From the ground up ~ approaches to building a foundation for your natural building

The foundation of your natural building needs to be well-considered as the integrity of your building rests here. Decisions you make about your foundation depend on the materials you have available, the type of ground you have to build on and what carbon footprint you...

Owner-builder journey ~ Franz Muhl: Energy flows where attention goes

In this edition of the Owner-builder journey, Franz Muhl writes about a mud brick addition to his Scarborough home: “Let me build a home from fertile materials that is beautiful and healthy to live in, have a very low footprint and would grow a forest if you...

Lebone Village launch

Imagine being outside on a chilly Free State winter morning with the sun just coming out and starting to gently warm your body. Now imagine being told to take off your shoes in order to trudge in icy cold mud. I glanced at my fellow volunteers and I saw a collective...

Owner-builder journey ~ Building ‘home’

In the first edition of the Owner-builder journey, Laurie Simpson writes about the challenges of building with mud in on the edge of Hwange National park, Zimbabwe. Seven years ago, after years of travelling, looking for the next adventure and never feeling like I...

Understanding Earth II: Testing earth

By Peter McIntosh (Please note that in order to understand what is written here you will need to have read my previous post on understanding earth)   Earth requires two properties to make it strong enough for building, compressive and tensile strength. In much the...