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kingston new mexico

Sunny Kingston, Mexico: home to the 20th anniversary Natural Building Colloquium

April and I have been in Kingston, New Mexico for the past two weeks for the 20th anniversary Natural Building Colloquium. Last week we were surrounded by 150 incredible natural builders from all over the globe. This week we’re helping finish projects that got started and cleaning up after the craziness that was the gathering. It’s been a dizzying time… it’s been a real privilege to be surrounded by so much building knowledge and experience. What a joy to meet so many people whose work I’ve been following for a while! (What is this “colloquium” business, anyway? There’s a good history of the gathering in the newest editon of The Art of Natural Building.)

I don’t have much time (or bandwidth) to really get into details here… it will have to wait until I get back home in another week or so. Until then, here are just a couple photos! It was a great time and I wish I had even more opportunity to soak it all in and meet more of the people in attendance.

Griddle Oven - Natural Building Colloquium

Max Edleson and Flemming Abrahammson build a sweet wood-fired griddle / barrel oven combo

Kyle - Japanese Plaster Demo

Kyle Holzhueter demonstrates traditional Japanese plaster materials and applications

sunray - treehouse 00

A wicked treehouse designed by SunRay Kelley in the making

2 Comments

  • Max Edleson says:
    October 30, 2015 at 9:10 pm

    Hey Ziggy! So much fun to share that magical week with you and April! Here is a post Eva put together with more details on the Rocket-Fired Griddle Oven we built:
    http://www.firespeaking.com/portfolio/rocket-fired-griddle-oven/ .
    How has the time there after the colloquium been!?

    • ziggy says:
      October 31, 2015 at 9:03 am

      Love it! Here’s hoping for hanging out in the future.

      Post-colloquium has been nice… the number of folks has been steadily dropping since Sunday. It’s just a few of us left here until Sunday. We managed getting the entire straw bale wall plastered (including some pretty sweet window sculpting), and the cordwood wall is getting roof protection now. We’ve kept our eye on the griddle oven when it was raining the other day to keep it dry too.

      Also, we’ve been eating leftovers like mad… beans beans beans… hah.