Here are some pictures of me working on sawing and chiseling my very first timber frame member…

Timber frame sawing with a special Japanese hand saw

Here I am chiseling the surface perfectly flat – 90 degrees in both x and y axis.  It was so hard to do that I had to do it 2x and cut the whole thing back half an inch before I got it right.

Chiseling at 90 degrees perfectly flat to 1/32′ of an inch

Here you can see special markings indicating where and how the beam should be placed

Look at the cool suction marks that happened - looks like a tree branch...

I spent hours sanding my chisel on progressively finer japanese water sanding blocks – from 600 grit, to 800, to 1200, to 2000, to 8000 grit. Phew!  That was intense!

Here you can see how dull it is after only the first level of sanding (half an hour or so of work)

Here finally after about 3 hours or so, you can start to see the reflection of the trees above through the shine – WOW!

Even the insects are 'green' & sustainable!

Sometimes, the coolest bugs would drop by….

Laying out the timber beams to cut the mortise & tennon joints

There were about 20 of us, off and on, cutting, sawing, chiseling the joints in many pieces of timber – it was a joyous experience for several days….

Taking a break for lunch and giving thanks for the scrumptious meals that I helped Paula Baker Laporte make as well each day

Detail of Japanese Timber Frame brace - one of the pieces that I made...

Detail of a timber frame joint connection in process of coming together

Standing in front of a great accomplishment finally with the team – Feeling the satisfaction of one beam integrated with 2 posts and the second horizontal member ‘Japanese Brace’ all in place finally on the first side of the square – Yeah!!!

Retrograde motion of Mars. Image credit: NASA

Mercury normally turns retrograde three times a year, but this year he this planet shows up four times, which is unusual. The effects of each period differ slightly, according to the moon sign in which it happens.

In general, when a planet is retrograde, you may find a certain consistency as to particular kinds of events that are related to their specific sphere of influence.  Things like unresolved issues from the past can begin to appear.  See: http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/mercury/mercury-retrograde/

Ancient people have known about the planets since we were able to look up. Some stars were brighter than the rest, and seemed to move across the sky from night to night. These moving stars were known as planets, and there were 5: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. But the movements of the planets were puzzling to ancient astronomers. Some times the planets would slow down, go backwards, and then go forwards again. When a planet goes backwards, it’s called retrograde, and one of the best planets for this is Mercury.

Mercury has a very elliptical orbit as it moves around the sun much faster than the earth does.  When it is at the slowest point in its orbit, it is the furthest from the Sun.  See http://www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html

In general, Mercury rules thinking and perception, processing and disseminating information and all means of communication, commerce, education and transportation.

Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.

It is not exactly wise to make important decisions while Mercury is retrograde, since it is likely that such decisions will be clouded by misinformation, poor communication and careless thinking. Mercury is all about mental clarity and the power of the mind, so when Mercury is retrograde these intellectual characteristics tend to be less acute than usual, as the critical faculties are dimmed. Make sure you pay attention to the small print!

The way to move with the flow of when we are in Mecury retrograde is to expect things to change on a dime, to experience blocks or impediments as a message to slow things down and wait a bit rather than get into your usual frustration that things are not moving as quickly and easily as you want it to.

Anticipate unresolved issues from the past to come up and allow yourself to finally deal with them to clear them out.  This is always a really good time to do your back log of filing and paperwork, to clean out your closets, to re-organize your internal & external planning structures.  Go with this flow and it will move faster in these kinds of things to clear & clean out any kinds of clutter you may have accumulated lately.

The God Mercury

Mercury Retrograde Dates 2010

• April 17-May 11
• August 20 – September 12
• December 10-December 29

Mercury Retrograde Dates 2011

• March 30-April 23
• August 2 – August 26
• November 23 – December 13

Mercury Retrograde Dates 2012

• March 11-April 4
• July 14 – August 7
• November 6 – November 26

Ancient symbol of mercury

Green Living Show booth 2010

This year, the Green Living Show booth was designed and built in a wonderfully integrated, smoothly flowing, artistically  intuitive way, with myself, Glen Byron & Melinda Zytaruk, of the Fourth Pig Workers Co-op.  Creating a simulated outdoor and ‘indoor’ space with a shimmery canopy supported by natural wood logs, the booth had a calming, atmosphere that was admired by many people walking by with big smiles on their faces as they took in the space created.  We also used various subtle, energetic space balancing tools to enhance the space, as well as our own selves.  Our booth was a stark contrast of all-natural, non-toxic materials to most of the booths in the show.

Table display with straw bale wall model underneath

Glen built the curved straw bale wall mock-up weeks in advance, bringing  it, full scale, to the show and adding  a little earth plaster touch up at the last minute.  His natural building craftsmanship  is truly beautiful.

Straw bale wall detail

Curved Straw bale wall with earth plaster & sustainable wood bench by Michael Greenwood of Greenwoodstudio.ca

Curved wall window detail

Melinda and I spent hours taping down the natural reed rug so that it wouldn’t be slippery to walk on during the show.  The double sided tape required to use by the show management was very hard to peel!

Melinda & Ingrid taping down the reed carpet

I designed, cut out, sanded and stained the ‘flat-packable’  plywood tree’s, with a little assistance from Glen.  These trees were designed to be used for future events as well, emulating the tree in the soma earth logo or the curly pig tail/golden spiral of the fourth pig logo.

soma earth tree detail

Flat-packed soma earth trees

Glen seemed to dance as he set up all the log posts & beams, taking intermittent, meditative, skateboarding breaks while getting more supplies or tools.

Side View with Solar Panel (Fourth Pig are certified installers too!)

Front View

We truly made a magical, sacred space, together.  Even the fairies visited our booth!

Fairies visiting...

A Sacred Space

Oval Strawbale House

The Oval Strawbale House has been given an AWARD on April 8, 2010, in the FOUNDING CUSTOM HOME category by the Home Sweet Home Competition;

“The idea for Home Sweet Home sprouted in 2008 during the research and development of OntarioGreenSpec.ca. OntarioGreenSpec.ca is an online directory that was founded by Mindscape Innovations Group (Mindscape) in response to the overwhelming demand for information about green building products and services to serve Ontario’s growing green building market.  Mindscape, experts in green building consulting and certification, developed OntarioGreenSpec.ca as a free directory for use by the public and industry.”

“OntarioGreenSpec.ca exists to shine a bright light on the great products and services available to Ontario’s high performance builders, and to serve Ontario’s green building sector. As such, Home Sweet Home promotes the use of “home-grown” materials.  Not only does a competition entrant need to be located in Ontario, the judging criteria also gives cumulative points for Canadian, Ontarian, and local (within 800km) content, with triple points when the products in the home come from your region of Ontario.”

Elegant. Efficient. Ecological.

From early design considerations of habitat preservation and geopathic energy assessments through to the final stroke of paint, all features were considered for their effect on human health, environment and of course, comfort and beauty.

In our opinion, the Oval Strawbale House exemplifies that which soma earth ARCHITECT and the builder, Evolve Homes, strives to embody in every one of their projects, a home that is all of elegant, efficient and ecological.

Rear View

Elegant

With its elliptical shape borrowed from the natural contours of its surroundings, the house gently perches on a hillside and also based on the sacred geometry of the vesica piscis. The curved walls welcome the sun’s rays into more rooms, for more hours each day than traditional straight walls while simultaneously promoting views of a neighbouring pond. Adjacent shade trees are carefully maintained ensuring seasonal shading and provision of privacy.

Prior to construction, eco-architect, Ingrid Cryns, dowsed for the geopathic earth energy lines to find the best place to position the house to clear the bed, sitting areas for the couch & office as well as the kitchen sink. The architect and owner also identified a very large, three foot diameter, beneficial energy spot on the site and the house was placed so that this energy spot was located just inside at the corner between the living room/mediation room window and upstairs bedroom walls. A plastic line was embedded into the concrete floor slab to connect this spot to the centre of the house at the fireplace to secure the energetic centre of the house with the land. This was the most critical & significant energy enhancing aspect that was implemented. The design of the house with the two curves in plan creates an extremely strong beneficial energy. All together, this creates a very strong sense of well being, joy and calmness when inside the house that is very noticeable to anyone who visits.

Sitting Room with FSC maple floor

Inside, soft finishes including customized sculpted relief work emerging from walls and fireplace surrounds together with luxuriously deep window sills replete with tiled mosaics, complete the unique look and allow personal expression for the Owner, who assisted with design and implementation of such details.

Efficient

Careful attention was paid to sealing of all joints in the building envelope and upgraded conventional insulation. Low- or no-VOC sealants and recycled under-floor insulation, instead of virgin polystyrene, was used. Additionally, this home’s strawbale insulated exterior walls, at + R30, offers significantly better operating performance than ordinary conventional construction methods.

While insulating is important, so too is the notion of massing: using dense materials in which to store and then slowly release heat. A heavy concrete subfloor as well as 1 ½” of plaster on the interior of the bale walls, combine to provide excellent thermal storage capacity. This mass absorbs heat when it is generated via the sun or the radiant floor heat distribution system, and then gently releases this heat again as the air temperature declines. Strategic use of mass provides comfort and efficiency. Working equally well in the summer by robbing the air of its heat as well as humidity to maintain user comfort, this home has no need for mechanical air conditioning.

Masonry Heater - Designed by the Client & Architect

Integration of an historic “kachelofen”, or masonry fireplace, expands the use of mass in this home. Ordinary fireplaces or woodstoves regularly burn uncomfortably hot while also consuming wood inefficiently as up to 70% of the heat escapes through the chimney. Kachelofens incorporate many small channels into specially constructed masonry masses between the firebox and the chimney. These channels absorb the generated heat before it escapes to the chimney – improving efficiencies by a factor of 2x or 3x.

Better still, this mass radiates the captured heat for hours afterward at a slow, gentle pace, allowing the users to bask in a soft, warm glow with all the visual pleasure of an ordinary fireplace.

Meditation room fireplace

Ecological

Local sourcing and use of naturally occurring materials are vital components in reducing the impact of this home. And what could be more local then felling trees from the owner’s surrounding woodlot, milling them on site, having them kiln dried nearby then turning the finished boards into all of the interior doors, cabinet doors, window sills, stair treads and baseboard. To top it all off, literally, natural oil finishes are applied and offer long lasting protection in lieu of ordinary petrochemical based urethanes.

More than simply “low-VOC”, silicate dispersion paints – Canadian  manufactured using silica sand and natural mineral pigments – are used throughout to provide rich colour and naturally mildew-free painted wall finishes. One room was even more specially treated with a clay veneer instead of any paint at all, leaving a suede-like texture that immediately attracts attention. Additionally, some baseboard was sculpted and the fireplace face’s constructed using only earthen based plasters prepared on site from locally available clays. No cement, no polymeric binders…just rich, durable, natural materials.

Kitchen with paperstone counter

Kitchen

Additional Project Details

Energy Savings

• Typical heating energy reduction of 30-50% compared to conventional construction

• Integration into landscape and existing mature trees to provide seasonal shading

• Orientation of major windows primarily toward south & east (primary view of pond) for as much passive solar gain possible through the dense forested site

• No mechanical air conditioning required

• Significant free “daylighting” through strategically located windows to reduce light use

• Further savings in heating costs achievable by owner use of Kachelofen enhanced further if using deadfall trees from own property

• Reduction in embodied energy in building materials through combination of: local sourcing, use of reclaimed/recycled materials and materials requiring fewer processing inputs

• Fibreglass framed windows provide longer life and higher insulating ratings

• Low E coatings on window glazing reduce heat energy from the sun in summer only

• Thermal edge spacers between window panes reduce thermal bridging

• “Massing” strategically used for efficient thermal storage and heat delivery

• Efficient radiant floor heat distribution on main floor and hot water radiators on second storey

• High-efficiency condensing boiler for domestic hot water and all space heating

• High efficiency Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV), professionally balanced on start-up

Stairs

Environmentally Preferred Materials

• Local, reused and reclaimed materials and minimally processed materials reduce embody energy inherent in ordinary construction

• Reclaimed wide plank beech flooring

• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified flooring

• Clay veneer wall finishes

• Earthen-based plaster fireplace facing and embellishments

• Strawbale exterior walls complete with hand-applied plaster finish

• Solid wood flooring

• Natural oil wood finishes

• VOC-free mineral based naturally pigmented paints

• Soy based polyurethane vaulted ceiling insulation

• Simulated, long lasting (50yr warranty) cedar shake roofing invented in Canada (Enviroshake)

• Locally made mineral wool attic insulation

• Interior doors, baseboard, window sills, kitchen cabinet doors and stair treads all made by local craftspeople from trees felled adjacent to house

• Kitchen counter top made from pressed and recycled post-consumer paper waste into resilient, satin finished surface

Wood trim & door detail

Waste Reduction

• Lumber off-cuts stored and sorted for reuse later in project

• Construction waste streamed appropriately for local municipal recycling programs

• No general waste construction bin used on site

Transportation

• House is walkable to community centre, shopping, banks and other amenities

• Staff carpool to site to reduce commuting energy costs; some staff stay temporarily on site during construction, eliminating the need for daily commute

• A south facing Potting Room will enable off-season vegetable greens and fruit to be grown while annuals get a head start on the outdoor planting season thereby reducing reliance on shipped in foodstuffs

3Rd Party Labeling Programs Utilized

• Eco-logo™ certified drywall

• Energy Star™ rated windows

• FSC™ certified hard maple flooring

• HRI Institute™ approved heat recovery ventilator (HRV) unit

Technical Repeatability

• All materials selected currently available in the Ontario market

• Traditional trades can use existing skills applied to alternative materials

• Design strategies customized for this site and user though same rules can be applied differently as appropriate for varying circumstances

Affordability

• Super insulated, environmentally preferable straw bale wall system comparable price to ordinary frame wall with brick or stucco finish

• Site felled trees were prepared for use at similar cost to purchasing raw material with unknown provenance from ordinary lumber suppliers

• Mineral wool batt insulation costs just 5% more than fiberglass though with a higher insulating rating, easier & much healthier to install and advantageous hydro-phobic properties

• Sustainably harvested hard maple flooring with consistent clear grade ordinary maple from unknown sources at traditional retailers

• Quality, durable materials and careful construction detailing will ensure longevity of house to reduce ongoing repair and maintenance

Technical Innovation

• The builder, Evolve Builders,  has strategically systemized construction processes and details for straw bale walls to make this labour intensive building method cost-competitive with ordinary construction

• Simple, successful, repeatable “technologies” borrowed from historic building techniques then reformulated or adapted for modern expectations including: natural finishing oils for wood treatment, clay binders for wall finishes, mineral pigments for paint tinting

]]> http://somaearth.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=552 0 http://somaearth.com/blog/?p=514 http://somaearth.com/blog/?p=514#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:03:23 +0000 Ingrid http://somaearth.com/blog/?p=514 Joanna Macy is an Eco-philosopher.  Her thoughts are pioneering, life-affirming and powerful.

Joanna Macy

From her website;

“Joanna Macy is a Buddhist teacher, writer, activist, and scholar. For three decades, she has been developing teaching tools to help us respond to the perils and suffering of our world. Her work combines imagination, courage and good strategy to bring us teachings about “the work that reconnects.” This work is described in one of her many books, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (with Molly Young Brown, New Society). Joanna has been a mentor, advisor, and supporter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship from the beginning.

……..Joanna speaks of the Great Turning, a name for “the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the Industrial Growth Society to a life-sustaining civilization.” You will find more about the Great Turning on her excellent website along with many other teaching tools, resources, encouragement, and inspiration.”

- www.joannamacy.net

Joanna speaks about The Great Turning here;

….”The Great Turning is a name for the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.

The ecological and social crises we face are inflamed by an economic system dependent on accelerating growth. This self-destructing political economy sets its goals and measures its performance in terms of ever-increasing corporate profits–in other words by how fast materials can be extracted from Earth and turned into consumer products, weapons, and waste.

A revolution is underway because people are realizing that our needs can be met without destroying our world. We have the technical knowledge, the communication tools, and material resources to grow enough food, ensure clean air and water, and meet rational energy needs. Future generations, if there is a livable world for them, will look back at the epochal transition we are making to a life-sustaining society. And they may well call this the time of the Great Turning. It is happening now.”

- http://www.joannamacy.net/thegreatturning.html

Please CLICK ON THE LINK OR VIDEO/PHOTO BELOW to see A GREAT 5 MIN VIDEO and get on-line with her ideas here;

Joanna Macey speaks on The Great Turning

Joanna is creating a grassroots movement of educating people to find ways to ‘Reconnect‘ with the earth and ultimately with ourselves in a way that brings meaning, peace into our hearts and finds way to feel less powerless, to empower ourselves into action for positive change – from her website;

“…….The Work That Reconnects is a pioneering form of group work that began in the 1970s. It demonstrates our interconnectedness in the web of life and our authority to take action on its behalf. It has helped many thousands around the globe find insight, solidarity, and courage to act, despite rapidly worsening conditions. Based on systems theory, spiritual teachings, and deep ecology, its methods are described in Coming Back to Life, the book [she] wrote with Molly Young Brown.”

Inspired by Joanna Macey, author Dave Pollard describes her idea’s through this chart below on Joanna’s concepts in his Blog – a really interesting read here; http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2009/10/28/maybe-thats-what-it-takes/

What You Can Do Chart

OSBBC Board Members - from left to right, Tina Therrien, Ingrid Cryns, Deirdre McGahern, Adam Krop, Frank Tettemer, David Elfstrom (and Jup Bhasin - absent)

www.osbbc.ca

*

I am currently a board member fo the OSBBC and have truly enjoyed working with the dedicated team of volunteers who are passionate about supporting and encouraging the growth of Natural Building, including Strawbale biofibre building.  Here is some detailed info. from the website – PLEASE SPEND SOME TIME VISITING THE SITE – YOU WILL LEARN A LOT!!!

The Ontario Straw Bale Building Coalition (OSBBC) was formed to serve several purposes:

1. To provide information for people with an interest in building and/or owning a straw bale home. These services include general information, facilitating training courses, and providing testing data for building designers and building inspectors.
2. To initiate and support efforts to further the base of knowledge about straw bale building, including studies and tests leading to the building code acceptance of straw bale building techniques.
3. To foster a community of builders and owners involved in straw bale building to promote the exchange of ideas, resources, and social opportunities.

The Goals of the OSBBC

The OSBBC believes in the need for a movement towards a more environmentally responsible built environment. By using materials with the lowest possible embodied energy and toxicity and employing them in buildings designed to maximize the potential for renewable energies and minimizing the use of fossil fuels, we can make a substantial positive change in our impact on the environment. For the same costs as typical homes and buildings it is possible right now to create similar spaces from environmentally sound materials and to lower energy consumption dramatically. We hope to promote these strategies by assisting builders and owners to adopt them and to help to introduce them into the mainstream building world.

There is fantastic comprehensive listing on the website of sound technical documents that have been culled from various sources, mostly elsewhere on the web and on email lists.

Click this LINK FOR STRAWBALE TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS

Membership in the Ontario Straw Bale Building Coalition has many benefits:

• free admission to the Annual Tour of Straw Bale Homes and Buildings
• reduced rates for selected OSBBC workshops
• reduced rate for The Building Official’s Info-Package
• inclusion in a volunteer on-call list
• financial support for testing and code-acceptance of bale building
• helps the organization promote straw bale building to building officials, the general public, and children through displays, speaking engagements, the web, and a toll-free number for inquiries

www.osbbc.ca

]]> http://somaearth.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=485 0 http://somaearth.com/blog/?p=463 http://somaearth.com/blog/?p=463#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:54:58 +0000 Ingrid http://somaearth.com/blog/?p=463

Front Entry View

Sustainable Organic Farm

Design description

2009

Purpose

The Farm Buildings have been designed to accommodate a family and staff, as well as occasional guests. It has been designed to provide a working example of a high performance, low embodied energy building which could easily be replicated on a larger or smaller scale.

Cross-section at Round Centre

Side Elevation

Design

Main House

Access to the houses is from the Northern corner of the land. A road lined with native new-plant woodland & fruit trees leads south from the bottom of Albert Street and then curves east, along the top most west/east ridge to a crossroads centered within a large residential garden & pond. An west/east foot path track provides access to the house buildings as well as the east plots.

The house has been designed on an east-west axis to maximize passive solar gain. The house is a timber-framed or recycled steel building with a sedum/ herb roof.

Barn

The Barn is located near the house on the top ridge, central to the land, and is constructed mainly of timber and strawbale infill.

Educational Learning Centre/Storage Garage

The Centre/Garage is located in the northwest quadrant and is constructed mainly of timber and hemp/strawbale infill.

Services

There are water, sewage & electrical services accessible at the entry to the site, at the bottom of Albert Street. These services will be utilized as needed on the site.

Electricity

Electricity will mainly be supplied to the buildings from onsite solar panels, wind turbines & possibly micro-hydro from the nearby Beaver River.

Residential town hydro access to the site may be initially utilized to supplement this supply as well as selling back power to the town through this source.

Ground Floor Plan

Materials

The structure is either a roundwood timber-frame or recycled steel structure using local timber from the Site and/or nearby properties. The external walls of the dwellings are hemp/strawbale on a stabilized earthbag stem wall or concrete mix foundation. The floor is of FSC wood or rammed earth that will provide a large thermal mass which will serve to regulate the internal temperature conditions. The loading on the roof will be carried by trussed rafters or recycled steel. The roof will be insulated using a combination of solid and loose hemp fibre or blown cellulose insulation.

Materials are dependant on approval by Ontario Building Code regulations.

Farm Buildings Construction

Design

The House has been designed using a modular scheme which allows for a high degree of flexibility in the design of the individual dome units whilst specifying a common approach to the construction. The intention is to create a design that can be replicated easily and that is simple to construct.

Construction

The foundations will be made from a concrete mix of possibly hemp/limecrete with high flyash and/or pumice stone as well as possibly using recycled masonry (subject to building regulations approval).

The main structure will either be recycled steel or timber posts which will sit on pad foundations. They will support recycled steel or timber beams which will in turn support the roof. The floor will be insulated with hempcrete and above that will either be rammed earth or FSC wood. The external walls will be straw bale with earth plaster on the inside and lime plaster on the outside. The internal walls & finishes will be earth plaster, cob, eco-drywall with recycled denim, hemp or sheeps wool.

The roof will be supported either with recycled steel or trussed joists. These may be lightweight timber I-section beams made from recycled woodchips or local lumber. A possibility is to construct them on site using local wood from on near the site. This may eliminate the need for a large section timber roof structure. The roof will be insulated with hemp fibre or blown cellulose insulation and boarded with local or FSC wood planks or lined with [plasterboard to provide a fire retardant layer]. An EPDM membrane will provide a waterproof layer for the 70mm deep sedum/ herb roof.

Glazing will be double or triple depending on aspect. Windows and doors will be

either of softwood (FSC), recyled or local hardwood depending on their aspect.

Reversibility

The building is reversible insofar as the site could be restored to its former condition

with relative ease. After dismantling the structure the small masonry elements could

be dug up and removed. The concrete slab would need breaking up and removing

from the site. There would need to be some minor earthworks to return the site to its

previous incline.

Passive Solar Design

The Farm Buildings have been designed to maximize passive solar gain. The southern glazing

will capture the sun’s heat and this will then be stored in the massive floor.

Active Solar Design

The roof of the buildings will also incorporate solar water panels. This will be used to heat water for domestic use during the summer. Solar Water heating is technologically simple and works excellently to heat water in the summer. Water Accumulators will store this solar heat. We plan to be able to harvest all of the building’s hot water needs from the sun for 6 months of the year from the sun.

Ventilation and Infiltration

The buildings will be designed to minimize infiltration. The main entrances will be designed as airlocks.

Ventilation is provided in all of the ‘living’ rooms. In most cases this will take the form of

openable windows and trickle ventilation.

Natural lighting

All of the rooms have been designed to be lit under ordinary daylight conditions. Solartube ceiling lights will be added to supplement lighting into the rear hill side of the rooms as needed. Geodesic skylights will also be utilized in various feature areas.

Space/ Water Heating

The buildings will be designed to be super-insulated and thus require minimum heating. Heating will be provided by means of under-floor, radiant heating. This will be sourced from a large super-insulated water tank.

Heating Fuel

Fuel for heating will be sourced from a variety of different methods. Biomass stoves will be located in rooms with highest uses. A large central masonry fireplace with a significant thermal mass container will be utilized for the main rooms.

Entry detail

Oval Strawbale House - GF Plan

Oval Strawbale House - Elevation

Oval Strawbale House - Detail at 2nd Floor window

Strawbale walls have a unique vapour permeability that allows minute water vapours to pass through the unique porous crystalline structure of the plaster skin and can have anywhere from .10 to .50 ACH (air exchanges per hour) (with no mechanical assistance/technology). Strawbale walls don’t actually ‘breathe’ which is a common myth, rather they “respire” which favourably impacts on the indoor humidity and which in turn provides comfort by adding/removing moisture in the winter/summer as needed.

This creates an extremely healthy living space and air environment that surpasses, in my opinion, any standard, stick frame home. Also, a typical brick/wood stud 2×4 wall usually has less than an R20 insulation whereas strawbale walls have a continuous monolithic insulation of a R30 to R40 value. And, the thick plaster on the inside of straw bale walls acts as a thermal mass and has been shown to play a significant role in stabilizing indoor temperatures. A strawbale house is simply a smarter house!

Oval Strawbale House - Foundation Prep

Plotting the geopathic earth energy lines

Geopathic earth energy lines dowsed and located – Hartman (yellow) and Curry (Red) lines

Foundation formwork starting

Poured Concrete Foundation with Insulation

Wood sill plate base for strawbales

16' long Larsen Trusses delivered to site

Framing started (larsen trusses upright on the left)

Round log posts & timber beam for interior only

Framing at 2nd floor

2nd Floor Window Framing

Larsent posts base at corner

Ballon Wood Framing

All finishes will be natural with ‘0′ VOC’s (volatile organic compounds). We are looking at reclaimed timber flooring, papercrete countertops, milk paint stains as well as milling wood from directly from the site.

As the site has a great supply of wood and our client would like to use some of the maple, cherry, ash and ceder wood in his house. We visited the site together before any clear cutting was done for the building site and talked with the trees to let them know they will be needed in the house. This was a tremendous experience for both of us that I wrote a lot about in my blog here….

The house will also have radiant heating in the floors, a tankless water heater, and a masonry heater fireplace as the main heat source with propane back-up as needed.

Exterior plaster

Long view of house from driveway

Front of Oval Strawbale House

Sustainable builder, Ben Polley of Harvest Homes is a leader in the field of natural strawbale construction. His depth and breadth of experience is absolutely wonderful to work with. We highly recommend him for any projects. He works in the Guelph/Kitchener-Waterloo, Grey-Bruce, and Orillia-Muskoka area. From these three locations, they service projects north to Lions Head and Huntsville, east to Highway 400 and most areas south-west within a one to two hour distance from Guelph. In my opinion, there are very few Natual Builders as highly qualified as Ben is.  Please contact me if you want names of green, strawbale contractors in other areas of Ontario as well or visit my website for more detailed info here….

This is what Ben has to say about working together on this project;

“I really appreciate your manner of expressing the values important to you and expressing also the defense of things you imparted into the plan on [your client's] , behalf all the while leaving it open to [him] to consider, weigh and decide or defer as necessary. I am very much looking forward to this and future projects working alongside you!”

Dr. Robert Gilbert

I recently took a course with the above title, with Dr. Robert Gilbert.  Here is Robert’s Bio. from his website;

Dr. Robert J. Gilbert has a multi-faceted background in both spiritual and scientific studies. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps Instructor in Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Warfare Survival; since leaving the service in 1985 he has conducted independent research into the Geometric basis of modern science and new technologies. Dr. Gilbert is also a Rosicrucian with more than 20 years of experience in Sacred Geometry and its hidden uses by the world’s great spiritual traditions. His non-sectarian approach is inclusive of individuals from all spiritual traditions. Dr. Gilbert holds a Ph.D. in International Studies and is a published academic author in that field, contributing to the first academic textbook in the new field of Transformational Politics.

In 1997 Dr. Gilbert began for the first time to teach publicly the results of his two decades of intensive research. Today he teaches both publicly and privately in Asheville, NC. Dr. Gilbert also offers a small number of his VESICA series of special seminars throughout the United States every year. He is currently completing his first book 7 Keys to Creation: Sacred Geometry and the Patterns of Life.

The course was FANTASTIC!  Robert is truly a pioneer in researching energy balancing, healing & protection methods for human beings as well as for buildings.  He has recently been involved in helping to develop several new products for this using vibrational dowsing principles.  Based on the preliminary foundational science of Biogeometry, Robert’s work develops this with another level working with the 12 bands of the colour spectrum.  Here is a small sampling of what I learned in the course from the syllabus;

• The “Life Energy Spectrum”: A Master Key to Holistic Healing
• The Cutting edge of Detox Protocols for restoring health even in “terminal” cases (including both Medical and Holistic protocols)
• Critical Differences between Electro-Magnetic and Life energies (including how some Electro-magnetic healing devices harm the human energy field)
• Keys to Energy Balancing entire cities (with examples from completed projects in 6 U.S. cities plus European projects)
• Dowsing methods to apply Light and Color within energy meridians & centers
• New Modular system to Test and Apply needed Energy Qualities (including many currently unknown even to advanced Dowsers and nergy Healers)
• Essential Principles and Methods for Healing the Earth
• Earth Energy Discoveries from Europe (including the critical Resonances needed in addition to the Atmospheric ‘Schumann Resonance’)
• Using precise Minerals as “anchors” for vibrational information on the physical plane
• The Critical Difference between Vibrational and Mental Dowsing (and how to combine them into a more powerful system)
• Transmitting Holographic Vibrational Patterns with Light

All I can say after spending a couple of days with Robert -

WOW!!!

Egyptian Architect, Dr. Ibrahim Karim dowsing with a vibrational pendulum

So……what is VIBRATIONAL DOWSING you ask?

There are 3 types of dowsing.  Mental, Sensitization and Physical or VIBRATIONAL.

Mental dowsing is the more commonly understood form of dowsing where people hold a pendulum in their hands and asking a simple yes or no question, the pendulum with move in one direction or another.    It is a form of reverse self-hypnosis that breaks through the conscious mind to get answers out of the subconscious mind or even sometimes the universal or collective stream of thought.  Mental dowsing is the hardest to teach as it is difficult to quiet the mind and let go of any attachment to the outcome, which can influence the end result.  You can learn it quickly, but it takes years to really do it well and with any consistent accuracy.

Sensitization dowsing is a method that sort of falls in-between mental and vibrational dowsing.  Some people have a gift in that their entire body is high attuned or ’sensitive’ and they can feel a variety of subtle energies with their physical body or their hands.  This is not the best way to approach energy quality management as often people have no idea how to distinguish if what they are ‘picking up’ is a toxic form of energy or not.

Vibrational dowsing is a method that developed from the work of the French Radiesthesiasts. Radiesthesia is a term coined by Balzac and Chaumer, two scientists who developed a high sophisticated pendulum and science to be able to measure subtle energetic qualities.  Of the three forms of dowsing, Radiesthesia is the easiest to learn.  It is like a simple biofeedback tool, using your own body as an energetic vibrational link to test varieous energies.  The more you learn how to work with it, the better you become attuned to these subtler energies and you become more able to distinguish the beneficial energies from any toxic energies – in the human body or on the land or in buildings.

Tuning Forks - When you tap one, the other one begins to ring as it is in RESONANCE with the other

And finally, what is RESONANCE - you ask again?

Resonance is the aspect of when one sound or vibrational frequency is in harmony with another.  Here are a few ‘technical’ definitions;

• a vibration of large amplitude produced by a relatively small vibration near the same frequency of vibration as the natural frequency of the resonating system
• Acoustic resonance is the tendency of an acoustic system to absorb more energy when the frequency of its oscillations matches the system’s natural frequency of vibration (its resonance frequency) than it does at other frequencies.
• rapport: a relationship of mutual understanding or trust and agreement between people

Here is a description of RESONANCE from Dr. Ibrahim Karim’s website; www.biogeometry.org;

Where vibrations are, resonance can happen. The encyclopaedia gives: “relatively large selective response of an object or a system that vibrates in step or phase, with an externally applied oscillatory force.” Resonance was first investigated in acoustical systems such as musical instruments and the human voice. Mechanical resonance, such as that produced in bridges by wind or by marching soldiers. Somewhat analogous resonance exists on the nuclear scale. This occurs when atoms or their nuclei respond to the application of various magnetic fields by emitting or absorbing electromagnetic radiation of radio and microwave frequencies. Resonance in electrical systems makes it possible for certaincommunication devices to accept signals of certain frequencies while rejecting others.

On a separate page, you find a summary of what Ibrahim Karim told during a seminar about resonance. The story about “The Caveman” given by him is a nice illustration of resonance.

An interesting book (in Dutch) about resonance in nature is that of Hans Andeweg. It covers resonance in a broad sense and related subjects.

Resonance can occur between different types of vibrations such as between colour and sound. Colour is an electromagnetic vibration that can transfer energy in a vacuum, without a medium. Sound waves (compressional waves) are much slower than light waves.

Building a Hogan - SLIDE SHOW LINK

For the Navajo, the spirit of the home is called a Hogan, and is treated like a living object by its inhabitants. It needs to be taken care of and loved to sustain the harmony of the Navajo home life. Historically they were originally a separate hut in the community and were used for ceremonies and to keep themselves in balance. Often built in a teepee shape or in a rounded mud shape, they were constructed out of wood poles and straw, clay and/or stones, either a 5 or 8 sided, usually facing the east.
“Hogan’s are personified in ordinary conservation – they are alive; they need to be fed, cared for, spoken to, and shielded from loneliness”

Frisbee, Charlotte J., The Navajo House Blessing Ceremonial 1980, p.166

Hogan round wood structure

The house blessing ritual aims to “feed the house, show proper treatment and respect to it, prevent timber breakage, and remove the Hogan’s loneliness” (Frisbie, C., The Navajo House Blessing Ceremonial, 1980, p. 176). A sacred song called the Blessingway is chanted during the ceremony. The Hogan’s loneliness, before the ceremony is performed, is a dangerous thing as it can attract evil spirits; “every new house is taboo until, by appropriate rites, it is made noa (secular or profane)” (Van Gennep, A., The Rites of Passage, 1960, p. 24).

The house blessing ceremony of the Navajo is performed so that the Hogan may be lived in by its designated inhabitants. When the built Hogan is finished, the medicine man blesses the home in beauty, invites happiness from the 4 directions as well as from the earth & sky, and asks for protection from illnesses and evil. The home is marked inside on the 4 walls with a sacred symbol to remind its inhabitants that it is graced with the blessings of the Great Spirit.

A finished HOGAN