Photo by Uncle Mud (aka Chris McClellan)
www.unclemud.com
Lime over wattle and daub with hand-split cedar shakes.
Student independent study project by Ian Stabler at Aprovecho’s Natural Building School.
Hi Lloyd,
My name is Atulya K. Bingham and I run The Mud earthbag building website (www.themudhome.com). I hope my story inspires a few others to go for their dreams too.
I always wanted to write, and like many writers it was a passion I had to crowbar in between slabs of paid work. Then one day I had enough of compromising. Fortunately, I owned a small square of land in Turkey. I moved up there with a tent and not much else. It was the beginning of an adventure that changed every preconceived idea about what actually made me happy. Six months later, with only $6000 left and winter a month away, I gathered a team and embarked on the construction of a small earthbag house. I had zero building experience at the time.
Building my house was probably the most transformative thing I’ve ever taken on (and I’m no stranger to adventure). I ran out of money, made a heap of mistakes and was continually hounded by naysayers. But today I’m sitting inside that beautiful handcrafted home. Not one drop of cement was used and it is 100% solar-powered. My earthbag house has enabled me to leave behind the drudge of a job my heart wasn’t in and spend my days creating and writing instead. I love it.
There’s a free earthbag building PDF to download from my site if anyone wants it.
I’ve written the full story of the earthbag adventure in my popular book, Mud Ball.
–Atulya K. Bingham
Author of the OBBL winner Ayse’s Trail, and The Mud website.… [More in full article] …
At the end of tiny road, after another one of those roundabouts, lays a spectacular garden, then an abandoned castle, then a huge German bunker, then the Orangerie and finally, what I am really impatient to visit: the Mémoire de Soye two “baraques,” the French one — the 534-10 — and the American one — the famous UK100 we also had in the UK (about 8,000 were imported from America in 1946). I am amazed by all the work Mémoire de Soye has put in the dismantling of the prefabs, their re-assembling on a land which used to count 286 of them till 1991 when the last ones were pulled down! Then they transformed the two prefabs into wonderful cosy and cute museums, trying hard and succeeding in finding the right pieces of furniture, the memorabilia etc…
Article from www.theaccidentalphotographer.me/…
Brad Kittel from the Tiny Homes book (pages 44-49 and on the cover) has started a Kickstarter campaign for a book of plans for 30 houses built of 95% salvaged materials free of plastic, vinyl, sheetrock, or latex paints. Check it out.
Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/318443601/tiny-texas-houses-building-plans
Nine years ago I began pioneering the 95% Pure Salvage Building techniques that have been perfected over the years in the form of Tiny Texas Houses. They are now built using “Space Magic,” a term I coined for making spaces seem much bigger than they are through illusions of a sort few others in the tiny house industry seem to understand. Read More …
On the Skagg’s Springs Road in Mendocino County, California, last Friday. This is one of those humble farm buildings that stop me in my tracks. Everything looks right. Too bad architects so seldom incorporate the beauty of simplicity, practicality, and economy in their creations.
From www.lloydkahn.com/…
Last week Yogan and I spent an hour exploring the Fort Ross State Historic Park, a masterful re-creation of the Russian fort built on the Northern California coast in 1812. The Russians brought down Native Alaskan hunters who speared sea otters from seal skin kayaks. Most of the hunters came from the Kodiak Islands and their kayaks, spears, and hunting techniques were extraordinary (more on this later).
If you are ever driving up the Northern California coast, I highly recommend going to this site.
Here is the chapel (star of the show), metal shop, and wood shop. Roofing on these buildings consisted of 2 layers of long planks, laid with the cracks in the top layer over the centers of the under layer.
Hey Evan, I thought you and the rest of the Shelter team might get a bang out of a project I’m finishing up.
My inspiration for this tiny shelter was of course J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and his description of the shire the homeland of the Hobbit. I also drew from my fascination with small wooden sailboat cabins. Intended to go in my living room to act as a reading/napping nook next to a fireplace. I believe foolishness is a much neglected feature in modern design. The act of not taking yourself to seriously is an art and I intend on surrounding myself with it.
–Tohner Jackson
For more info and foolishness, check out:
www.instagram.com/onetreewoodwork
Thanks Tohner, looks great!
Yogan is an accomplished timber framer (and treehouse builder) from France. His work has appeared in our last two books. He will be traveling along the West Coast this summer and wants to hook up with builders, homeowners, homesteaders, and/or people of like interests. He’s open to any kind of arrangement, including working for room and/or board.
You can check out his work here: yogan.over-blog.com
From Yogan:
Hi, friend builders, carpenters, inventors…
I’m Yogan, a carpenter of Southwest France,
I’m coming in August, September and October to walk on the West Coast, from California to Seattle. My goal is to meet, visit, help, places and people where there are amazing shelters, cabins — in the woods, if possible.
If I could find a community of carpenters living in cabins in the forest, it would be perfect!
I’d also like to go to any carpenters’ or timber framers’ meetings.
I will be hitchhiking frequently with my backpack and accordion!
You can email me at: Yogan Carpenter <yogancarpenter@gmail.com>
I don’t care for most Sea Ranch architecture. Too sterile, and no overhangs, which is just dumb here on the west coast. Landscaping at Sea Ranch, by Laurence Halprin, however, is brilliant; he just left everything as was, coyote bush and all.
This house, however, looked good to my eye.
From www.lloydkahn.com/…
Sent to us by Conor McBrierty :
A young family is making a last-ditch effort to save its cherished “hobbit house” from the bulldozers after planners deemed it had to be razed.
Charlie Hague and Megan Williams used natural materials to lovingly build their roundhouse tucked away in southwest Wales. But the pair, both 27, applied for planning permission only after moving in with their newborn son, Eli, in 2012.
Though many local people did not even know the small building was there, planners ruled the house did not fit in with the surrounding Pembrokeshire countryside and decided it had to go.
Kirsten Dirksen
Photo by Nicolás Boullosa
Kirsten walked in the first time and within 5 minutes, was shooting. We were comfortable with her. She winged it, seeing what we were doing, following us around. On one of her visits, her two little long-haired girls explored the garden and chickens and Nicolás shot photos.
…[more on full post page]…
One thing I love about this video is that she recognized what Lesley is doing in her life and with her garden, her art, and her attitude towards a home. Often that gets missed in people coming here to see me.
Read More …
Old house near Anini Beach
Westernmost bookstore of the United States, located in Hanapepe
My first building in 1961, in Mill Valley, California, a studio with what is now called a “living roof”
I actually started building in 1960 and soon thereafter started shooting photos and interviewing builders for our series of books on handmade housing. In those days we didn’t call it “natural building,” but that’s what it was. In our book Shelter in 1973, a section of the book was devoted to these materials: wood, adobe, stone, straw bale, thatch, and bamboo. I guess we were natural before it was called “natural.”
A month or so ago, Cheryl Long, the editor at The Mother Earth News, asked me if I could do a talk on natural building at the TMEN fair in Albany, Oregon (near Corvallis) on the first weekend in June. As I was getting the materials together, the Maker Faire asked if I could do a presentation at their annual event in San Mateo, California, on May 16.
Read More …
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