Can it be done these days?
Just coming back from an entertaining weekend at Health & Harmony festival in Santa Rosa, California. I checked out their eco-village section and I was impressed with the do it yourself booths for strawcob, strawbale and recycled building ideas. It gets your mind going and your body moving. Yes you can. Mostly I enjoyed very colorful books getting this important message across. Lloyd Kahn’s new book put out by SHELTER Publications, “BUILDERS of the Pacific Coast”, takes you on a creative journey that can inspire anyone, including the whole animal kingdom. During these days of economic depression, it is really a clearing field for us to keep dreaming and doing and recycling on a grand scale. Don’t buy that there is “no choice” unemployment- when the money tap is turned down, it’s time to turn on the flow of creative juices.
This book opens the big door to small yet beautiful designs that smell like a garden in a spring rain. In the past I have been guilty of building too big- which translates into too much, too clean, and higher taxes to boot. Not going there any more. The main rules I want to see are good boots, good coat, good hat! Simple but true. Check out the latest “hobbit ” design home at http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm -a low impact home for the woodlands- and you’ll get on board the happy train real fast.
Our Kiva designed home approached this using the earth dugout and a Ken Kern concept of building a circle structure using a center pole as your pivot point to doing radius form, worked well. Write us for details. See Pictures are on our web site.
Today I find myself building onto our warehouse, wondering if I am keeping to these simple concepts. The idea was to be prepared for the coming big changes in society- to build a “caretaker” home unit on top of the shop & sales rooms that can transform into a youth/ Elders hospice in a crisis time ( NOW ) with a second “commercial” style kitchen next to the living room (show room) for necessary food preparations. First came a plan, then the plan became a road map, then came the house to recycle- an old Mic Mac mansion in a craftsman style to be demolished to build another Mic Mac, this time around a stucco mansion. Every beam in this structure is recycled. All the metal roof and Vanscoat, and all of the coat ( insulation ) is cotton, Ultra Touch. The whole inside is clay, American Pride. The exterior coat is all lime, Natural Hydraulic Lime, that with age will turn into its original form, limestone. Best yet are Colors, all natural mineral pigments giving one something to be proud of like what you see in Mexico or Europe. Let’s change that here- give us color or we will do it ourselves. The way to go.
I promise to post pictures in the very near future, as our building is wrapped in tarps to allow for a slow cure.
Any thoughts out there?
Keith Robertson
