June 21-26, 2009

Get down and dirty doing a cob dance or hewing beams, then cool off at a nearby pond or beach.

The focus of this workshop will be the hands-on building with cob and log, finishing the cob and log 'kiva-like' Earthship', and starting on a barn renovation involving chinking with cob. We will also have a local tour day where we visit  an Earthship as well as homes made with Cob, Cordwood and Strawbale,  meeting  the folks living the dream.

Last year's workshop was an incredible co-creative experience, and it produced a beautiful work of innovative earth-friendly architecture. 18 folks of all ages, backgrounds and experience levels worked harmoniously, each finding  a place on unfamiliar ground, working with what we had and took ownership as we learned together, then openly passing on the knowledge as we shifted around from job to job. In four days of work we created the foundation and walls of a temple, from a hole in the ground, with our hands and feet.

The sill and most of the roof beams were finished during one of those warm weeks in late fall before the snow hit.  The building was kept tarped and closed in during a few storms with a metre's worth of snow on it. It  then all melted just after Christmas, with 100+km winds doing a number on the tarp. After this, the roof tarp was taken off, with the snow now being kept off the walls so they don't soak in the moisture. This year, the roof will be finished with ceder shingles, and the walls and floor with cob and then back fill and cover. In total the 16ft round building will have taken a few weeks to build and cost virtually nothing, relative to any conventional structures.