Stop by our booth during Earth Fair to see us (Simple Construct) and other members of CASBA (the CA Straw Building Association) and find out what’s new with straw bale building in San Diego. We’ve re-vamped our booth this year with lots of big, beautiful photos of recent straw bale projects from all over California. Come check it out!
Earth Fair Sunday, April 17, 2016 10am-5pm, Balboa Park, San Diego
I hope you will join me, Rebecca Tasker of Simple Construct, on Oct 16, 2015 for this half day event covering the foundations of sustainability.
Friday, October 16th, 10:00 am–3:00pm at the Energy Innovation Center, San Diego
Learn about creating a healthy, beautiful and sustainable San Diego through Permaculture Design, Natural Building, and Efficient Water Systems. Presented by experienced leaders in their fields, these sessions will give you a thorough introduction to the foundations of sustainability.
10am – Energy Innovation Center Tour, 4760 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego – The Energy Innovation Center is 1 of 10 buildings in the world to receive a double Platinum LEED certification. During our tour at the EIC we will learn about the latest in energy and environmental technologies such as a solar system that produces 20% more energy than it utilizes on a daily basis and a community garden fed by a rainwater catchment and greywater system.
11am – Introduction to Permaculture Design with Christopher Marciello of Ecology Artisans Permaculture is a creative design process based on whole-systems thinking that uses ethics and design principles. It guides us to mimic the patterns and relationships we can find in nature and can be applied to all aspects of human habitation, from agriculture to ecological building, from appropriate technology to education and even economics. By adopting the ethics and applying these principles in our daily life we can make the transition from being dependent consumers to becoming responsible producers. This journey builds skills and resilience at home and in our local communities that will help us prepare for an uncertain future with less available energy.
12 – Lunch Break (lunch provided)
1pm – Introduction to Natural Building with Rebecca Tasker of Simple Construct– An introduction to a range of natural and sustainable building systems such adobe, cob, and rammed earth, with a focus on straw bale building as ideally suite to our region. Learn about the surprisingly-sophisticated ways in which simple materials such as clay, sand, and straw perform hi-tech roles like providing super insulation and thermal mass; dealing with water vapor and buffering changes in humidity; protecting from wildfire and earthquake; and creating better acoustics and air quality. Learn the pros and cons of different systems and how they can be effectively and legally utilized in San Diego.
2pm – Efficient Water Systems with Brook Sarson of H2OME – Learn how to use integrated strategies to provide water resilience in Southern California. With the use of greywater, actively and passively harvested rainwater, and appropriate landscaping you may be able to use little to no municipal/well water to irrigate a productive garden and landscape. Find out how much rain you can actually capture in a year, how to store it in tanks or in the soil, and how rainwater means you’ll use less water for your plants. Greywater is a simple way to add to your water budget. However, there are many things to know and understand about how to use it safely, how to be compliant to local and state codes, and how to find the most efficient ways to get water from each source outside. Onsite water is far better for your plants, our watersheds, and our state!
$50 early-bird / before October 7th – $60 after October 7th – $35 – Student
Continuing Education Credits available for AIA & USGBC Members
more info: www.wanderfoot.com/sd-symposium
A rare opportunity to tour the new straw bale buildings at the Deer Park Buddhist Monastery
Four curved straw bale buildings wrap around a central courtyard. A covered breezeway made of reclaimed timber connects them. With graceful super-insulated
straw bale walls and passive solar orientation, these buildings will help the Sisters live comfortably in-tune with nature. Natural ventilation, efficient heating and cooling systems, greywater and rainwater systems, and a large PV array give these buildings a lighter footprint.
We are proud to have been part of this remarkable project and invite you to tour the site as part of the USGBC’s annual Green Homes Tour. With 9 sites on this year’s Tour, there is sure to be something of interest to everyone. See the brochure for more info
This may be your only chance to tour these buildings at Deer Park. Three of them will be the private residences for the nuns and one will be Thich Nhat Hanh’s home when he visits, so once they are completed, they will not be open to the public. Please join us on Sunday Oct 4 for a chance to tour of these lovely buildings.
We hope to see you there!
Rebecca & Mike, Simple Construct
September 22 – As part of the 2015 San Diego Green Building Conference, architect Drew Hubbell, Project Manager Ed Earl, and I (Rebecca Tasker) will be presenting Building Zen, an overview of the nearly-completed 6,000 square foot straw bale nuns’ housing at the Deer Park Buddhist Monastery. Join us to hear about this unique project and the experience of bringing mindfulness to the design and construction process. This full day conference has an interesting and diverse line up of speakers.
Thanks to everyone who came out for the Tour! 160+ people at 12 straw bale houses!
Tour de Bale – straw bale home tour in San Diego
Sunday, May 31, 2015, noon-4pm at locations all over San Diego County
Experience for yourself some of the beautiful, efficient, & natural straw bale buildings in San Diego County!
Straw bale homes are unique, energy-efficient, and healthier for people and for the environment. They are more fire-proof than conventional houses and perform well in earthquakes. San Diego County is home to more than 56 permitted straw bale buildings in a variety of sizes and styles. On Sunday May 31st, join the self-guided Tour de Bale and visit straw bale homes in locations near you including:
Knowledgable homeowners, owner-builders, builders, designers, architects, and CASBA volunteers will be on hand to answer your questions about this wonderful way to build.
Registration is $10 per individual, couple, or family. This fee covers the cost associated with the tour and any profit will go to the the California Straw Building Association.
More info:
www.tourdebale.com
Facebook event page
The Coast News attended one of our recent straw bale workdays at the Deer Park Monastery and produced this nice 4 min video.
In elementary school, I was obsessed with building my own house. As an introvert in a family of extroverts, I really wanted my own separate space, snug within its own four walls and roof. It didn’t need to be large, just big enough for a bed and a desk. Having no idea how to build a house, I cut out pictures of ready-made sheds from hardware store mailers and tried to save my allowance to buy one to turn into a house in a corner of my parent’s backyard. I never could manage to save that kind of money and eventually the idea faded into the background, but I have always had a soft spot in my heart for little, bitty houses.
I got some first-hand experience living tiny, since a 600 sq ft apartment in Boston was all I could afford as a recent art school graduate. Sharing walls with other apartment-dwellers just made it feel small, not separate. Later, a move across the country led me to inhabit a 400 sq ft freestanding home, a version of my childhood dream. It became clear that there are advantages and restrictions that come with living in a small space. As someone who likes to make things (and usually makes a mess in the process), having space for tools and projects was an issue. I updated my goal: needed a tiny house to live in and a workshop to make in.
The growth of the Tiny House movement of the last ten years has delighted me. I have doubts about how realistic tiny houses on wheels are for everyone, but the movement has given a name to the desire for simplicity, for less, for just enough. Naming is powerful and can help people come together to change large, seemingly-unchangeable things like building regulations, as some jurisdictions have now done.
As I shifted my career and began to help build houses and then, later, to design and build houses, the first of the Four R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) was always on my mind. To me, one of the highest goals of design is to do more with less; to achieve the goal without wasted space or materials or resources or money.
A few years ago, I was traveling with my husband to attend a conference in Northern California and needed a place to camp. We ended up finding Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, which turned out to be a restored tiny house ghost town: a village of small buildings in the middle of what was once somewhere but had become nowhere when the train stopped going there. It has a fascinating history and was a delightful experience that reinforced my love of the tiny.
During the Great Recession that heralded some very slow times in construction, we decided to help a friend build a tiny straw bale building in his backyard. We designed it, poured the slab, framed the walls and roof, and held two workshops to teach people about stacking straw bales and applying clay plaster. It was a deeply satisfying experience to finally build something tiny.
More recently, I discovered and fell in love with the Pocket Neighborhood idea. I spend time dreaming of building a collection of exquisitely designed tiny straw bale homes with excellent privacy and shared amenities, like a community room for hosting the occasional big party that doesn’t fit in a cozy home.
I am surprised how far back I can trace some of my current obsessions like natural materials and tiny buildings. I recently found out that when I started kindergarten, my teacher worried as she watched me choose to play with clay every day for months. When I finally started playing with other things as well as clay, she wrote to my parents that I seemed to have “gotten over my obsession” with clay: she turned out to be quite wrong. Her pronouncement seems now to foreshadow a life-long affair with clay. And my early fascination with buying a little shed of my own has endured and continues to inform my work today.
We are pleased to report that our team of stress testers (Eloise, a 1 year old and Miles, a 4 year old) have been unable to damage the clay floor sample that they have been testing for us for the last few months.
Just a few of the many test that the floor was subjected to (The Toy Firetruck Skid Test, Trains Up & Down, and Jump Jump) are shown here.
We would like to sincerely thank our testers for not holding back and proving yet again that clay floors can be a durable and viable option!
Thanks for sharing 2014 with us, it was a great year. We look forward to all that 2015 has to offer including volunteer days at Deer Park Monastery, breaking ground on two new straw bale homes (Solana Beach & Campo), bringing straw bale technology to LA, and much more straw-y and muddy fun.
Best wishes for your new year!
– Rebecca & Mike
THE WORKDAYS ARE NOW FULL, NO MORE REGISTRATIONS CAN BE ACCEPTED.
The dates for the workdays have been released and the few remaining spots will fill up fast.
There will be 3 workdays where you can to volunteer to help stack bales and apply clay plasters, coming up this winter at the Deer Park Monastery in Escondido. The workdays will be run by the Monastery and may fill up quickly.
For info on future events like these, join our email list (click the envelope button at the bottom of the page).
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