I, along with four others, have embarked upon a new building adventure. We have just begun the very early phases of building a shared kitchen and social space.
Thomas, Ali, Liat, April, and I are part of a sub-community at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Thomas, Ali, Liat, and I started discussions last year about working and living more closely with one another. These talks and many more discussions throughout this year lead us to design a kitchen space that we can all share. We started eating together during this summer in a rugged outdoor kitchen setup (we keep our food in a filing cabinet, for example), but we definitely want a more permanent structure.
The building will feature both indoor and outdoor cooking functionality, and a loft and balcony for additional social space. It will be appropriate for 6-8 people. It will be made on the cheap, and as you can probably guess, out of mostly natural and reclaimed materials: an urbanite foundation, roundwood post and beams, and cob walls (with space for some other materials, too.) We have been talking quite a bit about making shakes for the roof and building a masonry oven for cooking. The kitchen will be electricity-free and have extremely simple plumbing. (The current plan is to have a cistern with a hand pump for water needs.) I am quite excited about this project. It will be a great experience to work more closely with these friends of mine.
You can also probably guess that I will want to document the building process and progress. I am uncertain if I will want to contain all of that information on The Year of Mud or start a brand new blog devoted to the kitchen. I am leaning towards the latter, but if you have any feedback, let me know!
Look out for more!
(Above photo: eyeing a giant 2′-2.5′ diameter cottonwood tree for post potential. We’re thinking of going massive with a huge center post in the middle of the kitchen.)
(Below: the building site, staked out and ready for digging!)
love the idea for the kitchen.
are you going to handle greywater on a manual haul out basis or create the greywater system starting with a drain right out of the sink area into a filter and reclamation system?
By an odd coincidence we’ve just been give acces to some land ane we’re wondering about starting by making a kitchen type of place. I’m already trawling through your site and links to find ideas, so I’m really interested to see how you’ll work on this. Thanks for sharing.
catastrophegirl: We’re thinking of doing a very simple greywater system – perhaps carefully sending the wastewater to some shrubs/trees behind the kitchen.
Andy: Hopefully I will get up some floor plans so that you can see the design of our structure!
You’re already way past your grace period on the “year” of mud, dude: I propose a new blog :-]
Anyways, I’m psyched to hear about this new development and look forward to observing the progress not only in cyberspace, but in real life!
How much water do you think you all will use daily
And you may want to think about a wood burning
Cook stove old time thing you know
I love your home. I have a fascination with yurts and decorating them and camping in them and this is a wonderful outgrowth! I hope you continue with this blog:>. Thanks for putting this up.