What is Natural Building?

While, on one hand, natural building is a method of erecting a structure, you should understand that, to many, it’s also much more than that. Part of my purpose in this paper is to show how it promotes health in other aspects of life such as recycling, sustainability, permaculture, community, and a host of other concepts that are essential to healthy living on our planet. These values are trends throughout most building methods that consider themselves to be natural and sustainable.

Natural building starts with the ideal that your materials come from the most local and/or sustainable sources available. That may mean they come from a nearby farm, near a local waterway, or maybe the materials were dug up on the building site. In the documentary Garbage Warrior, Michael Reynolds uses an example of tires to explain how some recycled materials could be considered “natural” in our modern landscape. Site design typically carries on this locavore mentality by including areas to grow food, building supplies, collect water, etc.

This ideology of sourcing materials as locally as possible typically continues into the eating habits of the occupants. Food production is an important design factor. In order to reduce the impact of the inhabitants throughout the life of the home, the people who live in the home must grow their own food. In A Grave Danger of Falling Food, Bill Mollison defines Permaculture as “… a system design of integrating good housing, the landscape, the least use of materials, the least pollution output, [and a] conservation of natural resources …” With this definition, we can classify natural building as a form of permaculture, a term most typically associated with gardening.

This responsible behavior continues on to the waste system. Joseph Jenkins says in The Humanure Handbook, “Waste is not found in nature — except in human nature.” Conventional building methods move sewage with water, turning this valuable commodity into waste. Most people that I know don’t realize that composting toilet systems can be completely legal here in Oregon and many other places. Composting humanure is a completely healthy way to recycle this “waste” without poisoning the worlds water system. Composting waste puts nutrients back into the soil so we avoid leaching all the nutrients from the soil.

I should mention that most of my focus and education in natural building has been based around cob as the core building material. Cob is a mixture of clay, sand, and straw. It’s very similar to adobe. In fact I’ve heard it referred to as monolithic adobe. Often times a cob structure can be built mainly from materials harvested directly on the building site, and if left to rot, it melts back into the earth. These traits give it very little negative impact on the environment. Cob is just one of many methods of natural building which include but are not limited to earthbag, rammed earth, cord-wood, and light clay. The right method to use depends on what materials are available in your local environment.

Please enjoy the following materials and share them with your friends:
(NOTE: where material is freely available, the image will link directly to it, otherwise the image is linked to an amazon search of the product)

Evans, Ianto, Linda Smiley, and Michael Smith.
The Hand-sculpted House: a Philosophical and Practical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage.
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub., 2002. Print.
->This text is the result of a collaboration of a few highly respected pioneers cob building. It is a manual for all levels of knowledge at every stage of the project. This book contains in depth discussion regarding all areas of planning and building including land procurement, tools, materials, heating, cooling, and much more. The content is magical. Sidebars, illustrations, and appendices answer all your questions including the ones you didn’t know you had.

Bee, Becky.
The Cob Builders Handbook: You Can Hand-sculpt Your Own Home.
Murphy, OR.: Groundworks, 1997. Weblife.org. Groundworks. Web. 24 June 2011.
Freely available from the author to download at: http://weblife.org/cob
->Since this book is freely distributed by the author at her website, it is the first book about cob that I read. .
This book is a pointedly direct beginners lesson in cob construction. Though it is a beginner’s lesson, it will teach all of the essentials that someone would need to know in order to build with cob. From the site design to finishing the roof, this reference will guide you through the process.
Even being direct about the purpose of this book as a construction manual for a particular building medium, it contains undertones throughout revolving around how natural relationships both with each other and with our environment are necessary both during and as a result of erecting a structure of this type.

Kahn, Lloyd.
Shelter.
Bolinas, CA: Shelter Publications, 1973. Print.
-> This book is a timeless reference of architecture and building technologies worldwide , though it’s also much, much more. You will find a wide array of tools, techniques, tradition, and materials some of which have been have been used for centuries. From mud huts of indigenous tribes to the timber framed barns of the pioneers, to modern experimental domes, this book has it all.

 







Reynolds, Michael.
“The Art of Carbon Zero Living.”
Speech. TEDxTamaya. 22 Nov. 2009. TEDxTalks. 23 May 2010. Web. 2 July 2011. .
Freely available to view at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FON-UK_1kyI
->The now famed architect responsible for the Earthship design talks on carbon zero living and how it’s not as far out of reach as some would make you believe. Reynolds builds these homes to not need infrastructure or fossil fuels. There is a strong connection to recycling in this type of building; so strong that he refers to the car tires which form the walls which double as an earthen mass to store temperature as a product that is indigenous to the entire planet.

Sheen, David, ed.
FIRST EARTH Uncompromising Ecological Architechture.
David Sheen. http://www.davidsheen.com. Web. 24 June 2011. .
Freely available to view at: http://www.davidsheen.com/firstearth/videos.htm
-> When I recommend this movie to friends, I typically tell them that it’s a great movie, one of my favorites, if you can make it through the first 10 minutes of doom and gloom. After that first 10 minutes, it presents answers to enable us to carry on in a much more sustainable fashion. Community and building with less consumption will ease our ecological footprint for future generations. In fact, more than 50% of the population of the planet lives in a home made of earth. This film shows many positive things happening in community and presents a very efficient method of building that isn’t new, but is undervalued in our society.

Hodge, Oliver, dir.
Garbage Warrior.
2007. A Co Production of Open Eye Media UK, ITVS International & Sundance Channel. DVD.
-> This movie begins with what an earthship is made of and how it’s put together, including a little history of Michael Reynolds and Earthship Biotechture. It moves on to document Mr. Reynolds’ struggle to gain acceptance of building officials for building methods that aren’t specifically upheld by building codes. His willingness and persistence to challenge the building laws has granted an enormous victory, at least in New Mexico, allowing for sustainable building test communities and the evolution of Earthship Biotecture.

Jenkins, Joseph C.
The Humanure Handbook: a Guide to Composting Human Manure.
Grove City, PA: Joseph Jenkins, 2005. Http://weblife.org. Web. 3 July 2011. .
Freely available from the author to download at: http://weblife.org/humanure/
-> Not only do we have a limited supply of water on this planet, there are much better options than the current sewage system. More than just a better way to dispose of human waste, this book is an in-depth guide to the complete composting process. A vital part of the composting process is a balanced mix of carbon verses nitrogen. Nitrogen is typically supplied by adding manure. You don’t have to befriend a farmer in the country to get manure; most people make it in small quantities every day.

Mollison, Bill.
In Grave Danger of Falling Food.
Dir. & Prod. by Tony Gailey & Julian Russell. Australian Film Commision, 1989. Film.
Freely available from the author to download at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3162503821561656641
-> What is permaculture? Why is permaculture important? This documentary is is a conversation with Bill Mollison, the man responsible for the term permaculture. He shows how it’s even possible to grow a wonderful garden on a small porch in the city. Permaculture is a method of interacting with the world responsibly on every scale. This is accomplished by copying the patterns that we see in nature.