A few years ago, we had a “most beautiful chicken coop” contest. The winner? A cordwood chicken coop.

Cordwood construction is sometimes also called “stackwood construction.” A cordwood building consists of short, round pieces of wood (think firewood) held together with mortar.

While the look of cordwood construction can take some getting used to, personally, I find it very appealing. These buildings are especially attractive when multicolored glass is incorporated into the structure by placing glass bottles in the walls.

But there are plenty of other reasons to consider cordwood for all types of building projects, large and small. The method of construction is reasonably simple, and the materials are readily available — two good reasons cordwood has been popular with DIY builders for many years. And there are ecological reasons to consider cordwood construction, too. You can probably get the wood locally, so it doesn’t need to be shipped long distances, and the thick wooden walls of a cordwood building provide great insulation.

Here’s a fun video tour of a cordwood cabin. Take a look, and also check out the additional resources below.

Cordwood Articles from the Mother Earth News Archive:

• The Charm of Cordwood Construction

• The Return of the Cordwood House

• A Century (or More) of Stackwood Homes

• The Cordwood Sauna

• A Child-built Cordwood Clubhouse

Other Cordwood Resources:

• Cordwoodmasonry.com is the online home of Rob and Jaki Roy and the Earthwood Building School.

• There’s a whole cordwood chapter from the digital book Building Green on the Nauhaus Idea Repository.

• Greenhomebuilding.com has a nice cordwood page.

• The All Things Cordwood section at Daycreek.com, includes a great photo album.

For people interested in low-cost, hands-on building, there are many natural building methods to explore.

To name a few: You might consider building a straw bale home, a log cabin, or a timber frame or cordwood house. You might also look at earth-building techniques, including adobe and earth bag construction.

We’d like to know what you think about these types of natural building and about any hands-on experiences you might have had. Have you ever attended a straw bale plastering party? A cordwood-building workshop? Are you interested in learning more about building with adobe?

Share your thoughts and experiences by posting a comment below.