Blog
Pocket Shelter gets some local airtime
Fox Carolina’s Will Jones recently interviewed me for a feature he put together on the tiny house movement. It’s my first television interview, so please, go easy on me (:
You can view the video here.
Natural Building Extravaganza
Asheville’s exemplary urban eco-education center, the Ashevillage Institute, is hosting a three week series of hands-on educational workshops focused on a broad range of natural building techniques. The following is a partial list from the website:
Earthen wood-heated ovens, stoves, and fireplaces are highlights of the Extravaganza. PLUS techniques to transform an ordinary house into a Temple; the creation of an earthen courtyard; bamboo design & building; timber-framing; earthen relief, sculpture, arches, niches, and more…
I am pleased to be a part of this extraordinary learning experience. I’ll be co-leading two projects with Ira Friedrichs of Smart Feller Treeworks. We’ll be building a micro timber-frame entry portico and a timber tea pagoda.
The Natural Building Extravaganza will take place between April 24 and May 14, 2011. See the event webpage for more info, or email Janell Kapoor.
Changes
my workshop and studio will be seeing some big changes in the next couple of months. the building that houses my shop in downtown asheville has come under the scrutiny of the city and is not up to fire code. the upgrades necessary to achieve compliance are expensive and not in my plans to undertake. relocation of the workshop is still up in the air. i’ll be creating my new office/design studio at home in west asheville, using a salvaged shipping container as the shell. stay posted for status reports and updates.
the pocket shelter prototype (ps1) is almost finished and will also move home to west asheville once completed. i’ll be posting updated photos and details soon.
on salvage
as i continue to explore designing around and building with salvaged materials, i continue to bump up against both the synergy and magic that can arise as well as the challenges and conundrums. now that the siding is installed on the two long walls of ps1, i feel pretty wowed by how beautiful and special salvaged wood, specifically, can be. but i also feel challenged by how much extra time in sourcing, processing, processing, processing, and using salvaged wood has added to the construction timeline.
it gives me insight into why so many building materials end up in the construction dumpsters… it’s not necessarily because folks don’t care about resource use and conservation. often there simply isn’t the budget to pay for the labor required to manage and process leftovers, scraps, recyclables and the like.
likewise, though the salvaged wood and other materials certainly exist to make a bigger showing in our buildings, construction projects, and the built environment; folks who hire craftspeople and workers to realize building projects have a hard time justifying the extra costs incurred in the extra labor to their clients. so, cheaper, more easily available and dimensionally reliable materials get chosen and used. the savings can be significant.
i would estimate that my choice to use solely salvaged wood for the exterior siding and trim added approximately 2-3 weeks to the project so far. of course, i’m doing all the work myself, which affords me a bit of luxury here. which is fortunate because i think the extra effort is well worth it. the results speak for themselves. the texture, beauty and uniqueness of these old growth timbers and boards, with their telltale radial saw marks, paint traces and stains add a quality to this pocket shelter’s appearance and feeling that is hard to put a price tag on.
whether or not the next pocket shelter will get the same 100% salvage treatment for it’s cladding will depend on the desires and values of whoever ends up commissioning ps2.
cold!
perhaps it’s because not too long ago i was swimming in the pacific ocean under a hot sun in mexico… but darn it’s been cold here lately. the snow and ice bring a beautiful sparkle and freshness to the air, but also make it a little hard to work outside or in the unheated studio. today was downright frozen, even at the height of the sun’s path across the beautiful asheville sky. but the chilly weather certainly hasn’t been all bad, a certain little boy and his mama had their first sledding adventures!
and despite the weather and half-numb fingers… progress continues on the pocket shelter prototype. now working on rough plumbing and electrical, preparing for the installation of the rest of the wall and ceiling insulation.
