The Natural Building Collective Blog
Student build story | Living buildings, Living food
James Kuiper harnesses the living, breathing climate that natural buildings produce to create the healthy supportive environments that the delicately-resilient microbial cultures need to thrive.
3 Things you need to know about the Heideveld Edu Hub
Like the Ulwazi ECD centre in Delft, the GCU Edu Hub, will be built from natural and sustainable building materials. We’ll be using +- 5000 rammed earth tyres to create the walls with eco brick and glass bottle details, cob, and natural plasters.
Sustainable building at Ulwazi Educare
Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it took a team of dedicated, talented & passionate humans to pull off a project like Ulwazi Educare.
Helderberg eco edu-centre
An eco-friendly, multi-purpose centre is being built from tyres, rammed earth, and eco-bricks in the beautiful Helderberg Nature Reserve.
Offgrid humanitarianism ~ Podcast featuring Peter McIntosh
Patrick Lunt from Offgrid vision recently had a chat with Peter McIntosh from the Natural Building Collective about his experience living offgrid since 1999.
The story of the Delft ECD Training Centre
The Training Centre is a passive solar, earth sheltered building out of tyres, cob, compressed earth bricks, ecobricks and glass bottles at the Delft Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre. The design is centered around minimizing the use of cement and concrete...
Owner-builder journey: living the simple life living alongside wildlife
Laurie first wrote for us back in 2014 about her journey as an owner-builder and the challenges of building with mud on the edge of Hwange National park, Zimbabwe. She recently posted an update and we knew our readers would want to see what she's been up to... Their...
Straw bale walls prove resilient in the face of fires
2017 saw the devastating effects of fire across the world. In South Africa we witnessed fires in the Garden route, Gordon's bay and Cape Point to name a few. The devastating California wild fires left thousands homeless. Yet, straw bale houses have proved to be...
Thanks for an awesome 2017!
"The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty." - Roland Tiangco As the end of the year approaches, we want to wish you well over the festive season, and thank you for your support in 2017. You helped us finish the Delft Early Childhood...
Q&A with Anita Venter, from Start Living Green grassroots development in Bloemfontein
In honour of women's day we asked Anita Venter a few questions about her grassroots development initiative using sustainable building methods in Bloemfontein. We have great admiration for the shack replacement initiative and what she has done to empower her change...