Exploring Sustainable Living Solutions in Asheville

Meeting people who are determined to improve the world was a great way to spend a day in Asheville, a city strongly associated with ecology and green living. Each person I spoke with at the Natural Building Extravaganza has been struck by the ridiculousness of people working 30 years to pay for a house in our country when the materials for building a home are found in on near most sites, especially in clay-rich, heavily-wooded North Carolina.
Attendees at the Natural Building Extravaganza in Asheville for the last three weeks have been learning

how to lay stone foundations and walls;

how to make and lay bricks;
how to use permaculture ideas to store and utilize rainwater; how to build an inexpensive, highly efficient cooking system from a metal drum and clay;

how to build with bamboo, with wood, or with wattle and daub;

and how to build or face buildings with cob and plaster. Cob is a natural building material made of sand, clay, water, earth, and straw. It is similar to adobe, daub, or the material that is compressed into bricks. On site, the Extravaganza attendees mixed the ingredients similar to the methods used in developing countries, in a bucket or on the ground.

In their daily lives, these participants try to ameliorate the negative effects of humans on the environment by staying involved in some type of ecological or earth-friendly work, movement, or lifestyle, from the modern Transition Initiative started in England by Rob Hopkins to a basic back-to-earth movement that, according to NBExtravaganza participant Patrick, “can trace its roots back to the 1960s when the hippies left Haight Ashbury and moved to the farms.”

Patrick continued, “This particular group is very diverse but they are like-minded when it comes to this, and willing to offer their talents and remarkable skill base to everyone. Some of the people here have a wealth of knowledge, and can build amazing things with natural materials using minimum tools.”

(Follow link to "We don't need no stinkin' chisel.")

One of these talented jack-of-all-trades is a kilt-wearing carpenter named Fez who, when he isn't building, helps with festival productions and logistics and operations for expeditions to Antarctica, Greenland, and the Canadian high Arctic. Fez agrees with Patrick's assessment of the sense of community created by the group's common bond. As he eloquently stated, “For a lot of people here, this is a start of a journey; for others, it is a continuation. This community is formed around earthen building practices, but the greatest thing we’ve gained in coming here is connectivity—connectivity with earth and with each other.” Spending three weeks toiling, sweating, and living together does build a sense of community as well as purpose.

As I looked around at the beautiful three-tiered stone wall, the bamboo trellises, the paths and ponds, the cob-and-handmade-brick casita, the outdoor fireplace, the cob-built barrel oven and grill, the new surface on the exterior of the house and the new walkway through the greenhouse, and then looked at the tents on the hillside where the Extravaganza attendees had been living for up to three weeks, I was impressed with the dedication and determination of the participants and also with how much had been accomplished in such a short time.
It takes a lot of effort and organizational skills to coordinate a building workshop, especially one that lasts for three weeks.

Janell Kapoor, the founder of Kleiworks International, which organized the Extravaganza with the Ashevillage Institute, served as the leader of the conference and coordinator of the daily work routine. She was also busy inspecting and instructing novice plasterers.

The intricate three-dimensional designs in the cob exterior of the house were beautiful:

Janell had help with the organizational aspects of the Extravaganza from her roommate Lisa. Shopping for food and handling money were among her duties. Lisa located a lamb for the Friday night dinner party, to be cooked in the newly-built, highly-efficient cob oven. She also led us in singing a Sufi song of blessing and praise during the morning circle. If you want to hear the morning circle song, click here. (Some things you just have to be there for.)

Janell’s personal assistant is Rose, a cheerful woman from India whose other name is Unnathi Boblak. Rose grew up in New York with a Polish mother. During the time I was there, Rose stayed busy in the background, doing everything from cleaning dishes to making the wheat paste that is used to thicken and stiffen the cob mixture. The gluten in the wheat paste acts as a kind of glue to help hold the cob mixture together and in place when it is applied vertically. It stiffens the cob mixture. The wheat paste is made from two parts cold water mixed with 1 part flour (any kind of wheat flour) and then boiled in 4 parts water and stirred until it thickens. Rose participated in the building projects, too. She learned how to cut, connect, and shape bamboo while helping to build the beautiful arched trellises leading into the gardens. Joinery is an important part of building.

Sometimes things are laid together in grooves like the heavy wooden crossbeam behind the bamboo gate,

sometimes things are braced and tied, and sometimes they have a mortise and tenon construction. All three are used at the Extravaganza site, depending on what materials are available.

Fallen trees may have their bark removed and used in rounded form, or may be planed and used as posts, as they were in the cornerposts of this tool shed.

The great thing about building naturally with what's on site is that everything does not have to be vertical or square; walls and roofs can take a curvier shape.

Participants use fewer tools than traditional builders but an electric drill still comes in handy.

A few conference participants arrived three weeks before the conference began. Julie, who has traveled extensively and biked across our country from Portland, Oregon, to the Atlantic and then down to Florida, loves the idea of natural building techniques because “they are accessible to anybody.”

Julie arrived in Asheville about two months ago and has been on site for six of those eight weeks. During the three weeks before the conference, she helped get things ready for the workshops by hauling materials (gravel, sand, clay) in buckets and by wheelbarrow, by clearing land and preparing sites, by making platforms for tents, and by creating paths through woods and along the hillside. In exchange, she had food and a place to stay, but most importantly she had the opportunity to learn from teachers who arrived early, too, and then attended the conference in exchange for her work.
The registration fee for the full three weeks of the conference was $1800. Some people volunteer skills such as cooking in exchange for the chance to learn at a discounted price. The day I was there, Rachel

made a delicious vegetarian lunch consisting of a salad, a quinoa dish, and a warm bean dish that included carrots and potatoes.
The Extravaganzans feel strongly that each person should do whatever is within his or her power to improve the sustainability of the earth, and that it is urgent to do so. By working together or through individual efforts, people can collectively improve the likelihood of a sustainable earth, despite oil spills, agricultural and industrial and pharmacological pollution, genetic modifications gone awry, and other problems.
For earth to have a chance to recover, it is imperative that people learn to live more harmoniously with nature. One way to do this is by building “naturally” with earth or clay.

Kelly, a past volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, was struck by the amount of waste in modern construction methods. “Our building methods are not good for the environment—construction and building materials account for a large portion of our landfill waste. A lot of toxins are involved in the production of our construction materials, too, so anything we can do to use natural materials with less waste is bound to be good for the environment.” A few years ago, she began reading about building with cob and has come to the Extravaganza for hands-on learning. I doubt if she was disappointed; when I saw her, she was up to her elbows at the casita,

installing old bottles within the cob structure. “I felt like I had learned everything I needed from the book, but what’s nice about coming here is that the materials have already been gathered—the clay, the straw, and the other things you need—and you can get experience building a house.”
In addition to the problems of waste and toxins, construction in the urban, industrialized world expends a lot of fuel producing and transporting construction materials. Although creating city infrastructure and large buildings requires some of this, much waste can be avoided with individual residential structures if people are allowed to build with what’s at hand. These ancient building techniques stand the test of time, and most of the participants, not surprisingly, intend to build their own home eventually using at least some of the natural building techniques they have learned at the Extravaganza.

Cassie, an Executive Assistant to the President of a local bank, took a week off work and used her vacation time to learn more about the process. She sees it as a natural next step since she started organic gardening last year. She has always wanted to design and build her own home.
Building codes must be updated to accommodate people wanting to build their own houses using regional materials as much as possible, and the alternative building methods they sometimes require. Bureaucratic regulations and code-enforcers are typically not oriented toward those who desire ecologically-friendly, safe, alternative homes. The rules that are designed for large-scale city living often create an unreasonable obstacle for smaller-scale earth-friendly housing.

Regulations can stand in the way not only in building codes but in other areas of self-sufficient, sustainable living. For example, while complaining about run-off, municipal governments often have regulations which hinder the use of rainwater and recycled water on site, thereby contributing to the problem.
The permaculture movement in Asheville, heavily “infested” with PhDs, is working to spread the knowledge of how permaculture design can help all of us, including city water and sewer systems.
The Extravaganza’s permaculture expert, Enzo, works with the Sustainable Systems Research Center in Asheville, which in turn is associated with the Asheville Center for Ecological Economics. Formerly Enzo and his wife Jessica developed the site plan for the Mother Earth News Ecovillage Permaculture Education Center. With permaculture, the idea is that water is captured as high as possible (from a roof or on a hill) and used, preferably more than once, as gravity works its magic and pulls the water through natural filtering systems.

At the Extravaganza site in hilly Asheville, swales, which are water-catching basins dug along the contours of a hill, drain into a collection pond, which feeds into pipes and more swales. The water is used for gardens down the hill

and to feed into a greenhouse which contains a creek where fish are grown and where a platform lets chickens warm themselves in winter.

This water then empties into a decorative “fire” pond which could be used to supplement fire-fighting efforts if needed.

The location of the fire pond would permit gravity to have enough force to spray the backside of the residence while the city fights flames from the front.
Tilapia and Italian bass and Gambezi fish, which eat larvae of mosquitoes, are all good choices for aquaculture. And by the way, the fish eat chicken poop, changing it from waste to nutrients.
Enzo pointed out the primary filter on the home’s rainwater collection system, which removes items such as leaves and twigs that might make their way into the gutter. It is in the white square object mounted on the wall at the break in the black drainpipe.

Another filter, a Berkey-style filter, could be added to produce drinkable water. A simple Berkey-style filter, such as a five-gallon bucket containing half sand and half charcoal, would filter out pollen and airborne particulates.
Besides incorporating passive solar and permaculture principles in new designs and retrofits, natural builders encourage the use of efficient methods of heating and cooking. One item that could add a lot to almost any backyard is the barrel oven, a wood-efficient oven which can be built at very low cost using mostly natural and recycled materials.

The oven cooks in a highly efficient manner thanks to its design, which utilizes a 2" space all around the drum for the heat to pass around as the fire below it heats up. The drum is on its side, with the lid becoming the door.

The lid's modifications include a rest for the lid when the door is open. The ash drawer below the drum can be partially opened to adjust the rate of air flow and the heat. A company called Firespeaking manufactures kits with all the metal parts you need to build one of these ovens yourself. Eva Edleson, one of the owners of Firespeaking, made it look like a piece of cake to build one.

She loves to make things and loves to inspire others to create their own things from local materials--pottery, ovens, food, whatever they can. "A lot gets shared through the passage of time over food at a dinner table."

The Natural Building Extravaganza is held on the site of two adjoining conventionally-constructed homes in a settled, traditional neighborhood in Asheville. The homes were re-surfaced with earthen cob and plaster, and the backyards were landscaped using permaculture design, with the goal of providing food for the homeowner. The idea is to demonstrate that building methods which combine ecologically-friendly living with self-sufficiency and a sustainable lifestyle can be employed within a “normal” urban setting.
Although the Natural Building Extravaganza is an annual event, and the site is not open year-round, the Asheville area has many workshops available throughout the year, as well as ecologically-minded sites open all year. For workshops, try Ashevillage Institute, an educational group that does permaculture and natural building classes that is featuring a 10-month ecological leadership program in 2012. For permanent exhibitions, check out Earth Ship or Earth Haven Ecovillage, which combines “natural” and standard construction methods and offers ideas about lay-out and efficient use of space.