Shelter Series 2012 is a GO!

It’s the height of summer (or thereabouts) here in the Pacific Northwest, and that means that once again a group of mudslingers and straw-tossers, stone-layers and timber framers, students and teachers have gathered at Aprovecho for the Sustainable Shelter Series.

Last year at this time The Playhouse was constructed by a similar group of natural builders, and I (Hello, I’m Sarah!) was fortunate enough to be around this spring and early summer to help finish that building.

The Playhouse

I consider myself even more lucky to be here participating in the current Shelter Series and getting to help build The Boathouse. It’s an exciting time to be at Apro. We are entering the 3rd week in this 7 week program, and already the foundations for The Boathouse and the new yurt have been built, and the timber frame for The Boathouse has been raised.

Max Edleson of Firespeaking led us during the first week of the Shelter Series. We dug a rubble trench and installed a French drain for the yurt on a lovely rise in the woods. The dry stacked urbanite stem wall with it’s cob bond beam looks pretty cool just the way it is, but of course by the end of this coming week, with the guidance of Kiko Denzer, it will be transformed into a delightful little circular building with a sweet zen view into the forest!

Making the “burrito”

Urbanite sourced from an old concrete pad on Apro’s land

Cob for the bond beam was mostly made from soil taken directly from the building site

During the first week we also worked on the stem wall of The Boathouse, pouring a concrete footing, laying Faswall blocks, filling the blocks with minimal concrete and quite a lot of rock from the building site, and pouring the footings for the timber posts.

 

The Boathouse foundation with The Playhouse behind it, and a few of Oregon’s finest natural builders hanging around

This past week we were joined by Bill Sturm of Oregon Timberworks. He taught us how to lay out timbers and cut mortise and tenons, and guided us through the process of raising a timber frame. We had a spectacular week playing with chisels and chain mortisers, hand drills and electric ones, snapping lines and yarding logs, and finally on Friday raising the frame of The Boathouse.

Finding the center reference line on a round pole

Mortises

Cutting a tenon the speedy/spooky way!

Fitting pieces

Heave!

Ta-da!

We’ll focus on the yurt this week and return to The Boathouse next week to begin work on the strawbale and light straw clay wall systems. Like I said before, it’s an exciting time to be at Apro!

That brings you up to date on what we’ve been working on as far as the Shelter Series 2012 goes. There will be more updates and info from myself and others as we progress, and hopefully I’ll find some time to also post a bit about the spring building practicum and all the other projects that have gone on around Apro this year.

Until then, please don’t hesitate to ask us questions and happy building!