Video of NBI 2009

Chelsea Green out out a video montage of the Natural Building Intensive 2009 project.

It's a nice reminder of timber framing and plaster work (my two favorite activities) and how I miss them.

Week Twelve: Final intensive week

In our last week we finished up a lot of carpentry projects and some stone work: window trim, window bench seat, live edge siding and stone window sills.











In the second part of the week we did finish plaster and clay paint before a whirlwind cleanup and open house on Friday followed by our graduation ceremony.

finished plaster wall


touching up some finish plaster details


Finish plaster over the wattle and daub wall


These are the pigments for the clay paint


This is the truth window (acrylic set into plaster)


After a deep cleaning before the open house guests arrived and touched the fresh plaster walls a little too much...



It was a great summer and a great project! There may be some follow up posts, but the program is done and we've all gone back to our lives outside the Yesterworld- finishing/starting school, old and new jobs, job hunting and farming.

Week Eight: Intensive week

We finished the strawbales and got to put in the interior walls! We used two different techniques: Strawclay and Waddle and Daub.

We finished prepping the strawbale walls for plaster so we had time to start our interior walls! The door is is waddle and daub (see waddle below), and the other bay is strawclay.


The strawclay wall is on the left and the waddle and daub is on the right (no daub on it yet).

Week Seven: Natural Wall Building (week 2)

Once all the bales were in they had to be prepped for plaster. I never thought I'd hear "sledgehammer" and "level" in the same sentence, but those are the tools to true the walls!


Door and window openings had to be cut (with a chainsaw and cleaned up with a grinder with a chainsaw blade).


Then any spaces between the bales had to be filled with strawclay knots.


The walls were the string-trimmed (weed whacked) to clean them up thre there was a "smooth" face for plaster to adhere to.

Week one: Intro to Natural Building

Sunday: Sunset the night we arrived in Warren, VT










Wednesday! Field Trip day!






Knoll Farm Bathhouse
bathrooms and showers for tent and yurt area of the farm where residents stay in their summer visits

All of us, learnin' (view from the planted roof of Knoll Farm bathhouse









Visiting past projects of the previous Natural Building Intensive






This is a studio space with strawbale, waddle and daub and cob construction. There is also a rocket stove inside. It was built by one of the previous NBI classes



Cabin with strawbale addition

on the right is a "truth window" a view of the guts of the building- showing off the strawbale within the wall