Natural Builder’s ~ Natural Thoughts

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