Natural Builder’s ~ Natural Thoughts

This blog entry is full of firsts – first off, it’s my first ever blog entry, my first opportunity to introduce myself as a new member of SGNB and the first time I’ve allowed myself to think that there could be something appropriate or ‘sustainable’ about manufactured modular housing.  But before I get into that, I’ll start with an introduction

 My name is Mark Krawczyk and I recently joined with the fine folks at Seven Generations Natural Builders to help make an already amazing group different, more diverse and hopefully, better.  My early construction came from a pretty radical source – Ianto Evans of the Cob Cottage Company.  It was through Ianto that I first began to grasp the materials and stages in building construction and the all too frequent waste, pollution and cost that conventional processes tend to generate.

After learning about cob construction, I was sold on natural building and quick to disassemble buildings of all types, assessing the resources that had gone into them as well as the spatial qualities that the finished buildings provided.  I figured I’d never be able to see manufactured housing as a form of ‘natural’ building.

Well, that is until one recent evening at a panel presentation and discussion held at the Contois Auditorium in Burlington, Vermont’s City Hall.  The theme of the event was something to the effect of ‘Developing Green Affordable Housing for the Northeast‘ (United States).  The juxtaposition of green and affordable made for an event I felt I couldn’t miss.

In short, a consortium of architects, designers and builders collectively set out to develop designs for low impact, efficient, healthy, well-insulated housing that could compete with or beat the cost of construction processes using more conventional means and materials.  Though skeptical at first, I arrived willing to listen, and it’s a good thing.

The panel explained that during the early design process, they each individually came to realize that in order to keep costs down and make the construction process more efficient, they would need to develop designs that could be manufactured as modular units in controlled conditions (warehouse or covered space) and later transported to the site where the module would be ‘installed’.  I bit my lip, restraining myself from raising my hand and emphatically enquiring ‘why not straw bale, cob, slip straw, wattle and daub?  Where are these materials coming from?  What do they really cost?…’ 

The architects explained that the biggest variable in most construction projects is weather – and it’s one we’ve got no control over.  It’s because of this variable that construction delays become common stumbling blocks that contribute considerable inconvenience, complication and cost to building projects.  The elimination of this variable, by moving the process into an environment with a controlled climate, enables builders to schedule projects with predictable precision, ensuring that the plumber isn’t stuck waiting around to do their already scheduled work while the framing crew rushes along trying to complete their end which is already behind.

I’m certainly not a modular home convert after two hours worth of discussion but I did leave that evening pondering the potential for well-designed and appropriate housing, made and shipped to order.  Reduced construction and time waste, the creation of new local workforces, the development of compact, energy efficient buildings that can be transported on a flatbed trailer as well as the possibility of healthier building alternatives being made available to a wider demographic are all definite pros that reside on the side of the modular construction. 

On the other hand, I am concerned by the ecological and economic transport costs necessary to ship a house to it’s home, the ultimate sources for materials, the types of materials and products chosen, the character of the completed spaces and the ultimate affordability of this ‘affordable’ housing. 

Either way, while I dream about the day when it’s the norm to find communities of friends and neighbors working together to build their own dwellings using locally sourced natural materials, I recognize that it will ultimately be through a number of design and process related solutions that we find better ways to house ourselves.  

Check out this very cool map of nautral homes in th US:
naturalhomes.org

It’s getting better all the time… it can’t get much worse

Well, it looks like SGNB has ventured into the 21st century. Welcome to our new blog, a forum to share thoughts, ideas, methods, techniques, projects, and information regarding natural building. It’s interesting and exciting to ponder the implications that cyber-fora such as blogs can have on information exchange. Traditionally in pre-industrial and minimally-industrial societies, building skills are exchanged through masters to students. Transmission of ideas and knowledge comes directly from the do-ing and building, learning at the side of your teacher one can envision a lineage of teacher-student training and innovation stretching back into history.

Reflecting on the rebirth of natural building in North America during the last decade, it is apparent that aspects of this tradition—learning by do-ing rather than reading or sitting in a classroom—have been an integral part of this renaissance. The hands-on aspect of natural building workshops is what makes them successful for students, it is an opportunity to touch wood, earth, and stone, an opportunity to feel the heft of a foundation stone, smell the damp clay, the resin of a softwood timber. Currently we are still in the beautiful throes of creating and establishing natural building cultures in North America. We are digging into the past and innovating in the present, and already we are seeing the emergence of regional styles and traditions.

These are exciting times. In my mind, a goal to strive for is the solidification of these traditions and regional cultures, not in the manner of rigidifying a correct and incorrect way of doing things, but rather in the subtler yet pervasive manner of most cultural knowledge. Our children will learn natural building not from participating in a workshop, but from being immersed in it. How to build with earth, stone, and wood will again be regarded as basic knowledge, which the average person will be familiar with and take for granted. These are the skills of our ancestors, these are the skills that were passed on from generation to generation up until quite recently. This is part of our global patrimony. So, even a Luddite such as myself can see the potential for this and other blogs in speeding us towards this goal.

Tim