Natural Building Workshops 2015

2015 Workshops at Mud Dauber School of Natural Building:

Michael is once again collaborating with Greg Allen in instructing natural building workshops in North Carolina. We are offering two week long courses that will provide a thorough introduction to building with earth and straw through the construction of a community kitchen. Participants will learn through hands on experience wood framing, straw bales, cob, slip-straw, earth and lime plaster. Each course is focused on either strawbale or cob, but a wide variety of materials and techniques will be covered in each. Visit muddauberschool.com/workshops for details and registration information.

Natural Building Immersion - Strawbale focus: May 3rd-10th 2015

In our strawbale immersion, we will be stacking bales in a variety of ways: in a stud wall, in a post-and-beam-style wall, and in a “balecob” hybrid wall system. We will also use straw in its loose form to make slip-straw walls. The foundation and some framing will be in place; we will complete the framing, install a metal roof, and then build our natural walls. You will learn how to design around bales, shape them, connect them together, protect them from water, and finish them with plaster. We will integrate doors and windows, as well as sculptural details. We will tour local, permitted strawbale homes, and will have discussion surrounding the permitting process. We will additionally be building with cob and wattle-and-daub. There will be a good amount of time to get comfortable with mixing and applying natural plasters, too!

Natural Building Immersion - Cob focus: May 3rd-10th 2015 is SOLD OUT. 

Rising Earth Natural Building

Michael McDonough and Rising Earth Natural Building welcome a second home on the web:
risingearthbuilding.com will compliment this blog with project portfolio and more detail on myself and work. The site will be updated with more content in time, while this blog remains a great way to share current activities.

 This building features stone, timber and earth sourced on site in Hillsborough, NC. Exterior walls are stud framed, insulated with light straw-clay, and finished with lime plaster. A massive cob wall divides the southern greenhouse and studio, providing thermal mass.

 

The natural walls are made of materials found on site, which means that soil is dug up, mixed with sand, straw, and water. Cob is heavy and dries very strong. It's mostly earth, with some straw mixed in by foot. Light Straw Clay is used as insulation and plaster substrate. It's made of loose straw tossed with watery clay, and packed in wall forms.

Natural building is simple and easy to learn, but lots of work...the kind of job to do with friends. I always enjoy an opportunity to engage the community in a project, so Anu of Hillsborough Permaculture and I hosted a series of work parties to get the job done. People were eager to help out, and learn something new in exchange for good labor. I've found that introducing folks to natural building is rewarding and exciting. Bringing people together provides good company and fresh ideas, and the building benefits by having the contribution of others.

 

 

Greenhouse and Garden Cabin

This little building is located in a beautiful ridge top garden at Hillsborough Permaculture in Hillsborough, NC. The design includes a greenhouse for starting plants and storing tools, and a cabin to accommodate an overnight guest and serve as a studio for writing, painting, and refuge.

 

 This project has been an exciting opportunity to utilize many materials directly from the site, which really is my ideal natural building scenario. The foundation is built with beautiful stone gathered from outcroppings around the property. The very week I began building I was presented with the material for the timberframe, as a dozen pines fell in an ice storm. The walls are composed of light straw clay and cob infill, with clay soil coming from the site as well. (The walls were just being started in this photo). Lumber came from a sawmill 10 miles down the road.

This photo was taken in July, and I've been working on another project in New York since, but look forward to finishing this building when I return to NC next week, as well as sharing photos and info about the lovely Strawbale and lime plaster house in NY.

Introducing the Oak Tree Collective

After five years of growing enthusiasm for this project we finally realized that we were on to something and have started an organization. Visit our website at oaktreecollective.org and see photos of our work at Bonnaroo 2013 via instagram at http://instagram.com/oaktreecollective

The idea for a grand entrance to planet roo had been tossed around for a few years. Design criteria included the use of locally sourced natural and reclaimed materials, a variety of finishes and textures, and plants growing on top. We decided 2013 was the year to build the arch early on, but the specific design didn't evolve until we were on-site and discovered what materials were around to work with.

The arch sits on a foundation of reclaimed concrete slab. This masonry footing was fast and easy to build and the materials were gathered from a broken driveway on the farm. Next, an armature was framed with random lumber scrounged from around the site. This skeleton was covered with various materials, including cob, which is an amalgam of site soil, sand, and straw. Cob is a load bearing structural material, but for speedy building, we simply attached a few inches of cob "venner" to the arch framework via wire fencing.

The top of the arch is finished with rough cut oak boards and local bamboo. To cap it off and complete the look, a variety of living, breathing, plants were perched happily on top. The piece became interactive, as "Rooers" touched, carved, and wrote in the fresh clay plaster. Some festival goers enjoyed the experience of pitching in with re-plastering throughout the weekend as we continued to refresh the surface with new mud.

Earthen Acres Addition

This week Greg and I worked on the addition to Danielle's cottage at Circle Acres. She built a unique two-story cob cottage two years ago after taking our first workshop. Her building was truly tiny, with an interior space of 8'x8' on each level.

Here is a photo of Greg laying the earthen sub-floor at the back door threshold. They've added a substantial but modest living room, and a cozy little kitchen. The addition is built with a hefty pine frame and strawbale and light straw clay infill. You can read all about the construction of the cottage at Earthen Acres.

Rocket Stove

Watch this video of a super-efficient rocket stove we just built in our new cob cottage. Rocket stoves contain an internal heat riser that creates a very strong draft. Burning very hot and efficiently, they are capable of pushing hot exhaust through ducts in built in massive furniture and warming buildings directly.

Cob Workshop June 2012

Greg and I are hosting a 7-day cob workshop in Durham, NC this June. We will be leading participants in the construction of a cob building and garden wall in the backyard of the house we're currently building. We will build with cob, strawbales, earthen and lime plasters, and do some carpentry as well. The workshop is aimed at folks who want to build their own small cottage or outbuilding with cob and/or strawbales. No previous building experience is necessary, building with cob is a very intuitive process and you will be confident using the materials after spending week building with us.

you can find a full description of the workshop at cob workshops and on the Natural Building Network's event calendar. While you're at it, check out Danielle's blog, earthen acres. She took our cob workshop in 2009 and went on to build her own home the next year!

Piedmont cob

Here are some photos of a cottage I built with my friend Greg in Chapel Hill, North Carolina this spring




The building is set on a south slope for maximum solar gain and it's slightly burmed into the hill, which will help to moderate temperature. We built on a rubble trench which combines drainage and footing functions.




The blank slate. Most of our stones were local igneous bedrock. Others are quartzite and sandstone leftover from building the client's house years ago.




It took a few days to set the first course of stones and the threshold. After that our speed increased dramatically as we went along.






Greg









I played when I needed a break. I learned a whole lot about stone (and these stones in particular) by fooling with them. The foundation benefeted from it.




This was a dry foundation (no mortar!) and I tested every stone to make sure they didn't move



Greg and I taught a couple of cob workshops during the building process. Here we are mixing cob by foot.





Industrial cob alternative




Cob is composed of clayey subsoil, sand, straw and water. It's mixed to a firm yet malleable consistency and walls are built handfull at a time.
















We built the rafters right into the cob walls which made building a curvy roof quite easy. The framing is achored to deadmen (usually pieces of strong forked roundwood) that are buried in cob.










Except for the lumber all the living roof materials were salvaged. Here were are filling the truck with dumpstered goodies.




Green roof workshop








Here you can see the strawbales. The west and north walls are a bale/cob hybrid for greater insulation.




It's not done yet but looking good! We still need to install the woodstove and door, plaster the walls, and pour an earthen floor.

Stone, Cob, Strawbale

Here are a few quick pictures of a stone/cob/strawbale cottage I built with a friend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina this spring. It is the home of the resident gardener at an educational farm. The walls were completed the last week of May and will dry over the summer. In early autumn it will be finished with an earthen plaster and floor as well as a door, woodstove, and details. More pictures soon.