An eco building named Speckled Wood

Speckled Wood is a roundwood timber-frame eco building. It was built in 2012, at Swan Barn Farm in Haslemere, on the borders of West Sussex and Surrey, by the National Trust’s Black Down countryside team and volunteers, led by Head Ranger David Elliott.

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Eco-Bungalow Project

“We have created a concept where people in ethnic minorities can host tourists in a truly sustainable way. The bungalows are owned and run by the villagers, there is a limited amount of people visiting the village at all times, the building is made out of clay (ADOBE) and minimal external resources are being used … Read more

The Gender Difference In Eco-Building

“In recent visits to a variety of eco-communities across Britain and to eco-build sites I have realised quite how gendered everything still is, even in places where you might expect a more ‘progressive’ view. There exists a presumption that men like to build and that women like to garden and cook. When I ask people on site whether this is deliberate, conscious, or a problem, the majority have said ‘it is simply the way things are, men are stronger and can do different jobs to women’. But is determining what we are able to do simply a matter of physical prowess, or are other assumptions made in such statements which we need to disentangle a little?

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Wisconsin Round Barns List

The Wisconsin Round Barns List is a good source of inspiration for those who want to build in the round.
The Wisconsin Round Barns List is a good source of inspiration for those who want to build in the round.

The name pretty much says it all. Lots of readers are interested in building roundhouses, and so when a reader sent me this website I just had to post it here for all to see. (Thanks, Richard.) There are around 100 round barns on the list, and they’re a good source of inspiration. Look closely for details.

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Extracting Water from Air

The AirDrop irrigation system extracts moisture from the air.
The AirDrop irrigation system extracts moisture from the air.

Developing efficient methods for extracting moisture from the air (condensing atmospheric humidity) has long been a goal of scientists and engineers. The AirDrop irrigation system by Edward Linnacre is one of the more recent inventions for extracting water from the surrounding air.

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