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Jun 06
Love0

Video: Two Beautiful Low Impact Roundhouses in Wales

By Resources, Video

I was very happy to discover this video on Tony Wrench’s website the other day. It provides a little tour of Wrench’s low impact roundhouse, and Simon Dale’s new house at Lammas, in Wales.

If you’ve done any searching for beautiful natural buildings online, it’s likely you have seen Simon Dale’s original low impact woodland home. But Simon’s got limited images of his new house up, so this video gives a better impression of the design. Check out that killer big greenhouse!

Definitely very exciting to see a bit more of Tony Wrench’s and Simon Dale’s work here. These two have provided me with a lot of inspiration for my own home, and they’ve also consulted me with on some things, too. Can’t thank them enough.

Gorgeous!

May 11
Love0

My Boing Boing Interview: How to Build Your Own Hobbit House

By Resources, Media, The Year of Mud Book

Avi Solomon recently interviewed me for a bit on Boing Boing, titled Brian “Ziggy” Liloia on How To Build Your Own Hobbit House.

In the interview, I talk about my decision to build with cob, the great rewards and challenges in building your own home, the community building experience at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and more.

If you’re new to this blog (or even if you’re not), please check it out!

p.s. Want to learn even more about how to build your own cob house? Check out The Year of Mud: Build a Cob House book!

 

Apr 18
Love0

The Year of Mud: Building a Cob House Book Now Available

By The Year of Mud Book, Resources
 

At last, I finished producing my cob building book, The Year of Mud: Building a Cob House. It is available for purchase through Blurb.com. This book is a story of how I constructed my own home, and what it is like to build with cob. The book features dozens of color images, how-to information and building recipes, and inspiration for those wanting to learn more about cob and earthen building.

Here’s a synopsis and some details about the cob house manual:

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Apr 04
Love0

Natual Building Video Review: Mud, Hands, A House

By Resources, Video, Media

I recently had the fortunate opportunity to check out Mud, Hands, A House (or El Barro, Las Manos, La Casa, its original Spanish title), a great natural building documentary provided to me by the kind Max of Firespeaking.com.

It’s an educational, how-to focused natural building documentary with a wealth of instructional segments, led by Jorge Belanko, an engaging master natural builder based in Patagonia, Argentina.

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Aug 20
Love0

Michael Janzen’s Free Tiny House in Yes! Magazine

By Resources

tiny houseMichael Janzen of Tiny House Design is building a tiny, 80 square foot house… for free. And word is getting out about his project, which is one of many in the new tiny house wave. From Michael:

The core values of the tiny house movement are that living simply in small spaces empowers us. Committing to a tiny house removes many of the burdens we accepted when we bought into the idea of a “normal” American lifestyle. Instead of focusing on how much we can afford, the tiny space forces us to consider how little we really need.

Check out more about his nifty free tiny house project at Yes! Magazine and visit his website for more news and musings on the tiny house movement! Cool stuff.

Aug 20
Love0

Michael Janzen’s Free Tiny House in Yes! Magazine

By Resources

tiny houseMichael Janzen of Tiny House Design is building a tiny, 80 square foot house… for free. And word is getting out about his project, which is one of many in the new tiny house wave. From Michael:

The core values of the tiny house movement are that living simply in small spaces empowers us. Committing to a tiny house removes many of the burdens we accepted when we bought into the idea of a “normal” American lifestyle. Instead of focusing on how much we can afford, the tiny space forces us to consider how little we really need.

Check out more about his nifty free tiny house project at Yes! Magazine and visit his website for more news and musings on the tiny house movement! Cool stuff.

Jun 27
Love0

A Few Cob Building Blogs To Check Out

By Resources

Just a quick update to feature a few cob building blogs that I’ve been checking out lately:

earthen acres: Danielle is building a very small cob cottage and documenting her progress. So far her home has a completed dry-stacked (and beautiful!) urbanite foundation with the first layers of cob on the wall. I am excited to see how this little structure gets on.

mud for everyone: I haven’t ventured very far into Erica Ann’s blog, but damn if that cob loop-de-loop isn’t cool! Check out the June 1 post.

clay sand straw blog: I’ve enjoyed perusing these folks’ website and the wealth of photos of their building projects, so I anticipate future updates on this new blog.

Any others you would like to share? Comment and lemme know.

Jun 07
Love0

Built By Hand: A Beautiful Photo Book of Traditional Homes and Architecture

By Resources

I love a good building book for inspiration, especially when it contains photos of inventive and intelligent homes from around the world. Imagine houses with six feet-thick seaweed roofs, deep-nestled and hand-carved cave homes, and pigeon-harboring huts made of mud. These and more are all vividly documented in Built By Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World, a most inspiring bit of natural building eye candy. Built by Hand is a hardcover collection of photographs by Yoshio Komatsu of traditional buildings of all styles across the globe.

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Apr 23
Love0

Amazing Traditional Carpentry and Timber Framing Website

By Resources, Video, Hand Tools, Wabi-sabi Kitchen

I was very fortunate to recently catch wind of Carpenters from Europe and Beyond, an incredibly valuable traditional carpentry resource from France’s Ministry of Culture. The website is host to a wealth of information about the history of carpentry, the people who honed the craft, and videos of modern day traditional carpenters continuing to work by hand, especially in the timber framing tradition.

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