The Boathouse is really taking shape! I left Apro for a few weeks and when I came back I was delighted by the transformation - roof nearly complete, sixth wall built, so much plastering done… It’s looking pretty nifty these days - love the roof line. Very pleased that I was a part of it’s construction.
Plastering the kitchen in the meeting hall at Aprovecho (my first job as a paid natural builder…!)
Wooden lath was nailed up, test patches were mixed and slapped on the wall (we ended up going with the 3 sand to 1 clay recipe) and then away we went. Three plasterers including myself, and one guy making mixes, 6 days, and 10,000 square feet of wall = a complete base plaster. Sometime soon the space will get a finish lime plaster, but I won’t be around for it. I had so much fun on this project. I can really see myself improving as a plasterer - getting faster and more confident. Everyone on our crew was very happy with the result, and the client approved too!
The last week of the Shelter Series at Aprovecho was devoted to earthen floors. Here’s the lovely finished floor, just after we burnished it. It has been drying now for 2 weeks and is looking pretty good. Soon we will seal and wax it and then it will be properly finished!
Last week during the Shelter Series at Aprovecho we did a lot of plastering - here’s a cob wall with some sculptural elements that we put a finish plaster on.
This image of a tree appeared on the bottom of a barrel that I was burning the paint off of last week. The barrel was used to build the rocket mass heater that you see in the second photo. I love that several beautiful things came from such an ungraceful object.
Over the course of the last week we learned about a variety of wall systems, including strawbale, slip ‘n’ chip, adobe, cob, hempcrete, and light straw clay. This is the light straw clay wall of The Boathouse. Ladder trusses are put in place and then forms are tacked on to hold the straw (which has been coated with clay slip) in while it is being tamped down. Once a few sections are done the forms can be moved up so you can build higher, or the forms can be taken off entirely. The wall will take about 3 months to dry thoroughly, and then it will be time to plaster!
It’s week 4 of the Shelter Series at Aprovecho, and the walls of the Boathouse are going up. The north and northeast walls are made out of strawbales. I’m finding that building with strawbales seems fast because the walls just pile up, but you spend a lot of time working on the finishing details. The 3rd picture above shows the chinking process, where we were stuffing the cracks with light clay straw in an effort to plug holes and make the wall flatter for plastering. I know from a bit of experience that plastering the strawbale wall will be pretty tricky - but it is a super insulative material so, as with most things, there are pros and cons.
Our yurt as it looks at the end of week 3 of the Shelter Series at Aprovecho. The design was inspired by Bill Coperthwaite’s yurts, but the project was led by Kiko Denzer, who is exploring stick and mud yurt designs. The lattice walls lean outward from the 10 foot diameter base. There is a bamboo compression ring at the base of the wall, and a bamboo tension ring at the top of the wall. The reciprocal roof is held in place by another compression ring. The tension and compression rings are several layers of split bamboo held together by numerous baling twine clove hitch knots. The walls still need to be wattled and daubed and then plastered, and the roof will be made from either bender board or a recycled billboard.
Bamboo and baling twine compression ring for the top of our yurt!
On Friday at Aprovecho we raised the timber frame of The Boathouse. It went spectacularly well. All the joints fit well and it went up with relative ease. Once standing the frame looked pretty impressive. I especially like the framing on the south side where the french doors will go.
Next step: strawbale and light straw clay walls!
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Chicken Coupe
