketches from texts, real life, and visioning. I focused on exploring technical and imagined design drawings in order to improve my skill in this realm. I’ve enjoyed the diligence of these studies and treasure the rich resource these practices will provide as I continue along this path.
“Building your own home isn’t just about saving money. It is about fulfilling dreams and being self-sufficient, two values you can’t assign a price to” (Chiras 165). It is my dream to live a life of self-sufficiency, and this includes being able to build my own home/art studio. I’ve envisioned a series of tree-houses and bridges, a cob home based on the shape of a spiraling shell, and an underground dwelling with a living roof. Which one, or something else entirely, will depend upon the region’s offerings and climate when I find it. “In designing the house, the first essential, naturally, was that it should be suited exactly to the requirements of the life to be lived in; the second, that it should harmonize with its environment, and third that it should be built, so far as possible, from the materials to be had right there on the ground and left as nearly as possible in the natural state” (Gustav Stickley as quoted by Kennedy). I’m most enthusiastic about executing such systems as natural ventilation, lighting, heating, and water conservation; and augmenting the materials that come from and return to the earth with whatever can be salvaged or re-used from the local area.
“Small projects make you think differently. You can throw money at any problem, but if you throw creative thought at it instead, then the artistic, functional, and economic aspects of the project come together in new ways…you don’t need fancy stuff – you need quality of space” (Larry Yaw quoted by Kodis 38).
Upon completing these studies, I believe I will be sufficiently prepared to turn them into reality: putting into practice not only the food, medicine, shelter, and natural systems within my community; but, even more, living what I believe is the solution to our present, and blaringly deficient systems, physically and psychologically. “The Small house movement involves, sometimes by design, sometimes by necessity, the process of simplification, purging excess, paring down the essentials, and carving our extra physical and psychological room for living” (Kodis 11). I don’t know the future, but I feel the pulse of the present: it tells me following the path of learning these skills is the wisest investment I can make for my Self and my community.

Works Cited:

Chiras, Daniel. The Natural House, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2000.

Evans, Ianto, et. al. The Hand-Sculpted House, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2002.

Kahn, Lloyd. Homework: Handbuilt Shelter, California: Shelter Publications, 2004.

Kennedy, Joseph. The Art of Natural Building, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2002.

Kodis, Michelle. Blueprint Small: Creative Ways to Live with Less, Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2003.

Taylor, John. A Shelter Sketchbook, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 1997.

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