Earth Building Magazine - Winter 2021 by ebanz

WINTER 2021

building PR O M OT I N G T H E A RT A N D S C I E N C E O F E A RT H A N D N ATU R A L B U I L D I N G MAGAZINE OF THE EARTH BUILDING ASSOCIATION

KOHUMARU HEMP HOUSE

Moving in, in Northland

COMPRESSING STRAWBALES Tips + tricks

EARTH BUILDING SCHOOL

Online learning 2021

OF NZ

THE ART OF EARTH ARCHITECTURE Worldwide inspiration

Magazine Editor Earth Building is the magazine of the Earth Building Association of New Zealand. It is published three times per year - April, July and November.

Faith Gould Email: faith.aroha.gould@gmail.com

You are welcome to write a letter to the editor or contribute an article or pictures. All advertising, and magazine contributions should be received well in advance of publication – please contact the editor for deadlines.

Pat Mawson, Hawkes Bay www.strawhome.co.nz

We prefer to receive all letters or magazine articles & contributions by email or in Word format, though they can also be transferred online. The editor reserves the right to edit or abridge any contributions.

Graeme North, Tasman Email: graemenorth@gmail.com

Digital images should be 300 dpi and should be in .tif or .jpg format. Pdf files can be accepted for advertising though must be at the correct size and in cmyk or greyscale mode.

Tatiana Zimina Email: ebanzconference@gmail.com

When supplying photos please number each picture and a Word document with numbered captions, to make sure correct caption is used on each photo.

Elizabeth Guthrey, Christchurch.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are solely those of the individual authors of the articles, not necessarily those of the EBANZ committee. EBANZ accepts no liaibility for material printed. Copyright 1999 EBANZ ISSN: 1174-6734

WINTER 2021

building PR O M OT I N G T H E A RT A N D S C I E N C E O F E A RT H A N D N ATU R A L B U I L D I N G MAGAZINE OF THE EARTH BUILDING ASSOCIATION

OF NZ

Chair

Chair of Standards Revision Committee

Secretarial & Memberships

Online Presence

Treasurer Martin Ulenberg, Auckland. 021 137 7778 Email: martin@ulenberg.co.nz www.ulenberg.co.nz Other Committee Members

Thijs Drupsteen Lucy Dixon Peter Olorenshaw Kerry Mulligan Delia Bellaby

Mailing Address

EBANZ c/- Crispin Caldicott, 2152 Kaipara Coast Hwy, RD4 Warkworth

Design Ascension Creative Email: tina@ascension.net.nz www.ascension.net.nz Website www.earthbuilding.org.nz www.facebook.com/earthbuilding KOHUMANU HEMP HOUSE

Moving in, in Northland

COMPRESSING STRAWBALES

EARTH BUILDING SCHOOL

Tips + tricks

Online learning 2021

THE ART OF EARTH ARCHITECTURE Worldwide inspiration

FRONT COVER PHOTO: Toby Ricketts hemp house in Kohumaru, Northland.

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CONTENTS

WINTER 2021

IN THIS ISSUE I FEATURES 06

REPORT

TIPS+TRICKS

REPORT

ESSAY

TECH TIDBITS

INTERVIEW

OBITUARY

EVENTS

MINING THE COROMANDEL

Showing progress with Earth Plaster on Split Bamboo Lath

COMPRESSING STRAWBALES

One way to compress strawbales under a fixed top beam

BAMBOO

As a building material

THE HUMAN HOUSE

Essays from Tony Watkin’s book + giveaway

EARTH BRICK PREFABRICATION Light earth pre-made masonry bricks

CRISPIN CALDICOTT Editor-to-Editor interview

JENNY WALLACE ‘QUEEN MUDDER’ Tribute to an EBANZ patron

EBANZ NATURAL BUILDING CONFERENCE + GO GREEN EXPO Tribute to an EBANZ patron

I REGULARS 02 03 44 45 51 54 54 3

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK FROM THE CHAIR WHAT’S ON LAST WORD WHAT’S ON MEMBERSHIP + SUBSCRIPTION ADVERTISING IN EBANZ

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BOOK REVIEW

REPORT

WORKSHOP

THE ART OF EARTH ARCHITECTURE Past, present and future

EARTHBUILDING ONLINE ACADEMY Earth building training alongside an online world

KOHUMARU HEMP HOUSE Moving into the hemp house in Mangonui, Northland

BLENDING OLD ADOBE With updated technology

NATURAL BUILDING WORKSHOP At Foxton Beach

EDITORIAL

FROM THE

EDITOR’S DESK I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, and I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple! .. silence surrounds me almost audibly, and I live “in modest harmony with nature.” Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

The Earth Building Magazine was my first ever magazine subscription. I received my first issue, Winter 2015, the tattered copy of which I dug out the other day. I had long dreamed of building with earth and the magazine has been a great source of inspiration. So, in the spirit of passing the baton, and realising that so much of Crispin’s story with EBANZ was unknown to me, I was eager to interview him. He has been very supportive of me in recent years and encouraged me to become more involved with EBANZ, for which I thank him. It has been life changing. We have been generously allowed to reprint some of Tony Watkins’ essay from ‘The Human House’. I hope you enjoy his reflections on the buildings in which we live and their power to influence the way we relate; intimately within the family home, socially and politically by the way our houses relate to the neighbours’, and how we position ourselves within or without nature. Tony has donated a few copies of his book to give

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away ( the details of how to win a copy are on page 21). We also present the final instalment of Toby Ricketts’ hempcrete house build in Northland, and much more. Natural building is about living in “modest harmony with nature”; a deeply spiritual, empowering and creative act. As primal as feeding ourselves, I believe housing ourselves is in our bones. Creating shelter from resources found in the local environment and crafting something wholesome, nurturing and beautiful; no poison and no egotism. I believe everyone can build for themselves and that the removal of the necessity to feed and house ourselves has resulted in a catastrophic imbalance between people and the environment. If we had to live with the rubbish we made, would we make so much rubbish? If we could see the torment inflicted on others with our consumerism, would we consume in the same way? If we had to pay the true cost of things, what would we value? The simplicity of which Jung

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speaks is largely illegal now, you are not trusted to deal with your own humanure while the council allows the city’s effluent to overflow into the ocean rendering our picturesque beaches unswimable. Something is very wrong here. The photo above was taken at a ‘baita’, a simple stone cottage in the Italian Alps. When my husband and I spent a month in Italy a few years back we loved no place more than this mountain side hut. It immediately felt like home; no lights, a central fire, the water came from a single tap outside with glacial melt pouring constantly into a tub then back into the stream. Natural homes speak to us on a deep level, they feel like home in a way ticky tacky, toxic, cell blocks never could. Your home should be the most wonderful place to be and I have absolute faith in your right to such a fundamental thing. Kudos to Crispin, it is hard work editing a magazine. Over the past few years I’ve witnessed the work involved in drumming up articles and discussions over what should and shouldn’t be included. Just weeks before he resigned I thought, ‘Who would want that job?!’. Well, the moment I heard he had moved on I knew it was my turn. I am honoured at the support I’ve received, I welcome constructive criticism, and ask you all to bear with me as I find my feet. FAITH AROHA GOULD

FROM THE

CHAIR

Kia Ora Everyone. There have been three big issues going on for EBANZ in recent weeks. The first and biggest is the news that MBIE have reviewed the published set of standards and responded with a list of issues. These range from minor typos to questions about engineering, none of them seem insurmountable.

It would have been constructive if this had taken place during the public consultation phase or at any point before the revised standards were published! On the positive side it is encouraging that MBIE have finally engaged with us and we are currently lobbying for the relatively small amount of support and resources required to get this resolved. The current situation is that we have a set of old standards that are cited to meet the building code and a set of revised standards published by Standards NZ but not cited by MBIE. Councils, designers, and builders are using the more relevant updated standards to achieve compliance as an “Alternative Solution” which seems to be working quite well in practice but is not a tenable solution longterm. MBIE have recently concluded a round of public consultation on the way Standards under the Building Code are managed and resourced, this included proposed changes to required insulation levels in the building code. EBANZ and many members made submissions.

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EBANZ represents a wide range of views amongst our membership and it was challenging to come up with a constructive submission that fairly represents all our members. There are more submissions coming up including how embodied energy is considered in the Building Code. We will again try to represent the wider membership in a constructive way and encourage members to make their own submissions. Finally, on a positive note, you may recall a brief talk at the last conference about a UN initiative to promote Education for Sustainable Development and establishment of Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE). A group of Otago EBANZ members have been involved with setting up an Otago RCE and have just been granted significant funding to set up the first phase of a natural building education program. This is a collaboration between the Otago RCE/Whaiao, Enviroschools, and EBANZ. The first phase will: • Develop educational modules for Primary, Tertiary/Trade and

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community learning in natural building. • Develop and implement a primary school learning module with a few schools in Otago in term 3 and 4 of this year 2021, or in term 1 of the year 2022, as per funding availability and timing. • Develop framework for short, elective Tertiary course to be piloted in the year 2022. • Develop educational visual panels and real sample walls that can go on a road show to educational institutions of various levels and special public events. • Host demonstrations and workshops at the Wanaka Rippon Wao event from the 26th to 30th October. While initially based in Otago, the aim is to create a framework and resources that can be used throughout the country. Huge congratulations and thanks to the team involved! Watch this space. “What to watch” for this edition is unrelated to natural building – the Netflix documentary ‘My Octopus Teacher’ is the best documentary I’ve seen for ages. If you’ve already seen it and you didn’t love it, I’m sorry but we can’t be friends... Enjoy the fantastic new look magazine with Faith at the helm. Regards PAT MAWSON

REPORT

BAMBOO SOCIETY CONFERENCE

Mining the Coromandel A trip in search of deposits of sanity and common sense. BY JOHN KENDERDINE

What does earth, bamboo and hemp all have in common? This was a question discussed before I was even out of the Far North and the answer was that they are all natural building materials – they can be used exclusively or in conjunction with one another and so my trip was to see how we might somehow work a little more together. Friday afternoon I arrived at the Moehau Community tucked in behind Sandy Bay, almost as far north as one can go on the Coromandel. The weekend was the annual gathering of the NZ Bamboo Society and there were lots of long and unpronounceable botanical names, but I was impressed by the depth of knowledge of bamboo, which I met. We trekked over much of the property looking at different varieties of both runners and clumpers, and checking out one lot flowering and possibly dying off

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as a result. We looked at one project by one of the Moehau community building bamboo walls and earth plastering over them using techniques learnt from a visiting teacher from Japan (I have since learnt of a lime plasterer and a light earth builder who also attended the same workshops). We looked at harvesting bamboo and the safety issues involved, played with splitters and built a raised bed garden with the split product. We even had an amazing presentation from an expert in bronze castings who seemed to be recognised internationally. On Sunday they held their AGM and there was discussion as to where the 2022 conference would be held, taking place on last weekend in February. I have suggested the Far North and they seem happy with the idea. I believe we have everything we need to host an enjoyable weekend and want to see two or three days of workshops involving bamboo and earth so we can all learn as much as possible from each other. This means we have just under a year to prepare and so would appreciate all amazing and outrageous ideas which will make the weekend a success.

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PHOTO, TOP -

Split bamboo lath frame BOTTOM, LEFT -

Showing progress with earth plaster on split bamboo lath

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REPORT

PHOTO, LEFT -

Truth wall windows

The New Zealand Bamboo Society was formed in 1989 with the aim to promote the appreciation, growing, and use of bamboo. To find out more visit: www.bamboo.org.nz

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TOP, MIDDLE -

Raised garden bed TOP AND BOTTOM, RIGHT -

Earth mix recipes BOTTOM, MIDDLE -

Bamboo spillter and bamboo splitter in action

If you would like to help organise, run workshops, give lectures or participate in anyway please contact EBANZ and they’ll put us in touch. I am happy to say the deposits I discovered were rich in all the things I would hope we as EBANZ members appreciate and I hope we can develop a close working relationship with the Bamboo-ites.

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AUTHOR BIO

John Kenderdine lives off grid in an earth house, surrounded by bamboo, in the Far North.

TIPS + TRICKS

ONE WAY TO

Compress Strawbales UNDER A FIXED TOP BEAM Tips and tricks from a strawbale professional BY PAT MAWSON

EARTH BUILDING MAGAZINE

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STEP 1 Fit bales for length up to the last row. Bales may have to be cut length ways and part bales used if the top plate/beam is not correct height to fit full bales (this is only practical if bales are on edge with strings exposed). Thump bales down as snugly as possible. In this case the gap between the bottom plates and underside of the beam is 2200mm to allow for 5 full bales on edge (provisional height of 450mm and nominal compression of 10mm per bale allowed – actual compression will be greater as a column of bales will usually be significantly higher than the nominal sum).

STEP 2 The remaining gap is just under 300mm. 150mm of compression required.

STEP 3 Temporary hooks made from brace strap offcuts screwed to bottom plates.

STEP 4 Truck strops laid over bales and attached but not tensioned. Usually 2 per bale.

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STEP 5 Jacks with scrap timber to spread load used to compress bottom 4 rows. After a big enough gap is created the strops are tensioned to hold bales down and the jacks removed. It is not possible to create enough compression with the strops alone.

STEP 6 The gap is longer than 1 bale so 2 part bales are fitted. The gap created is still snug so metal trays and mallet used to guide bale into postion.

STEP 7 Strops can now be released and pulled through.

STEP 8 East wall finished and ready for plaster prep!

AUTHOR BIO Pat Mawson is a licensed builder living in Hawkes Bay with his partner and two young boys. Together with Nils Rock, their building company “R M Strawbale Ltd.” specialises in Strawbale houses with a focus on natural and non toxic materials. Pat has been plastering houses with clay plasters and lime plasters for the past ten years and loves learning and experimenting with both materials. Before becoming a builder Pat worked in the forest industry and still has a strong interest in trees and timber, especially NZ grown alternative timbers. Pat is the current Chair of EBANZ.

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Bamboo AS A BUILDING MATERIAL How this abundant material can be used in a variety of ways to create incredible and resilient structures. BY CHRISTIAN GAUSS, PH.D

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First of all, what is bamboo? In a few words, bamboo is a giant woody grass of the Poaceae family (subfamily Bambusoideae), with around 1450 species found worldwide [1–3]. The bamboo forests are mainly found in the southern hemisphere, widely distributed in Asia (67%), Americas (30%) and Africa (3%), in regions with tropical, subtropical and temperate climate zones [4]. There are no native bamboos in New Zealand, but a few species with commercial value have been introduced throughout the years, including Bambusa oldhamii, Phyllostachys edulis (moso bamboo), Phyllostachys aurea, and others.

REPORT

Bamboo is an example of a naturally abundant resource that presents an enviable versatility in relation to other humanmade materials. Bamboo can be used in a wide range of applications, e.g. construction sector, composite materials, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and food, mainly using the culms/ poles or shoots. In civil construction, the culms can be used in their natural form (Figure 1) or as engineered materials such as bamboo particleboards, bamboo scrimber, laminated bamboo lumber, plybamboo, and oriented strand board (OSB) (Figure 2) [5–10]. Additionally, in the perspective of climate change mitigation, bamboo also works as an efficient carbon sink, storing approximately 5.7 kg of CO2 per kg of dry biomass above the ground [11,12]. In its natural state, bamboo is characterised by its excellent specific mechanical strength (strength divided by density / weight) compared to traditional building materials such as steel, cement, and wood [14]. Bamboo buildings have demonstrated great seismic resistance, as observed in the maintenance of structural integrity of several houses built with bamboo in Colombia and India after the occurrence of earthquakes [15]. Bamboo can also be used for minimally processed materials, such as esterillas (Figure 3). This building component is traditionally produced in Colombia cracking the bamboo cane in the nodes and then opening it as a mat. The obtained “board” is very versatile and can be used for bahareque style walls and as structural element in roofs. PHOTOS - EXAMPLES OF BUILDING USING BAMBOO IN ITS NATURAL FORM THIS PAGE - TOP:

Inside the Nomadic Museum in Mexico. Photo thanks to Simón Vélez / Flickr OPPOSITE PAGE - TOP LEFT:

Bamboo road toll station in Columbia. Photo thanks to Forgemind Archimedia / Flickr RIGHT, TOP AND BOTTOM:

Green School classroom in Bali. Photo thanks to Forgemind Archimedia / Flickr

It is commonly thought is that bamboo can be a steel replacement for reinforced concrete, as strips or small diameter whole-culm. Despite the excellent mechanical properties of bamboo, it has low modulus of elasticity compared to steel, which is an important property for reinforcing concrete. Therefore, for the same load-bearing structure, much more bamboo would be necessary than steel for the same reinforcing effect. Another main issue is that bamboo is a hygroscopic material, and it swells and shrinks during wet and dry cycles, which cause gaps (and potential cracks) between the bamboo element and the concrete. In the end, in terms of life cycle perspective, bamboo is not considered a proper replacement in situations where steel can be used. Archilla et al. (2018) published a comprehensive review on this topic [16]. If bamboo has to be used because of lack of alternatives, some waterproof coating with additives to improve the adhesion between bamboo and concrete should be applied. The maturity of bamboo culms is an important aspect for most parts of products and applications. Bamboo culms achieve maturity in 3-5 years and, similarly to wood, are composed mainly of 50-80% of holocellulose (cellulose + hemicellulose), 30% of pentosan and 20-28% of lignin, depending on the species and culm age [17–19]. Additionally, the lack of toxic constituents in bamboo makes it a ready food source for xylophagous organisms compromising its structural integrity and durability [20]. Without proper treatment, bamboo is decomposed and has a durability of 4 to 6 years in covered

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“ Bamboo buildings have demonstrated great seismic resistance, as observed in the maintenance of structural integrity of several houses built with bamboo in Colombia and India after the occurrence of earthquakes.”

places and up to 15 years in regions with a not very humid climate. However, a decrease in mechanical strength is already observed in a short time, especially if attacked by insects. Therefore, its use is only recommended after a preservative treatment process that can guarantee long term protection. Regardless of treatment, loadcarrying (i.e. structural) bamboo should never be placed in direct contact with soil or water and should be protected, to the extent possible, from intermittent wetting (see Figure 4). In such environments, bamboo demonstrates little durability [21] Although international standards for structural design and laboratory tests are available (e.g. ISO 22156:2004, ISO 22157:2019, IS 9096:2006, IS 1902:2006, and others), testing and designing with natural materials is still challenging [23]. A summary of international bamboo standards available is given in Table 1 [24]. In general, the standards complement each other and address structural design and physicalmechanical characterisation. Specific standards for treatment are only found in India and Colombia,

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although other standards describe this subject briefly. The main bamboo standard used in recent publications is the ISO 221571:2004, recently substituted by the ISO 22157:2019 for mechanical and physical characterisation and ISO 22156:2004 for structural design. From a general perspective, bamboo is a wonderful and versatile material for civil construction. There are many successful examples of how this abundant material can be used and explored in a variety of ways to create incredible and resilient structures (Green School in Bali, for example). Bamboo connects sustainability, design, and performance, which can revolutionise the built environment. Nevertheless, protocols and recommendations should be followed carefully to avoid bamboo misuse and guarantee safe and reliable structures. There are many reports, manuals, and publications on the Inbar (International Network for Bamboo and Rattan) website. Inbar is the leading international organisation working towards the development of a worldwide bamboo economy and collaboration network.

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REPORT

Reference [1]

[2]

W. Liese, The Anatomy of Bamboo Culms, Brill, Leiden, 1998.

[3]

Y. Goh, S.P. Yap, T.Y. Tong, Bamboo: The Emerging Renewable Material for Sustainable Construction, in: Ref. Modul. Mater. Sci. Mater. Eng., Elsevier, 2019: pp. 1–14. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12803581-8.10748-9.

[4]

PHOTOS - (FIGURE 2.)

Figure 2. Summary of bamboobased engineered materials. (a) Flattened bamboo panel, (b) Bamboo laminated lumber, (c) Plybamboo, (d) Bamboo scrimber, (e) Bamboo oriented strand board, (f) Bamboo particleboard. [13]

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L.G. Clark, X. Londoño, E. RuizSanchez, Bamboo Taxonomy and Habitat, in: W. Liese, M. Köhl (Eds.), Bamboo Plant Its Uses, 1st ed., Springer, 2015: pp. 1–30. doi:DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14133-6.

[5]

Z. Huang, Y. Sun, F. Musso, Assessment of bamboo application in building envelope by comparison with reference timber, Constr. Build. Mater. 156 (2017) 844–860. doi:10.1016/j. conbuildmat.2017.09.026. S. SUMARDI, I.; ONO, K.; SUZUKI, Effect of board density and layer structure on the mechanical properties of bamboo oriented strandboard., J. Wood Sci. 53 (2007) 510–515.

[6]

M.A. Anwar, U.; Hiziroglu, S.; Hamdan, H.; Latif, Effect of outdoor exposure on some properties of resin-treated plybamboo, Crop Prod. 33 (2011) 140–145.

[7]

D. Biswas, S.K. Bose, M.M. Hossain, Physical and mechanical properties of urea formaldehyde-

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bonded particleboard made from bamboo waste Daisy, Int. J. Adhes. 31 (2011) 84–87. doi:10.1016/j. ijadhadh.2010.11.006. [8]

M. Mahdavi1, P.L. Clouston, S.R. Arwade, Development of Laminated Bamboo Lumber: Review of Processing, Performance, and Economical Considerations, J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 23 (2011) 1036–1042. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.

[9]

P. Malanit, M.C. Barbu, A. Frühwald, Physical and mechanical properties of oriented strand lumber made from an Asian bamboo (Dendrocalamus asper Backer), Eur. J. Wood Wood Prod. 69 (2011) 27–36. doi:10.1007/s00107-0090394-1.

[10] C. Gauss, V. De Araujo, M. Gava, J. Cortez-Barbosa, H. Savastano Junior, Bamboo particleboards: recent developments, Pesqui. Agropecuária Trop. 49 (2019) 1–9. doi:10.1590/198340632019v4955081. [11] P. van der Lugt, J.G. Vogtländer, J.H. Van Der Vegte, J.C. Brezet, Environmental Assessment of Industrial Bamboo Products - Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon Sequestration, in: 10th World Bamboo Congr. Korea, 2015. [12] J.G. Vogtländer, N.M. van der Velden, P. van der Lugt, Carbon sequestration in LCA, a proposal for a new approach based on the global carbon cycle;

[13]

[14]

[15] [16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

cases on wood and on bamboo, Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 19 (2014) 13–23. doi:10.1007/s11367-013-0629-6. M. Kadivar, C. Gauss, K. Ghavami, H. Savastano, Densification of bamboo: State of the art, Materials (Basel). 13 (2020). doi:10.3390/ma13194346. K. Ghavami, Bambu, um material alternativo na engenharia, Rev. Eng. Construção Civil. Pesqui. Eng. 492 (1992) 23–27. B. Sharma, Performance Based Design of Bamboo Structures, Univeristy of Pittsburgh, 2010. H. Archila, S. Kaminski, D. Trujillo, E. Zea Escamilla, K.A. Harries, Bamboo reinforced concrete: a critical review, Mater. Struct. 51 (2018) 1–18. doi:10.1617/s11527-018-1228-6. F. Nogata, H. Takahashi, Intelligent functionally graded material: Bamboo, Compos. Eng. 5 (1995) 743–751. doi:10.1016/0961-9526(95)00037-N. K. Ghavami, A.B. Marinho, Propriedades físicas e mecânicas do colmo inteiro do bambu da espécie Guadua angustifolia, Rev. Bras. Eng. Agrícola e Ambient. 9 (2005) 107–114. doi:10.1590/S141543662005000100016. T. Tan, N. Rahbar, S.M. Allameh, S. Kwofie, D. Dissmore, K. Ghavami, W.O. Soboyejo, Mechanical properties of functionally graded hierarchical bamboo structures, Acta Biomater.

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[20] [21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

7 (2011) 3796–3803. doi:10.1016/j. actbio.2011.06.008. S. Kumar, K. Shukla, T. Dev, P. Dobriyal, Bamboo preservation techniques: a review, INBAR publication, 1994. S. Kaminski, A. Laurence, D. Trujillo, C. King, Structural use of bamboo. Part 2: Durability and preservation, Struct. Eng. 94 (2016) 38–43. C. Gauss, Preservative treatment and chemical modification of bamboo for structural purposes, University of São Paulo, 2020. K.A. Harries, B. Sharma, M. Richard, Structural Use of Full Culm Bamboo: The Path to Standardization, Int. J. Archit. Eng. Constr. 1 (2012) 66–75. doi:10.7492/IJAEC.2012.008. A. Gatóo, B. Sharma, M. Bock, H. Mulligan, M.H. Ramage, Sustainable structures : bamboo standards and building codes, Proc. ICE -Engineering Sustain. 167 (2014) 189–196. doi:10.1680/ensu.14.00009.

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PHOTOS - (FIGURE 3.)

Esterilla, an example of a minimally processed bamboo material that can be used in walls and roofs.

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I Table 1 – Present international Standards for bamboo use. COUNTRY

CODE

STANDARD

China

JG/T 199:2007 - Testing method for physical and mechanical properties of bamboo used in building

Colombia

Reglamento Colombiano de Construcción Sismoresistente

NTC 5407:2006 - Uniones de Estructuras con Guadua angustifolia Kunth (Structural unions with Guadua angustifolia Kunth)

– chapter G12 Estructuras de Guadua (Guadua structures)

NTC 5525:2007 - Métodos de Ensayo para Determinar las Propiedades Físicas y Mecánicas de la Guadua angustifolia Kunth (Methods and tests to determine the physical and mechanical properties of Guadua angustifolia Kunth) NTC 5301:2007 - Preservación y secado del culmo de Guadua angustifolia Kunth (Preservation and drying of Guadua angustifolia Kunth culm)

Ecuador

Norma Ecuatoriana de la Construcción – Estructuras de Guadúa (Guadua structures)

NEC-SE-GUADÚA:2017 – Estructuras de Guadúa (GaK) (Guadua structures)

India

National Building Code of India, section 3 Timber and bamboo: 3B

IS 6874:2008 - Method of tests for bamboo IS 15912:2012 - Structural design using bamboo – code of practice

IS 9096:2006 - Preservation of bamboo and cane for structural proposes - code of practice Peru

Reglamento Nacional de Edificaciones, Section III

E100:2012 – Diseño y Construcción con Bambú (Design and Building with Bamboo)

International

ISO 22156:2004 - Bamboo – structural design ISO 22157:2019 - Bamboo – determination of physical and mechanical properties. Substitutes the former ISO 22157:2004 parts 1 and 2.

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Source: Adapted from [24].

IS 1902:2006 - Preservation of bamboo and cane for non-structural proposes - code of practice

PHOTOS - (FIGURE 3.)

Protection by design is one of the most important tools for long-lasting bamboo structures.

AUTHOR BIO Christian is a postdoc researcher at the University of Waikato, Hamilton. Before coming to New Zealand, he obtained his Bachelor (Eng), Master, and Doctorate degrees in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He has been working with bamboo for the last 6 years, mainly for the development of bamboo as a structural material and assessing its potential in products with high added value. His doctorate thesis was focused on the treatment and chemical modification of bamboo (mainly Dendrocalamus asper). He has authored and co-authored around 12 scientific publications about bamboo. He is a founding member and ex-secretary of the Brazilian Association of Bamboo (BambuBR), a non-profit organisation with more 40 active members (www.bambubr.com). He is organising and planning a project proposal for possible funding to start bamboo related research in New Zealand. As always, collaborations are welcome. Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christian_Gauss Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=sj5g5zAAAAAJ

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ESSAY

The Human House Integrity always commands respect. When a person holds their view of life with sincerity and honesty you may not agree with them, but there is always a basis for contact, understanding and growth.

of a New Zealand architect and the work of an English architect living in our country. When people see the world differently and see their own relationship to it differently, they build different windows. It is inevitable.

No person holds the whole of truth. There is something of the truth to be perceived in everyone who is true to themselves.

The person who only looks through a hole in a wall will always be a prisoner. It is very easy to see the world and yet not be part of it. It is very easy to see the help which the world needs, and yet not be willing to set about transforming the kind of people we are. Throwing crumbs out the window does not solve anything. Even throwing the whole loaf of bread out the window would only indicate desperation and despair.

To seek to be human is to seek to achieve harmony between the depths of being and the outward expression of life. Only then is it possible to be a whole person. To waste a life applying one cosmetic treatment after another is to forget that true beauty comes from within. To waste a house applying one cosmetic material after another is to forget that true beauty comes from within. In a work which is searching for meaning, a house which is nothing more than an assembly of features gathered from other houses will always mock at integrity. If you seek for a world of harmony and wholeness the best place to being, as always, is at home. Aotearoa New Zealand has had a fine tradition of integrations, both in our life style and in the way in which we relate inside and outside space. It is tragic now to see how disciplines such as planning are encouraging the stratification and alienation of our society. We are building windows and doors everywhere without understanding what windows and doors are all about. Every culture has a unique understanding of the relationship between inside and outside space. This is, for example, the first difference which the lay person notices between the work

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We need to look at the way in which we make bread. If we make bread in a way which indicated to others how they might also make bread, then we would all be able to make bread together. That would be a very human thing to do. New Zealand is in a unique position to save Western civilisation from self-destruction, but we need to begin by looking at the design of our windows. As a nation we do not need to compete with the death wish of other Western countries. We could seek instead for integrity. The dilemma for a wealthy nation is that although it is possible to keep on buying cosmetics to avoid reality, it is never possible to buy integrity. An exterior door must do much more than just close off the wind and the rain, or open up to catch the sun and the cool summer breeze. The door is the point where the interior space touches the exterior space and so it becomes a measure of the relationship between them. This sliding door is designed to express the wholeness of life. It seeks to catch something of

the elegance, frailty, and transparency of the pohutukawas outside, thus making them part of the within. It also seeks to catch something of the order which the human mind reaches out to comprehend the wonders of nature. This door seeks to express the idea that a person can only be fully alive when they live in harmony with the world around them. A door which is designed to be a barrier can only be enjoyed when it is removed. It is a lie to try to make the barrier invisible. Many people pretend they are open, when in fact they are closed. The moment of truth comes when someone stumbles into their lives or crashes through their plate glass doors. An invisible barrier is far more dangerous than one which can be seen. The inside and the outside of a house, or a person, should always be in harmony. The person seeking integrity, rather than wealth and possessions, might well begin by building a door. A door, like life, is never as simple as it seems.

This essay features in Tony’s book The Human House. EBANZ has been donated three copies of the book to give away to members. If you’d like to go into the draw to win a copy, please send us your details with ‘The Human House Competition’ in the subject line, and email to: editor@earthbuilding.org.nz before the Friday 13th August 2021.

AUTHOR BIO Tony Watkins occupies a unique place in New Zealand architecture. He has been many things: architect, builder, teacher, writer, environmentalist, urbanist, advocate and agitator. Over the course of 50 years, Tony has demonstrated a tireless commitment to engaging with the public about architecture and reminding the profession of its societal and ethical responsibilities. Tony was an early and prescient lobbyist for ecological protection and humane city planning, and throughout his career has never been afraid to challenge orthodox opinion or vested interests. Known as a Renegade Architect he has lived his principles in his always-evolving, self-built house at Karaka Bay, and has contributed wholeheartedly to countless causes and campaigns over his long career in architecture. Photo credit Lottie Hedley

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TECH TIDBITS

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Earth Brick With all the talk on prefabrication in the building industry I started to think about how we could incorporate this approach into our own natural buildings. Masonry block technology must be one of the earliest forms of prefabrication and it was such a great concept it is still very prevalent today. Light earth can be formed into pre-made masonry bricks, reducing the drying time compared to walls formed insitu. It has other advantages as well. It allows the cladding and joinery to be installed first which means the building can be ‘closed in’ before the earthen work begins.

DIAGRAM - ABOVE:

01 - Highly vapour permeable building warp air barrier 02 - Drained and vented cavity 03 - Rainscreen cladding 04 - Subfloor cladding 05 - Subfloor ventilation 06 - Finished clay plaster 07 - 70 mm light earth masonry 08 - Timber bracing, infill with cob 09 - 140 mm light earth masonry between studs 10 - Suspended timber floor 11 - Pier foundations

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Typical light earth walls, 300 mm thick have to dry both ways i.e. to the inside and to the outside. This means that cladding cannot be installed until the light earth is fully dry and a 10 mm clay plaster is applied to the outside face of the wall (as the air barrier). This will take months and will slow down the building schedule. During this time the walls must be protected from wet weather with tarps. If the building can be ‘closed in’ first, the owners could lay the light earth masonry and apply the internal clay plaster themselves without having to worry about the weather. This would save costs and allow them to focus on the fun, earth building elements of the build. If they were not comfortable framing the house themselves and the light earth bricks were made to suit conventional light timber framing, they could contract the frame and shell construction out to a conventional house builder. To achieve high performing walls, the external light timber frame could be composed of 140 mm thick stud work without nogs or dwangs. An infill layer of light earth bricks could be laid between these studs set into 20 mm rough clay mortar.

Prefabrication The walls could then be braced with 25mm rough sawn diagonal timber boards, nailed to the inside face of the studs or with multi-brace steel straps instead. A second wythe or veneer of light earth masonry could then be laid on the inside face of the walls and an interior clay plaster applied over as the beautiful finished surface. This construction, as illustrated, could be on an engineered suspended timber floor or earthen floor on grade. If the light earth bricks were made to 800 kg/m³ density it would comply with the thermal performance section of the New Zealand Building code as

‘high thermal mass construction’. At this density, the system as illustrated, achieves R 1.5 thermal insulation for the whole wall assembly. This easily complies with the code in any region of the country. Code requirements range from R 0.8 - R 1.2 depending on the location for ‘high thermal mass construction’ under the schedule method in NZS 4218:2009. To make the bricks to this density I have used heart cypress wood shavings (which can often be sourced free from a suitable timber mill) and barley straw. I used plenty of clay slip (quite a wet mix) and compressed

the bricks 1/3rd of the height of the mould. If using a timber mould, wet it first and the bricks should slide out immediately. It may take approximately one month for the bricks to dry in summer and you should be able to turn them onto their edges after about one week to help them dry better. At this density the bricks can be easily cut with a simple timber hand saw. You can also make the bricks less dense and comply with the thermal regulations as ‘any wall type’ (R 1.9 - R 2.0), but this is a story for another day!

AUTHOR BIO Martin Ulenberg is a Registered Architect based in Auckland, New Zealand. He believes in ecologically sensitive design and advocates for natural building using traditional materials such as earth, straw, stone and naturally durable timber along with other natural fibres and minerals.

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INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW WITH

Crispin Caldicott Tram Driver, timber enthusiast, journalist, organiser of multiple EBANZ conferences, and the editor of this magazine for over nine years; I sat down with Crispin to find out how he came to hold such an integral place in the Earth Building Association, his thoughts on the state of and future of EBANZ, and what advice he has for the new editor. BY FAITH AROHA GOULD

Editor: You have been the only editor since I have been a member of EBANZ, how did you come to be Editor? Crispin: I went to the Permaculture Hui in Turangi in 2012, which was a wonderful occasion. Graeme North was one of many outstanding personalities speaking there. I gave a lecture about the Austrian scientist Viktor Schauberger, whom I have admired for many years as his motto was ‘comprehend and copy nature!’ Graeme rang me shortly after, and said, ‘I have a job for you and you can pay yourself as much as you like! With your journalistic background it would be ideal for you’.

Editor: How familiar were you with earth building and EBANZ at the time? Crispin: I did my permaculture design course in 1992, with Miriam and Jim Tyler in the Hokianga, which is where I first met Graeme and although EBANZ was on the periphery I wasn’t involved in any way until I became editor in 2012. I think there are strong crossovers between the values of permaculture and natural building.

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Editor: How has the organisation changed since you joined? Crispin: There is a greater awareness among the organisation that it needs to expand and spread its message as widely as possible. The standards have been a big part of this as they provide a council with a blueprint to help them understand what they are consenting. They are absolutely vital and will be under threat again as for peculiar reasons the corporate world sees ‘home builders’ as some kind of threat. I sent a link out not long ago with an article from Australia saying, ’these home builders need to be protected from themselves’. It’s just madness.

Editor: What do you see as the future for EBANZ? What should we be focusing on? Crispin: Education. We must build peoples’ awareness of the possibilities. We must be consistent with events like Go Green and get our message out. We’ve had a wonderful series of superb conferences in the last few years and the real success there has been getting people who were not members to come along. That is an impetus I would love to see flourish.

Editor: How do you deal with the differences of opinion which arise when considering what goes into the magazine? Crispin: I have only had a few instances to deal with. I would love EBANZ to be a forum for debate. We are an educational organisation to help empower people to build for themselves as economically as possible and as lightly footed as possible. I believe emphatically that people have a right to do what they want so long as they aren’t impinging on the rights of others - common law basically - but these rights are being eroded.

Editor: I feel that - I believe we all have a right to warmth and shelter and earth building is one small but significant way we can fight for sovereignty. Crispin: We need to educate and we need to empower, and we need to demonstrate that it is possible to build your own home using immediately available materials. Concrete is a topic that raises hackles and disagreements in the EBANZ community for very good reasons, but even those who loathe it agree it has its place under certain sets of circumstances. The Romans after all used it to good effect – their concrete really was built to last – but then their production would have been minute in comparison with today’s industrial demand. The purpose for humankind now is to strive for harmony, both interpersonally and with our environment.

Editor: What are doing now that you have some free time? Crispin: I’m busier than ever! I’m working at Kaipara Coast Plant Centre in the mornings, and still doing plenty of writing; I’m working on a piece about the future of farming in Rodney and another on electric bikes. We have our own property to look after. There is always plenty to do.

Editor: Any advice to the new editor? Crispin: Make it your own – do lots of new things and don’t feel constrained by any of your predecessors!

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OBITUARY

WAIHEKE ISLAND’S

Queen Mudder

“

Remembering the life and legacy of EBANZ Patron, Jenny Wallace and her 30 year dream. BY MARION BRIDGE Jenny Wallace was our EBANZ Patron from November 2003. She died peacefully in her sleep on January 13th at Edenvale Rest Home, age 90. Despite her determination to stay at “Chiara”, ill health determined otherwise. In her life story recorded by a local Hospice

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worker she says, “I was always a loner.” She was born in Australia on 5th March 1930. In 1953 she backpacked through Europe and on her return in 1954 she saw Australia in a different light. In 1961 she moved to New Zealand, travelling again and taking various jobs. It was in 1964 that she was introduced to Waiheke Island, she describes it as her “paradise isle”. Her interest in earth building was sparked earlier in 1961 by the remarkable Charlotte Larkin’s story of building her earth cottage “Puawananga – The Adobe Cottage’’ in Long

”

Beach, Russell during the 1940s. I only know of one copy of this tiny book recording the hardships, trials and errors of building. Charlotte began building in 1941 when she was 60. She recalls, “the idea to use ‘Mother Earth’ became an obsession”. Charlotte’s gorse covered section was purchased for 40 pounds, she cleared it and began experimenting with clay, sand, gravel and shell. One day, noticing a cow pat with grass and soil attached, she experimented with pure clay, cow pat and grass. It will be sad if this gem of a little book is not made available again. Other inspiration for Jenny came from her purchase in 1966, for 50 cents, of G.K. Middleton’s ‘Earth Wall Construction’,

also know as ‘CSIRO Bulletin 5’. In 1980 after much searching and little funds she found a site with wonderful gulf views. “But alas, it was half an acre, steep and unthinkable for an earth building. But not impossible I thought.” Jenny writes, “I apologise to you Thijs Drupsteen for not involving you, for you would never have let that mad mud woman from Aussie go ahead. In the end Thijs as earth engineer and Graeme North as architect whole heartedly backed my project.” In her life story Jenny writes, “Your dedication and work keep flowing on. You both have my admiration and appreciation. Earth houses are nourishment for the soul.” PHOTO, OPPOSITE PAGE -

Jenny Wallace, AKA ‘Queen Mudder’ PHOTO, LEFT -

The exterior view of Jenny’s house on Waiheke

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OBITUARY

PHOTO, RIGHT -

Jenny with arched doorways in progress PHOTO BELOW, TOP -

The boys in Jenny’s round window PHOTO BELOW, MIDDLE -

Brick makers with John Collins PHOTO BELOW, BOTTOM -

Detail - Joinery and earth brick PHOTO, OPPOSITE PAGE -

Jenny Wallace, looking regal with earth brick in hand

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Jenny was a Franciscan and was excited by finding a quote from Francis of Assisi 11661221, “Build simply in clay and wood.” Jenny took this as a message for her plan to build. She credits many people for help in her build; designer Ron Grant, builders Nick Parker and Andrew McLay, and Hugh Morris, Engineering Lecturer at the University of Auckland. John Collins, brick maker, and his workers came from Opotiki. By this time Jenny’s health and strength were fading. She was able to have 160 tons of dry, volcanic red soil on Waiheke delivered to as area of the then Mitre 10 site. The boss offered the site and provided pallets for the made bricks. 500 pressed bricks were made in 6 days. As the bricks were not high in tensile strength it was decided to use a post and beam system. Macrocarpa posts were used for load bearing with the bricks as the infill. An abandoned telephone pole from the swamp in Te Matuku Bay on the island was the pivotal post in the living room. Jenny was totally in charge of the design, including the huge, round window

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which framed her important view. Jenny says, “Visiting engineers have since asked me, would I have gone ahead with the project had I known what it entailed? Building in earth on a steep site with difficult access. This included extensive retaining walls, extra strength footings and foundations, just the whole logistical catastrophe. Bricks delivered to the roadside, manhandled singly by pallets down the hill to the site. Later, delivery trucks having to be hauled out by one another, for all of that I just smiled and said, “Yes, although be advised by Thijs, a flat site is a sweet way.” “Chiara, a happening house, grew as we went along. I laid the first brick and cut the corner stone of my bedroom doorway. The boys dubbed me “The Queen Mudder”. I was on site supervising, encouraging, dog’s body and each day of the 10 months of building I saw it go from conception to full realisation. I was awed by the workmanship, the enthusiasm and total dedication of my team and all others involved to achieve my dream.

OBITUARY

“ Earth houses are nourishment for the soul ” At 62 I was a child with mud, ecstatic with my dream castle as every day it took shape. It was surprising that progress was made at all, so great was the interest from locals and afar that Nick and Andrew were inundated daily by interested onlookers and a couple of sceptics, mainly builders, but mostly genuine enquiries wanting the know-how of building with earth.

PHOTO, TOP -

Jenny with Nick Parker and Andrew McLay

All this was fanned by Chiara being catapulted into the media by being the first, new, earth house built in the Auckland City Council area and Waiheke Island. My dream had been that if I could get the building approved by the authorities by being architecturally designed and well-engineered for the site, others could have an easier access to building approval through councils. It is a basic need, steered by Graeme and Thijs who worked tirelessly to fulfil this need. They and the many others involved are to be congratulated for such dedication in getting the earth building standards approved.” Jenny quotes the many programmes and articles that followed. She had so many visitors she gave up counting at 600. Finally, she voices her regret that ill health kept her from following up the new wave of earth houses built and kept her from sharing in all the AGM’s and tours. “I was sorry for missing all the wonderful collective enthusiasm, the creative activity and fun. But thanks to EBANZ magazines I have shared the spirit. I was chuffed that the young, and not so young, had made it happen. Yippee!”

AUTHOR BIO Marion Bridge came late to earth building when she discovered it on Waiheke Island and helped build her mudbrick home in 1998. She has been an advocate of earthbuilding ever since. She finds the annual conferences inspiring with new ideas, new young blood and enthusiasm.

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EVENTS

EBANZ

Natural Building Conference 2021

Nelson/Tasman | Sat 6 and Sun 7 November 2021 | Optional House Tour on Mon 8 November 2021 If you have an interest in using or specifying natural building materials, save the first week in November for this year’s EBANZ conference in one of the country’s natural building hotspots. The conference will be hosted at the beautiful Riverside Community (est. 1941 NZ’s oldest intentional community with numerous rammed earth buildings) and will include presentations, house tours, hands-on demos as well as ample time for networking and sharing in the form of the much-loved 5x5s.

Presentations - Hands-on Demos - House Tours Topics: Adobe, Cob, Light Earth, Strawbale, Hemp, Natural Plasters and Paints, R&D, Sustainable Timber, Retrofitting & New Builds, 30m2 and exempt building work Skill Building.

Interested in presenting? This is also a call for papers. If you are interested in presenting at the conference, please get in touch with Pat Mawson - pat@earthbuilding.org.nz Keep up-to-date with conference news by signing up to our newsletter and liking us on facebook

www.earthbuilding.org.nz or www.facebook.com/earthbuilding

Go Green Expo The Saturday team representing EBANZ at this year’s Go Green Expo in Auckland. They were joined by Thijs Drupsteen on the Sunday. This is one of the big events in which we participate each year to raise the profile of earth and natural building and we spoke to hundreds of people over the weekend. Many thanks to all the volunteers who gave their time and energy. Special thanks to Martin for the new and improved stall layout, image boards, and samples.

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PHOTO - LEFT TO RIGHT:

Stephen Moller, Martin Ulenberg, Fraser Gould, Crispin Caldicott, John Kenderdine, plus young mascots. Faith Gould is behind the camera.

BOOK REVIEW

The Art of Earth Architecture PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE by Jean Dethier. THAMES AND HUDSON 2020 A look into inspirational earth architecture worldwide BY MIN HALL

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PHOTO, OPPOSITE PAGE -

It is timely that the publication of The Art of Earth Architecture: Past Present and Future coincides with that of the reinvigorated New Zealand Earth Building Standards. Not only do Kiwis have access to a comprehensive and inspirational work celebrating unfired earthen architecture worldwide, but also to New Zealand specific standards spelling out how to design and build them. In 1981, Belgian-born architect Jean Dethier curated the exhibition Down to Earth – Mud Architecture: an old idea, a new future, at the Centre Georges Pompidou. The exhibition, and its modest companion text of the same name, celebrated earth architecture and enthusiastically promoted its potential in the face of an environmental crisis. Forty years on, The Art of Earth Architecture (TAEA) takes up these themes with renewed vigour, and considerable success. In this substantial and superbly illustrated volume, Dethier and his contributing authors seek to remedy

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the “collective amnesia” that has until now - left the global history of raw earth architecture largely unwritten, despite the increased interest in vernacular architecture since the 1960s. They seek also to provoke, to question why one of the most extensively used building materials in the world has been disregarded for so long, especially when architects are looking for materials to combat climate change. The book is structured chronologically and thematically, with each chapter featuring a number of essays, together with an “Earth Architecture Gallery” of drawings and photographs of buildings, landforms, artefacts, and art. The early chapters introduce earth as a construction material and its early use. Chapter four, “Vernacular Heritage,” includes essays and a plethora of tantalising photographs and drawings covering not only age-old traditions but also their contemporary revival for heritage restoration projects, and for rebuilding after natural and man-made disasters.

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In 2014, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, architect Luigi Rosselli built a compact group of twelve small lodges, covering an area of 575 square meters and intended to provide accommodation for shepherds. A 230-metrelong load-bearing wall was built on this formerly virgin landscape, using rammed earth. Its undulations help individualize the houses. The houses’ flat roofs are covered with a thick layer of soil planted with vegetation, in order to provide thermal protection from the subtropical climate. In 2017, this design won a TERRA Award. © Luigi Rosselli Architects

PHOTO, LEFT -

A spectacular rammed earth wall at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos, Canada, which exudes monumental grandeur. Built in 2006 by Sirewall for the architecture studio DIALOG, it attracted international attention for its multicoloured horizontal layers. It also created fierce controversy, however, on cultural, ethical and technical grounds, because its innovative aesthetic effects were created with aid of industrial additives: the earth used for the wall was heavily stabilized with cement, and its colours were achieved by adding artificial pigments. © Nic LeHous / DIALOG

BOOK REVIEW

PHOTO, RIGHT -

Earth samples collected by the Auroville Earth Institute, India © Satprem Maïni (Auroville Earth Institute)

PHOTO, BELOW -

The Art of Earth Architecture book cover.

The wider theme of modernising earth architecture is addressed directly in chapter five. This covers the period 1789-1968—an era bookended by two revolutions, and two “great pioneers of modern earth architecture”: French architect François Cointeraux (17401830), and Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989). Cointeraux, seeking an economical building method that would enable the democratisation of rural society after the French Revolution, modernised the ancient technique of rammed earth by using moveable wooden formwork. He founded schools of rural architecture in Paris, Lyon and Grenoble, and his texts were disseminated throughout the Western world. Fathy sought to revive the ancient vernacular tradition of building with raw earth bricks, most famously for the village of New Gourna (1948), a resettlement project

for people soon to be displaced by the building of the Aswan Dam. The chapter concludes with discussion and work from the counter-culture revolution emerging out of the oil crisis in the 1960s. The penultimate chapter covers the next fifty years, with essays on important contributors to the development of modern earth architecture: the founders of CRAterre, established in France in 1979; Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, working in China since 1997; and Francis Kéré, in Burkino Faso from 2001. The accompanying Earth Architecture Gallery uses a typological framework and showcases inspirational work that will be familiar to many—as well as much that is not so well known. Curiously, there is no mention of the important work of Nader Khalili, the Iranian architect.

FOOT NOTE 1 Dethier, J. “Down to Earth” (1981), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 2 Kick-started by the 1964 exhibition “Architecture without Architects” at MOMA, New York, curated by Bernard Rudofsky. 3 CRAterre, founded by Patrice Doat, Hugo Houben and Hubert Guillard in 1979, is a research laboratory of the National School of Architecture of Grenoble, France. 4 Khalili, N. “Ceramic Houses,”(1986), Harper and Row, SanFancisco. 5 TAEA Gasnier p.478 6 TAEA Guillard p.154

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AUTHOR BIO Min Hall holds a MArch degree from Victoria University of Wellington, is a Registered Architect, Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, and lecturer at Unitec Institute of Technology. She has thirty years’ experience in architectural practice, has received fourteen NZIA awards for built projects, and her work has been published in national magazines. She is a member of the New Zealand Earth Building Standards committee, has authored book chapters and conference papers, and current research areas are the history of earth building in Aotearoa New Zealand and prefabrication techniques for bio-based materials, specifically timber and straw.

PHOTO, ABOVE -

The master builder El Hadji Falké Barmou, winner of the 1986 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Yaama Mosque, built in 1982 in the region of Tahoua, Niger. © Aga Khan Trust for Culture / Kamran Adle (photo)

PHOTO, RIGHT -

The artist Silla Camara adds mural decorations to a house in the village of Djajibinni in Mauritania, ca. 1985 © Margaret Courtney-Clarke

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REPORT

EARTH BUILDING

2021

Online Academy Earth building training alongside an online world. BY VERENA MAEDER

In 2014 I first heard the term ‘digital disruption’ from my friend Johnny, who at the time was in his twenties and had just launched his own consulting business ShiftOn. He randomly invited me to one of his local business trainings, where he was advising local ‘brick and mortar’ businesses on how to leverage an online presence. His vision is to help brave businesses grow and thrive in the digital age - and I could tell that there were quite a few people in the room for whom it was a mental stretch to imagine things that today are the total norm. I walked away from that training inspired and filled with yearning, but also a bit frustrated. Our business is literally bricks and mortar - or at least super hands-on - and imagining any part of it ever living online was a stretch for me too. One of the main reasons I was feeling excited was because the promise of the world wide web is a bigger reach, more cross-fertilization, and scalability. I realized that I have such a deep love for earth and natural building, and that my motivation for all the work I have put into this over the years is the desire to contribute to real solutions to some pretty pressing

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problems: climate change, unhealthy living conditions, housing shortage, loss of traditional skills and resilience. I am a woman with a big vision, and I desire to extend my reach, because I have something to share. Thus started a 6 year journey to find a way to translate vague yearnings into an online offering I was able to deliver. I started by learning lots about online courses, launches, and the technology. Things have been evolving so fast in this arena, I was fascinated and often overwhelmed. I purchased quite a few online programs, and found I adore online learning. The years passed, and life kept being busy, and I kept making excuses why I wasn’t ready to create one myself. The two major obstacles for me were perfectionism and the fear of speaking on camera. I was overthinking things big time. And I was also paying too much attention to people who were saying something as tactile as earth building cannot be taught online. Thing is, it might not be the right thing for some people to learn this way, but you don’t know if you don’t try. For some it might be just what they were waiting for. Last year I was studying “Integrated Women’s Health” with a woman who is now my favourite teacher of all times (yes, I am not just all about building). Apart from starting to understand a thing or two about myself, I noticed her way of

delivering online, and showing up as herself. Something clicked. Then came lockdown and all of a sudden the world moved online. We trialled our first online workshop, a free pizza oven workshop, to figure out tech and logistics. More than 600 people signed up for that, around 40 people were on the live calls, and 5 ovens were built in real-time. The replay of this workshop is still available for free on our website, with people from all over the world accessing it every week. This makes me extremely happy! After this encouraging experience, I sat down and put the concept of what else I wanted to teach on paper, and realized it would take me around 3 months to fit it all in. I wrote: “Worst case scenario, no one signs up but I still commit to finally producing online lessons as I show up to calls live and imagine I am talking to real people. Best case scenario 20 people sign up and we have a ball.” And thus the Earth Building Academy was conceived and launched at the start of this year. We have just concluded the first round and I am overjoyed to report that the best case scenario has come true! We have aimed the program at owner builders and design professionals (architectural and permaculture design). These are the people who usually attend our hands-on workshops. While a week’s in-person immersion in our work is a great experience, we have always felt it also has its drawbacks... It often isn’t straightforward for participants to get started with their own local materials, and we still end up consulting over email/ zoom when it comes to implementation.

PHOTO, TOP -

Sampling earthen top coat plasters

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We also have found there is a bit of outdated information floating around that doesn’t support firmly moving natural building into the spotlight it deserves. People often think it is too hard or takes too long, it is too “rustic”, too expensive, dirty, not durable enough, doesn’t perform well in earthquakes and the list goes on. I don’t have to tell anyone here that earth can be a stateof-the-art building material and how fortunate we are to have the NZ Earth Building Standards. We have extensive experience in their good performance in extreme conditions such as wind-driven rain and earthquakes. This information needs to get out more!

REPORT

The topics we covered in the inaugural class of our Earth Building Academy were:

people one on one if that’s required in the implementation phase.

• Introduction to Earth Building

We found great delight in this form of teaching, because we could break it up into digestible chunks and spend more time teaching things in more depth than during our in-person workshops. The whole program at the moment has more than 35 hours of lectures and demos. From the feedback received so far, participants really appreciated the format and feel empowered to do their own thing now. The main challenge was to find a time that suited people in many different time zones. We were doing most

• Evaluation of Soils, Soil and Material Testing • Retrofitting with Earthen Materials (LEM and Daubed Earth) • Earthen and Lime Plasters • Natural Paints • Earthen Floors • Earth Building Design • Calculations and Consents • Load-bearing Wall Systems • (Light) Adobe Manufacture and Construction • Building Site Logistics • Adobe Veneer and Wall-finishing • Deciding which Technique to choose We had two classes per week for 12 weeks: One lecture and one hands-on demonstration, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. We have a facebook group where participants can share their own projects and progress, exchange ideas and get their questions answered for 12 months. And we are going to work with

PHOTO, LEFT -

Making adobe floor tiles PHOTO, TOP -

Scott Davison and Adobe Brick Construction in the open air film studio PHOTO, RIGHT -

Making natural paints

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calls in the evening, but were running out of light as Summer was coming to an end. Next time we will have days getting longer, and we are also looking at setting up an indoor teaching space where we can film demos out of the weather. All the recordings were loaded to a shared course platform along with hand-outs, time-stamped Q&A sessions and case studies, where people can access them in their own time for life. We are keen to run this program live again, rather than just turning it into evergreen courses. It was such a joy to interact with students from all over the world and from many different walks of life. It was particularly meaningful for me to have two students from Western Asia (Lebanon and Jordan), where a lot of the ancestry of some of these techniques is based. They would not be able to travel to an international conference or workshop in the current political reality, yet through the power of the world wide web we could create connections and exchange knowledge and inspiration. The other thing I loved was that 75% of the participants were women. Gender parity in construction is something I am passionate about. I feel it is important to create space for the other 50% of humanity’s talent pool to manifest visions for the built environment. We need female mentors who inspire the next generation of women in construction.

AUTHOR BIO Verena Maeder is an earth building artisan with 30 years experience in the construction of earth buildings. Through her business Solid Earth Ltd she has been a driving force in natural building in NZ since 2002. Together with her partner Scott they run an adobe brick manufacture in Nelson and have to date carried out 200+ building projects in New Zealand and abroad. She has trained in Architecture as well as Building Biology and Ecology (BBE) in Switzerland. Working with her hands instead of carrying out desk-based design work is a lifestyle choice for her and she really enjoys teaching and sharing her extensive practical knowledge. Verena was part of the committee in charge of the 2020 revision of the NZ Earth Building Standards, is an active EBANZ member, and received the 2017 Tradeswoman of the Year Award by the National Association of Women in Construction.

We will open registrations again in August, for a start sometime in September. For those interested in being alerted about this, we invite you to join our mailing list: www.earthbuildingschool.com

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PHOTO, TOP -

Vege gardens in front of the house provide nutrition for the humans within! BOTTOM, LEFT -

In the kitchen the hemp walls have been lime plastered up to above door height, and above left raw for aesthetics and acoustic control.

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REPORT

Kohumaru Hemp House After nearly two years, and in time for winter, these owner builders enjoy their move into their hempcrete home. BY TOBY RICKETTS In the 23 months since we first turned sod on the Hempcrete house project here in Northland, we have gone from a bare site to a 6-metre-tall structure, from freezing winters to baking summers, and from being an absolute DIY novice to knowing a great deal about how to successfully build a house out of hempcrete! We are now living in our 3 bedroom, 150 sqM dwelling just in time for the cold days to set in – and the decision to use hempcrete has really paid off. We currently have no heating in the house at all and rely exclusively on solar gain through our large north facing windows and elevated clerestory windows to catch the winter sun as it dips and shines in below our wide eaves to reach the back of the house, warming the floor and the thermal mass of our internal hempcrete walls. The internal house temperature currently varies between 18 and 21 degrees, while outside the mercury currently fluctuates between high twenties and has been down to 5 degrees overnight. We originally sought hempcrete as not only a high-performance, non-toxic, eco-friendly building material, but because it would keep the house cool in summer. Being off-grid, we have limited options for cooling the house without using electricity, so opted to insulate and increase our building’s thermal inertia as a way of keeping cool. This past summer the house performed very well in this regard. Whilst the internal finishing work was still underway we left all the windows open overnight to let out all of the hot air and the

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house cooled down to around 12 degrees C. We then shut all the openings and enjoyed an internal temperature between 13 – 20, with the internal walls cool to the touch, as the outside air soared to over 30 degrees most days. It made for a very refreshing work site! Now the seasons have shifted we reverse the process, shutting openings overnight to keep the heat in and opening them when the outside temperature exceeds internal during the day. When the sun sets, having warmed our internal and external walls, the heat is released and the insulation keeps that heat in for most of the night, only dropping about 3 degrees over the 10 hours of nightfall and maintaining a comfortable environment – all with no heating. Once we get the flue for our Homewood Heritage woodstove installed, we plan to walk around inside in bathing suits for most of the winter! The other decision we came to was to only partially lime-render the interior and exterior of the building. Lime plaster is traditionally applied to the hempcrete surfaces to protect them from weather and damage, but this is not the only means of finishing the walls. We were helped in the lime plastering mission by Stephen Moller from Limewave in Auckland, who spent 3 weeks on site with us and advising us on the best method to get the plaster on the walls. Having completely plastered the master bedroom as an experiment we found that the hard plaster finish coupled with the hardwood floors made for a very unpleasant acoustically resonant environment. As a sound engineer by trade, I was not comfortable with this and preferred the acoustic quality of the unrendered hempcrete which has an incredible capacity to absorb sound. While it wouldn’t be appropriate to leave all of the hempcrete exposed (due to the risk of wear and tear on

this somewhat fragile surface) we opted to render up to just above door height in all living areas and leave above this as unrendered hempcrete. We did need to spray the unrendered hempcrete with a sodium silicate product (water glass) as this bound the loose surface particles together to prevent dust and flaking over time. The Sodium Silicate still allows the walls to breathe and not lose any thermal performance and is also relatively non-toxic. We applied it with a paint sprayer which made fast work of the task.

hard plastered rooms. In our place the sound is reflected upwards and then absorbed by the strip of hempcrete that encircles the room. Very useful when your three-yearold is running through the house booming and shrieking!

BOTTOM, RIGHT -

Some areas we opted to leave entire feature walls as raw hempcrete to break up the open plan space and highlight feature walls in the lounge. In these areas we used three coats of Sodium Silicate which produced an attractive and very hard-wearing surface.

You can find out more about how the house was built by subscribing to my YouTube channel at www. youtube.com/tobyricketts where I am posting weekly detailed videos about how everything was designed and executed over the two years.

TOP, RIGHT - Three natural materials working together; lime, hemp and timber

The acoustics in our cavernous living space are very pleasing, with no resonances or reverb as you might expect within Gib-lined, or

Anyone interested in building a hempcrete house is welcome to come and visit to experience the nice feeling it gives.

PHOTOS, THIS PAGE: TOP LEFT - The kids bedrooms also leave the upper part of the hempcrete wall exposed to absorb sound

The contrast between the rendered and unrendered hempcrete is an interesting feature

BOTTOM, LEFT -

Looking at the front entrance showing the exposed exterior hempcrete alongside the Western Red Cedar weatherboards

RIGHT -

PHOTOS, OPPOSITE PAGE: LEFT - Nearing completion, the house faces North to take advantage of the warmth of the sun.

With it’s striking stratification, we’ve left the Western exterior wall exposed but with Sodium Silicate applied. This will be a true test of the durability of hempcrete.

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In short, our bold experiment to build the first Hempcrete house in Northland/Auckland, do it on stilts, and do it pretty much all ourselves has paid off. It was an audacious experiment but a decision we are very happy with.

PROJECT INFO: DESIGNED BY: Owner DRAFTSMAN: Danny Hancox @ Coppermine CAD ENGINEER: Haigh Workman BUILDER: Bruce Jackson and Owner YEAR STARTED/FINISHED: 2019 / 2021 FLOOR AREA: internal 145 sqM, footprint 150 sqM SITE ZONE: Rural PRIMARY BUILDING SYSTEM/METHOD: Hempcrete, insitu infill TIMBER STRUCTURE AND FRAMING: Finished in Gum / lawson Cyprus / WR cedar / Japanese Cedar PERCENT SALVAGED/RECYCLED: 10%

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AUTHOR BIO Toby Ricketts has lived in the Far North of New Zealand for eight years, and resides near Mangonui with his wife Marianna and two children on six acres of old growth NZ jungle. Professionally, he works in the creative industries as a voiceover artist and audio engineer, as well as being a documentary filmmaker. For the past four years he has embarked on an ambitious project to build the first consented, suspended floor Hemcrete house in New Zealand. Despite having never conceived, designed, or built a significant structure before, Toby and his wife have designed, project managed and mostly built this structure themselves.

REPORT

BLENDING OLD ADOBE

with updated technology

Retired couple Graeme and Robyn start again with a fresh build, blending old and new technology and a desire to have long lasting ‘green’ materials. By Graeme Wells

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We were happily retired in our ‘forever’ house (timber-framed on a pole-platform) which we helped build on our small ‘lifestyle’ property on a steep north-facing hillside in Golden Bay, two hours drive west of Nelson over Takaka Hill. Over 20 years here and we had eliminated virtually all of the pest plants; gorse, barberry, yellow jasmine, pellitory of the wall, etc. Rocks were moved to more stable and useful positions and seemingly neverending bucketsful of stones, extracted as vegetable gardens were established, were used to help form a network of tracks giving easy access to all parts of the property. The benign climate allowed the orchard establishment to include subtropicals such as avocado, cherimoya, casimiroa and ladyfinger bananas. A wonderful mix of hard work and sheer bliss.

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Suddenly and unexpectedly in early 2012 the property above us came up for sale. Its larger area included some established orchard on a nearlevel plateau with a potentially ideal building site, but the access road was even steeper and longer than we were used to, could we start again at our age? We had a week to decide, we put in our offer which was accepted, then a whole new round of planning started. Could we cope with the complexities of building a new house? Maybe. Tasman District Council advised a geological engineer’s report would be required, leading to testpits and report in early 2014. We needed a house that would still suit as we aged. The site demanded a dwelling that fitted with the landscape and a construction that would be good for at least 100 years. It took many months and much head-scratching to come up with the

PHOTO, TOP -

The North elevation, view from rock garden. Bifold doors open onto GreatRoom. BOTTOM, LEFT -

Adobe block laying. Note reinforcing mesh in mudmortar layer. Verena supervising Robyn. BOTTOM, RIGHT -

Graeme labels electric cable conduits at each stage.

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REPORT

floorplan developed from the original idea for a low cost two bedroom cottage with separate garage into the ‘final’ version three bedroom two shower-room integrated double garage all on one level with near-level entry and decking. At the same time our desire to have long lasting ‘green’ materials where practicable led to initial thoughts of hempcrete, but it transpired the materials would be difficult to source, and the physical work involved probably beyond us. As our plans gradually morphed into the ‘final’ plan, serendipity continued. We discovered the engineer we already knew (Richard Walker) was the NZ expert on earth-building, a recommended builder (Kieron Bryant, Greensaw Construction) was already familiar with working around adobe sites, and a recommended adobe block/brick maker (Verena Maeder, Solid Earth Adobe Buildings) was based ‘just over the hill’ in Nelson. At last, in late 2016 we were under way with building permit obtained, driveway

to house-site, digger levelling of housesite, 64 piles driven for the ‘rib-raft’ concrete foundations, pallets of adobe blocks onsite, wastewater system installed, concrete floor pour completed, and in December Verena’s team started on the actual adobe blocklaying! That meant I was kept busy with installing ‘gringo’ blocks for attachment of window and door frames, shelving etc. Also gringos and plastic conduit for all the electrical switch-boxes. The modern-day update of the traditional ‘gringos’ (wooden blocks the size of an adobe block) were pieces of about 18mm thick timber or ply (set in the mortar line to minimise rebates in the blocks above) and either with a hole so the gringo can slide down over a nearby steel reinforcing ‘ReidBar’ or a widening taper shape to key into the mortar around and block above to prevent the gringo pulling out. Kieron’s gang and Verena’s team coped with all the complications of the plan, including ongoing last- minute

THIS PAGE - PHOTO, ABOVE:

Aerial view of house with landscaping and vista. PHOTOS ON LEFT FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:

View of progress from hillside above site; Laying adobe blocks. Note gringo for electric box; Electric box screwed to gringo, conduit taped to ReidBar and electric box.

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refinements. Although there were some frustrating delays, and a summer punctuated by wet stormy weather, both teams were very good to work with. It was interesting to see the lengths of ReidBar. They looked like standard deformed ‘rebar’ reinforcing except on close inspection one could see the deformation is in a continuous spiral (instead of a pair of opposing semispirals). This allows joining lengths of ReidBar using long threaded nuts, very easy to use and with no loss of strength at the joins. The ReidBar was cut to convenient lengths for lifting the adobe blocks into place and ultimately projected about 125mm above the top of the adobe wall. A 200x75 continuous timber tie beam was fitted to these ends and tightened down with square washers and nuts. It was very comforting to get reports from Richard that inspection of earth buildings following the Christchurch earthquake revealed houses constructed to the new standards performed well whereas some other earth buildings were damaged. Also that tests by Auckland University of a test wall at Verena’s yard had considerably exceeded expectations of resistance to damage by severe shaking. We are indeed lucky that NZ has these new earth building standards. Another modern update was the use

of lightweight adobe blocks which are made of paper pulp (pulped shredded paper), clay and wood shavings, a little more expensive but half the mass, better insulation value, better at holding screw fastenings, and slightly less wearing on drill bits. The walls of the north part of the house, including bedroom 1 and 2, are 430mm thick, and the walls of the south part are 280mm thick. The exterior window sills (and pavers) were made onsite in timber moulds using a 5:1 mix of local 15mm crushed dolomite rock (from Sollys) and standard cement. When the concrete was nearly set the aggregate was exposed by brushing while gently flooding with water. Although no reinforcing was used, only two of the longest ones cracked when the cured sills were removed from the moulds. The interior sills were from 30~50mm red beech / macrocarpa / acacia decurrens all with a natural edge at the front. Although milled many years ago, the decurrens (used also for the vanity tops and chosen for its interesting grain) has continued to move after fitting. Macrocarpa was used for exterior beams as well as the Great Room T&G ceiling, kitchen shelving, and veneers to all the lintels. Macrocarpa and Lusitanica T&G were used for the soffit linings. A feature is the amazing solid interior doors made by Kieron using 3 layers of Deodar cedar. To

THIS PAGE PHOTO, BOTTOM LEFT:

Aerial view with vegetable garden at the west side of the house. PHOTOS ABOVE, FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:

Top plate bolted to ReidBar; Making pavers (similar to sill making); Plastering Goldfoam layer on outside of floor slab.

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PHOTOS - CLOCKWISE FROM TOP, LEFT:

1/Making a recess; 2/Fitting treated external sill support; 3/Internal sill fitted in office. Etched glass is by front door opening; 4/Preparing for an internal sill; 5/Fitting concrete external sill. Note, waterproofed cloth still to be trimmed, and plastic mesh to help adhesion of limeplaster; 6/Mould for external window sills; 7/Verena applying second coat of limeplaster.

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🏡🏡 CLIFFTOP HOUSE

D E

H S

↕ steep bank ↕

MITE

P A T

ITE

groundcover planting

N LO

TH PA

DOLO

g p ro la

u n n ti d n

c g o

↕

↕ steep bank ↕

↕

Timber Decking

7800x8400 pitched t&g ceiling

dining table

couch

⟵trays under

⟵ceiling shaft for skylight

⟵ Velux

fridge

Appliance Bench timber shelves over

SS tub+bench

micro wave

timber shelves

ROOM measurements are between walls. WALL thicknesses are nominal… adobe 450 or 300; framed 100 or 75

side table

blanket box

2300x3550 flat gib.ceiling

ferns etc

Aquila shower 1.0x1.0m

Timber Decking

ROCKS

PAT H

TURNPARK AREA

ROCK

2050x1700 flat gib.ceiling

Garage 7540x6320 flat ply ceiling

Garage concrete apron

DRIV

Electric switchbox

Storage Bay

SCALE

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UV FILTER

08C034 BLAZESTOP VARIABLE SPEED PUMP

PLAN CLIFFTOP HOUSE

Robe

ENTRY

Shwr2

Robe

RADIATORS

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1850x2280 flat gib.ceiling

Coats

⇐ 280 light adobe wall

Stormwater pipe Sump Downpipe

OfÞce desk

Manhole

m²

Living area = 216.81 Adobe wall area = 28.39 Avail.Living area = 188.42 Garage area = 53.46 Total Enclosed = 270.27 Veranda area = 161.69 Total Roof cover= 431.96

recess

flat gib.ceiling

STORE

Slider

veranda eaves 1.5 wide

DIMENSIONS:

tallboy

Sewing&Craft

files

Entry

4100x2900 flat gib.ceiling

1050

↑ wall recess

WM+ dryer store

Bed3

Wetwall rose shower1050

4050x3700 flat gib.ceiling

To NE gully

TV etc

1200

freeze

4100x2700 flat gib.ceiling

WALL

wall →

coffee table

Utility SS bench + tub

tiled 650 mixer area

1850x1240 flat gib.ceiling

TV alcove

skylight

gas line

GAS

small couch

Kitchen area

350

Hall

PopUp electric sockets (stainless steel)

bookshelf

Robe

3000x1100 Island Bench Mercer brushed stainless steel with twin 'Bella' sinks

timber shelves

Slider

3900x3550 flat gib.ceiling

RO up CK ST to v EPS ⇐ gar ege den ⇐

towels

rounded corners

gla s 11 s scre 25 x 2 en 20 0→

veranda eaves 1.5m wide

Bed2

Pantry

AREAS

ø560 x2045

linen ⟵ drawers under

Bed1

2450x3700 flat gib.ceiling HWC wetback ready 300L

RO CK S

⇐300x200 beam pver

ROCK

Gourmet logfire → [with 8KW wetback HW boost]

Shwr1

Stacker-slider

To Tank

side table

3900x3700 flat gib. ceiling

GREATROOM

← wall recess

dressing table

Leather couch

(1m high)

SunRoom

3650 Timber shelves over stove SS Appliance Bench 900mm

10850

veranda eaves 1.5m wide

To NW gully

300 adobe wall →

towel rail

Bifold

⇐ 430 light adobe wall

'overlight' above

1800x750 old bath

trifold

sideboard

450

trifold

groundcover planting

Timber Decking North eaves 1.3m wide

maintain the ‘breathable’ nature of the adobe walls, they were finished on the outside with limeplaster and Keim mineral paint, and inside with ‘mud’ and casein paint. The interior timber framed walls and ceilings were all lined with Gib and finished with Resene Zylone or Lustacryl. The house has veranda eaves all around, mostly 1500mm wide, supported by recycled eucalyptus hardwood telegraph posts. The wide eaves allow winter solar gain, yet shield the hot summer sun, and also protect the lime-plaster walls from all but the worst rain storms. The roof is Colorsteel on timber trusses, with scissor trusses giving a pitched ceiling in the Great Room. In summer, the 10 PV (PhotoVoltaic) solar panels heat most of our hot water and in winter the wetback on the Gourmet logfire helps. The original 10 panels will soon be augmented with 13 more so that in conjunction with a future BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) and V2H (Vehicle-to-House) technology we should become virtually independent of the mains electric grid. That will nicely supplement all the already wonderful aspects of the house.

AUTHOR BIO Graeme is a retired high school teacher and Robyn has retired from the hospitality industry. Their love of Golden Bay was so great their ‘holiday house’ became their home and was extended (by Graeme). They have a shared passion for gardening, gorse, barberry, and the like gradually giving way to native bush, vegetable and ornamental gardens and an orchard.

PROJECT INFO: ARCHITECT: Owner designed DRAFTSMAN: Danny Hancox @ Coppermine CAD ENGINEER: Richard Walker BUILDER: Kieron Bryant, Greensaw Construction / Verena Maeder, Solid Earth / Owner Builder YEAR STARTED/FINISHED: 2016-2018 FLOOR AREA: Internal 188m², external 216m2 total, Garage 53m²Bedrooms/ bathrooms:3 bedrooms / 2 bathrooms

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Although the final cost blowout stretched the budget way beyond original expectations, the end result has been worth every bit of effort, stress and cost. We’re in awe that this is for real and not just a fleeting dream! Link to a Youtube video about the production of adobe blocks: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rA47zZiMYc

SITE ZONE: Rural PRIMARY BUILDING SYSTEM/METHOD: Timber/Adobe TIMBER USED: Mostly Macrocarpa, some Radiata (roof trusses, top-plates etc, plywood built-in joinery), some Douglas fir (internal wall framing), Deodar Cedar (interior doors), some Blackwood, Acacia, Beech (shelves, benches, interior sills) TIMBER STRUCTURE AND FRAMING: Finished in Gum / lawson Cyprus / WR cedar / Japanese Cedar PERCENT SALVAGED/RECYCLED: none/5% (veranda posts are recycled hardwood power-poles). All timber sourced locally (Nelson area): Backwood, Acacia, Beech and some Macrocarpa milled from trees grown on our previous (adjacent) property

EVENTS

What’s on If you have events or courses you would like listed in a future Earthbuilding Magazine, please email the details to: FAITH AROHA GOULD EMAIL: editor@earthbuilding.org.nz

EARTH BUILDING ONLINE ACADEMY 2021 Registrations open August 2021 We are currently developing new online courses, one with focus on load-bearing adobe brick for house building, and one with focus on DIY interior earthen features in timber-framed homes. These courses will give you all the required technical and practical information to fast track your building project and will be backed up by live Q&A sessions and skype consultancies with Verena. Earth-Building Online Courses & Tuition If you wish to receive a notification when these courses go live, please sign up to our email list. www.earthbuildingschool.com

7-DAY STRAW BALE INTENSIVE WORKSHOP 16th - 23rd October 2021 Geraldine, South Island Hosted by Sol Design, our week-long straw bale design and construction workshops are a blend of both theory (classroom) and practical (hands-on) experience. Your tutors will guide you through each step of the building process, from foundations to finish work. Come prepared to learn a lot and gain some hands-on experience designing and building straw bale wall systems. www.soldesign.co.nz

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EBANZ NATURAL BUILDING CONFERENCE 2021 Sat 6 and Sun 7 November 2021 Optional House Tour on Mon 8 November 2021 Nelson/Tasman Presentations - Hands-on Demos - House Tours Keep up-to-date with conference news by signing up to our newsletter and liking us on facebook. www.earthbuilding.org.nz or www.facebook.com/earthbuilding

CHECK OUT EVENTS AT: www.koanga.org.nz/gardens/ workshops/ www.permaculture.org.nz/events www.korito.co.nz

WORKSHOP

WORKSHOP / FOXTON Introduction to Natural Building, Foxton Beach, Summer 2021. Hosted by Blue Forsythe and Tom Beauchamp Article by Tom Beauchamp

Natural Building

Taking place over two weekends more than a dozen people from around the country (and originating from around the world) gathered to learn about natural building on a residential site in Foxton Beach. Argentinian, French, Brazilian, Rarotongan, English, Chilean, and Kiwis, from backgrounds in Architecture, Building Recycling, Sustainable Building, Owner Builders, and those curious to find out more made for a fascinating mix and great conversations. We packed a lot into four days! The basic structure of the workshop was:

Weekend 1: Wall systems Day 1. After a brief overview of natural building, we looked at clay selection, analysis, and field testing, then some heavy weight wall systems and methods experimenting with cob and adobe. After lunch we looked at light earth, then wrapped up talking about rammed earth, pressed block and a general Q&A. Day 2. The main focus was on straw bale building. We talked about load bearing and non-loadbearing, bale selection and handling, then installed a wall’s worth of bales including resizing, truing up the wall, trimming, prepping for plaster and cut a couple of alcoves. We

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finished the day introducing plastering in a “watch this space” kind of way as this would be the topic for the next weekend. There was a break of three weeks between the workshop weekends to do more wall building and allow the wall systems to dry sufficiently before plastering.

Weekend 2: Clay and lime plasters and earthen floors. Day 3. After a brief introduction and recap of the previous weekend we went on to discuss different substrates and necessary preparation thereof including bracing, plaster stops, incorporation of services and transitions between differential materials. After morning tea the group mixed and applied (by hand) the body coat plaster on a straw bale wall, then we looked at finish coat plasters and using a hawk and trowel. The day finished with cursory look at clay based paints and other finish coatings for plaster work. Day 4. On the last day we looked at lime; covering the lime cycle, material preparation and safety, application and after care. The participants then lime plastered the

exterior of the light earth wall and some of the cob and adobe brick walls. For the second half of the day we focused on earthen floors, showing samples of linseed oil and wax covered clay test blocks, then installed and compacted (by dancing method) some of the base course of floor. The workshop teaching methodology was a combination of theory discussion, often with the aid of white board illustrations, and demonstrations with hands on opportunities. Blue and I shared the leading roles in various parts. In the natural building world the definition of a “workshop” seems varied, for us when people are paying to come and be educated the accent should be on their learning as much as possible, not about achieving a lot of building work. In Foxton the amount of actual building progress was fairly minimal but enough for people to get a sense of the practical nature of the work, doing several wall systems in the same structure was also a very good comparison of each method. After the formal workshop we had a couple of “working bees” where people didn’t pay and were fed, this focused on getting more work done and offered people a more extended, practical experience. The overall response from participants has been very positive and we will keep developing learning opportunities in natural building. Another outcome from the workshop was some great photos from Diego: Instagram: @dgovila (Illustrating this article) and video from Paul for promotion and educational support eg: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Mq89hobCS2o&t=136s. The workshop was covered by TV3’s “the project” giving earth building a bit of main stream promotion.

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AUTHOR BIO Blue Forsyth is a passionate advocate for affordable, healthy and sustainable housing, especially the use of natural materials. His special interest is in developing methods of earth and straw bale construction suited to our challenging economic and climatic conditions whilst improving environmental outcomes. He has been active in earth building for over 30 years. During this period, he has worked extensively with the Heritage New Zealand to help preserve our earth building heritage as well as working on many modern earth and straw bale buildings. Blue has been promoting the earth and straw bale building options through both formal and informal courses and workshops. He developed and tutored a Certificate course in Natural Building through the Aoraki Polytechnic (now Ara Institute of Canterbury) in Timaru. Blue also holds a Bachelor of Resource Studies from Lincoln University. In 2018, Blue and family relocated to Foxton Beach from where he continues to offer a range of services to those wishing to pursue natural building options, from friendly support, education and consultation to materials testing and construction. He is also continuing to experiment with new products and building methods especially around improving carbon balance. Tom Beauchamp is Blue’s sidekick!

To hear about future workshops contact us via email: naturalbuildingotaki@gmail.com or learn more at our website: www.naturalbuild.nz

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