About Natural Building
The definition of natural building is elusive; one could go on for pages outlining the philosophies, characteristics, materials, technologies, approaches, and intentions that formulate the body of natural building across the world, and if you asked three different builders, you may get four different answers. How would one describe a 'natural building'? It is every bit as difficult, or more so - the natural building can take any form, from the whimsical hobbit house to the regal mansion. To paraphrase an ancient Zen koan, trying to define natural building is like mistaking the finger for the moon towards which it points; rather than get lost in choosing the most precise words, we'll try to paint a clearer picture of the essence of natural building.
Please note that there are many more aspects to a complete building that what we list here; please refer to the
resources page for more information, or contact a member to discuss your project.
A Sense of Place
One of the more general ways of thinking about natural building is to equate it with developing a relationship with the world, or a sense of place. While this may seem abstract, this concept permeates most every facet of the building process, and in fact guides it in many ways. Natural buildings are products of their environment - often built of the earth, stones, and trees taken from the land where the structure will ultimately sit. Natural buildings are responsive to their environments - they are designed to work with, not fight against, the wind that blows, the sun that shines, the rain that falls, the land that slopes. They are sited with intention, in response to and to help guide the forces that exist in that place. To create a natural building is to develop a relationship with that place, and to live in a natural building is to sustain this relationship. This is a process-oriented, not product-oriented, experience; it is in its design and creation that that some of the most fundamental benefits can be realized, not simply in its use.
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Of Straw and Mud
Of course, materials are often bandied about as the definition of what a structure is - a "straw bale", "cob", or "timber frame" home. While inherently self-limiting, these descriptions are relevant. The materials in a natural building are - often with great compromise and exception, particularly in this cold and wet climate - sourced from as raw and unrefined a medium as possible. Straw and earthen walls are favored over manufactured structurally insulated panels; site-milled wood is used in favor of genetically-engineered plantation pine. Materials are sourced as close to the site as possible, and what manufacturing is required for their use is, if not available to be done directly on site, again preferred to be sourced from nearby. Embodied energy (the evaluation of all the energy used to produce a product and deliver it to its point of use), carbon footprint (the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere to produce and deliver a product), toxic load (the amount of hazardous toxins created and released to produce and deliver a product), and end of life impact (the impact of the inevitable destruction and disposal of the building or its components after its intended purpose has been served) are all evaluated when considering different materials and their applications in the natural building.
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What Once Was Old is New Again
In the design strategy of Permaculture - and in nature - every supposed "waste product" is instead seen as a potential resource for another system or function: cow manure and kitchen scraps become compost, fallen leaves nourish the soil, wood scraps become kindling. This can go for buildings, too. Restoring an old building, using salvaged building components (from framing to fixtures), or finding creative adaptive reuse strategies for traditionally non-building materials (such as turning waste rice straw into an insulation material) are all noble principles that help to divert products from the waste stream, as well as the manufacturing pipeline, which saves carbon, toxic release, and energy, water, and other valuable resources; in some cases, such as urban building renewal, it can even help spur economic and community development and encourage smart growth, reduce sprawl, and keep open land open. This, again, speaks not to the materials, but the relationship with place. Is restoring a turn-of-the-century home in a depressed part of town, using reclaimed and locally-produced materials not an act of natural building?
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Buildings for People Who Live in Them
Today, most buildings are designed and built not for the homeowner, not for the community, but for the industry - the bottom line of the development corporations and the banks that finance them. This influence extends from the materials selected, to the layout of the floor plan, to the orientation on the site, to the size of the structure. Ultimately, and quite ironically, it is the end user, the home owner, that gets the short end of the stick, living in toxic, inefficient, built-to-fail, impractical shelters - and paying through the nose for the privilege. Natural building seeks to turn this on its head - it is building not only with the home owner in mind, but quite often by the home owner her- or himself. The benefits of this strategy are many - homes that are beautiful, functional, practical, more efficient, and more durable.
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Building Homes, Building Community
One of the most unique features of natural building is its accessibility to huge segments of the population. Many processes of natural building are low-skill and labor-intensive, which lends itself well to having large groups of people with various levels of experience being involved. This is powerful on a number of levels; on one level, individuals normally disenfranchised from the building process are given the opportunity to create shelter for themselves. On another, people who can afford more of an investment in time and sweat equity then in cash or debt are able to develop healthy habitat for themselves without having to sign a thirty-year note, or make do with substandard housing. And on another level, there is terrific community development potential from both bringing a group of friends, family, and neighbors together to build one's home, as well as to have a community of people who have empowered themselves and each other to be involved with the process of building.
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Building the New Paradigm
Working off this idea of a community of people empowered to develop their own building infrastructure, one begins to see the potential for great social change. As the population becomes more self-reliant and self-confident, as well as inter-dependent and community-referencing, and as the shackles of debt and limitations of the industrial housing market are left in favor of other alternatives, a different path is taken, an alternative to the business as usual that has kept so many of us from reaching our potential as individuals and communities becomes clear, a new paradigm is built. And building houses is just one part of this: local economy, sustainable agriculture, appropriate development patterns, renewable energy, alternative transportation - there are so many related fields that are involved with providing for the most basic of human needs. As the control for providing for these needs comes back into the hands of those on the local and individual level, we reclaim the power to create the reality in which we choose to live.
This is natural building.
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