Working the Village Building Convergence
This June (2009) I worked for an afternoon at a VBC site at Madison High School in Portland, Oregon. They're putting up a covered outdoor classroom space designed by Sebastion Collet. It will feature cob walls (clay-straw mix), benches, and a living roof.
The process is very hands-on and totally accessible. Its the only building site I've been on where I was barefoot the entire time. Glass bottles were cut and taped end to end to make little windows in the cob wall. Building up the cob is done entirely by hand and is really very fun. To work the clay and straw into shape for building, we had to dance on it for a bit in barefeet. nice.
Click the picture to see the whole set of pics.
Go to the website to learn more about VBC:
City Repair