Anasazi Stonework

“Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado. They lived in buildings called pueblos, designed so that they could lift up entry ladders during enemy attacks, which provided … Read more

Hyakusho: Natural Building in Korea

I just found this fascinating site while researching straw/clay. Natural building is alive and well around the world! Kyle Holzhueter’s website is loaded with photos and information on traditional building techniques. “Kyle Holzhueter works as a straw bale builder and translator in Japan. He has a PhD in Bioresource Sciences from Nihon University where he … Read more

Straw/Clay Sauna

“Ok, the Rocket Stove heated, Cob Sauna is on!! There is a client who will pay me to build one, which is GREAT! ‘Cause it means I’ll actually have the time to build it, and see it finished in a timely manner. I’ve delivered the urbanite for the foundation today, I’ll be prepping the parts … Read more

Visiting a Whole-Tree House

Here’s another beautiful custom home design by Whole Tree Architecture.com. We covered their work in a previous blog post on Whole-tree Building that was very popular and so I decided to expand on this topic some more. You can think of whole-tree building as maximizing the trees that nature gives us to create rustic timberframe … Read more

The Owner-Built Home – Ken Kern

As one of the top natural builders who influenced the direction of my life, we’ll be discussing more of Ken Kern’s building ideas. This is the stuff that fueled my imagination and passion for affordable housing when I was a young man. It was obvious to me 35-40 years ago that modern building materials are … Read more

Pinterest Dream Home

Pinterest is an online pinboard where readers post their favorite images. We’ve talked about Pinterest before, but I just found this page where Mechel Wall has compiled their favorite photos into an online scrapbook to help visualize their dream home. Original image: Building with Awareness.com (awesome site with award winning natural building DVD that I … Read more