The Workshop

Seeing as I am now two weeks behind in my blogging (today is the 25th and I am recounting the events starting on the 7th of this month), I've decided to represent my entire week of the workshop in one post. Not, of course, because I have little to say about it, but simply because I would have little chance of catching up if I didn't. Hopefully the pictures will have as much, or more, to say about my experience, as I know that many I have talked to about this workshop have been both intrigued and confused by the idea of building a "straw house".

I arrived on Thursday morning with only one glitch; a holdup at the border crossing because they didn't open until 8 AM. After my 45 minute wait, I was ushered through without any problems (although the border guard was also amused by the notion that I was going to be building a house out of straw), and with only one slight mishap in directions, I made it to the site only an hour late. As I walked up to the top of the hill where the house sat, overlooking an impressive mountain range, I marveled at the empty wooden structure, imagining how it was going to change.

This is what the house looked like the day I arrived.

The first day consisted mostly of lecture from our instructor, Andrew, a straw-bale builder turned workshop organizer from Oregon with a quick wit and a true passion for what he teaches, going over the principles of straw bale design; everything from the choice of materials to building codes being covered. Having gotten there later than everyone else, though, I didn't even have a pen and paper to jot down notes, and I was already feeling overwhelmed.

The days that followed more than made up for my first day apprehension, as Andrew had us diving headfirst into the hands-on aspects of construction. We learned how to prepare the floor to accept the bales in a way that would allow for drainage should moisture get into the walls, and then, before we knew it, we were learning the intricacies of "notching" bales with a chainsaw in order to create a proper fit within the wooden structure. By the third day, only the second full day of work, the majority of the walls were up, and we would then be looking at how to finish the walls and prepare them for outlets, cabinet mounts and stucco.

Hauling the bales off of the truck we had just loaded them on at the bottom of the hill. No fun.

Creating the "rubble trench" that the bales would eventually be stacked on.

"Notching" the bales with a chain saw to make them fit within the wooden structure.

Our fearless leader, Andrew, doing a demo on how to make custom sized bales.

Yup, that was the view from the site.

The end of day two.

The nineteen other people taking the workshop were not what many would have imagined. Yes, there was the common bond of an interest in alternative building and sustainable living, but instead of a collective of hemp-wearing, patchouli soaked hippies chanting "right on" after every new technique was revealed, it was an amazingly diverse group in both background and ages. Architects, artists, designers, computer techies, farmers; this was just a handful of the cross-section that was represented, and it was enjoyable to begin to get to know people whom, in other circumstances, I would never have had the opportunity. We all worked well together, and we were excited to see the project come to fruition.

The morning of day three.

If the bale doesn't fit, use some persuasion...

Finally finished with the bale walls...

Using a weed whacker to sculpt the walls into a uniform thickness. Now can you see why I dig this so much?

Cutting out a space for light switches.

Weather sealing to prepare for the windows.

Beginning the wire meshing on the outside.

Breaking for lunch.

The end of day five - ready for stucco!

Despite our enthusiasm, though, we faced constant setbacks. Our host, a woman in her early 50s who was having the house built to accommodate her home hospice care business, was feeling increasingly overwhelmed by all that needed to be done. Equipment that should have been there wasn't, and every so often our pace was stymied by a lack of a certain tool or material that invariably would take hours, if not a day or more, to arrive. The group took it in stride, and eventually it simply became the running joke of the workshop, neither making us think less of our host nor breaking our resolve to complete as much of the work as we could in the time given. If anything, it served to motivate us more, and on the last few days, we resolved to wake up and begin even earlier (6 AM instead of 8) to ensure that we would reach our goals.

Mixin' the mud.

Andrew showing us how a real mason does it. Nice shirt, dude.

Going at it!

Unfortunately, this is all we were able to finish...

Our last day together, always a bittersweet experience in situations like this, was probably the most disappointing of all, as we had been so set back by holdups in materials that we had gotten only a small fraction of the plastering done by four in the afternoon, the official end time of the workshop. Resigned to the fact that this was going to be as far as we could go, people began packing their tents and belongings, preparing for long car drives home in all different directions. Hugs and email addresses were exchanged, and one by one people disappeared to return to their lives, until there were only a handful of us left on the sight. I and a few others were going to stay one last night, in my case because I was simply too exhausted to pack up my things and move on that quickly.

It would take a while to digest all that I had experienced. I came to realize just how much work goes into a project like this; the planning, the preparation, the materials, the labor. At first it made me skeptical as to whether it was even possible for me to one day take on such a project myself. But after experiencing the workshop in full, it made me realize that such an endeavour is not something that you take on alone. Yes, the benefits of building a home with an ecologically sound material that is far superior to conventional materials makes sense, but it was the experience of working together with others that made my 3000 mile journey to Castlegar the most satisfying. If - no, when I take on a project like this, designing, building and living in the home will only be part of the satisfaction. In the end, it will be sharing the experience with friends, family and perhaps people I haven't even met yet that, in the end, will make it worth all the effort.