The Allen's house

Here are a few photos of the Allen's house so far, and It's looking really good. The kitchen is especially bright, sunny, and cheerful. They're spending a few weeks trying it out this winter, before we begin the addition. There are a few details missing yet, like the finish floor for example, and the mirror above the bathroom sink.

Short update

Here are a few photos I took today, starting with Greg working on the kitchen backsplash. Check out the cabinets that Jeremy made!

The doorway to the kitchen is an earthen arch. We'll be doing the interior finish plaster early next week. Things have been really changing lately.

The back of the house. You can see through the front door right now, but remember that early in the new year we'll be adding bedrooms, a living room, and a mudroom onto the front of the house.

Ferrocement shower!

One outstanding feature of the house so far is the ferrocement shower. Ferrocement is a thin (generally between 1/2" and 2") shell of cement mortar on a steel matrix. It's a remarkably strong and durable material that can take any shape imaginable, and has been used to create boat hulls, wild sculptural houses, and dinosaur roadside attractions, among other things....

We detailed the build as if we were doing a tiled shower, but hung up steel lath and mortar instead of tile. It was a fun process, although tying the metal lath was tedious and applying the first coat of plaster was a challenge.

We began by framing out the partition and curb, then I laid a mortar bed that sloped to the drain and installed this pvc liner. The liner will keep moisture that makes it's way through pores and tiny cracks in the cement away from the house framing.

Then another mortar bed for the shower floor.

This was followed by installing glass block, hanging tarpaper on the walls, and attaching steel lath.

I made every effort to keep the the shower waterproof. I sealed any vertical tarpaper seams with asphalt goo, sealed staples, and siliconed behind and around the shower hardware.

You can see by comparing the above and below photos that some time passed between the first coat and finish plaster. 

Greg needed a headlamp to make our last mix of finish plaster after dark. We used white portland cement and mortar pigment to get the sunny yellow color.

Now that I just finished sealing the shower, I'm looking forward to trying it out! (probably after we get the hot water heater installed)

The Oxmoor Farm Outdoor Kitchen

Here are a few photos of the completed Oxmoor Farm Kitchen. This is part of the outdoor classroom at The Food Literacy Project , a non-profit farm based education organization in Louisville, KY. FLP is the educational partner to Field Day Family Farm, an 8 acre sustainable vegetable farm that also raises poultry and hogs on their agricultural oasis on east side of Louisville. This is a very special place and it was a joy to  make such a lasting contribution to the outstanding work happening there.

You Tube video

It's funny that I have a blog because I'm not much of a computer guy really. But today Greg reminded me of the You Tube video  of us working on the Pickards Mountain cottage in Chapel Hill in 2009. It's approaching 200,000 views, and if you do a search for cob on the site, it's the very first video to pop up. I hope you enjoy the video and take it with a grain of salt. I never imagined so many people would hear what I had to say that afternoon. A few years down the road, I don't know where I got that "over half the people in the world live in earthen buildings" bit, although It's probably not too far from the truth.

Introducting 606 Carlton Ave.

My work since May has been helping my good friend Greg build a house for his parents in Durham, NC. This is an urban infill project, on a site in a downtown neighborhood that has been empty since the 60's when the original house burned down.



The project is happening in two phases, with the first third of the house being built and largely completed before we begin the rest. This first part contains the kitchen, bathroom, informal eating/transition space, and back deck. To the front of the house, we will be adding a living room, two bedrooms, and mudroom/entry room later on. The first phase is built mostly conventionally, with a concrete foundation, stud framed walls, and a metal roof. Nothing too unusual...except for the earthen floors, clay and lime plasters, ferrocement shower, and handmade hardwood cabinetry. Here are a few photos of what we've been up to this summer, hopefully I'll manage to get some more photos up soon.

The house will have a fair amount of concrete details, such as this threshold. It's a wonderfully flexible material that will contrast with the natural materials and give the house a more modern feel.

Here is our finish plaster test wall. The plasters are composed of varying amounts of clay, lime, and sand. Some contain finely chopped straw. We'll watch for cracks, weathering, and test hardness and dustiness before choosing our mix.

Blogaroo!!

2011 was an exceptional Bonnaroo for me, and I think the entire "tribe" building group would feel the same way as well. This was my third year working for the Visual Design team and my focus was on building a log framed shade structure between the strawbale post office and the solar stage. The project was a blast, although stressful at times with the looming deadline...We had to build this thing in a few days and it had to be completely finished, safe, and beautiful.









We worked from 8am until at least 9pm for about five days. My first full day we came up with a completed design in the morning, and got to work butchering trees that had fallen over the past year. The bamboo for the shade lattice was the only living material we harvested. We had a truly great crew, many folks returning to help plus a few new and much appreciated additions to the team. Hopefully I'll have the time to update this into a fuller, more informative post before long.