I just ran across this interesting video about straw bale building posted over on Lloyd Kahn’s blog. It’s about the Builders without Borders Straw Bale Eco-house, which was constructed and exhibited in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 2008.

The video shows many of the steps involved in the construction of this load-bearing straw bale house, including how they deal with the problem of too much moisture in the straw. Straw bale building enthusiasts and regular Mother Earth News readers may see a few familiar names, too. The members of the building team include Catherine Wanek and Bill and Athena Steen. Take a look!

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.

PHOTO BY OWEN GEIGER

Owen Geiger of Earthbagbuilding.com built an earthbag dome with a green roof and wrote an article about it for Mother Earth News. Green roofs have several positive aspects:

• They retain water from precipitation instead of creating problems with runoff.
• They reduce the cooling load on a building and reduce the "heat island effect" in cities.
• They provide extra insulation.

The Huffington Post asked readers to submit photos of green roofs. Geiger submitted a photo of the earthbag dome, and it made the top 10! Now it's time to make it No. 1! You can vote for your favorite here (hint: the earthbag dome is photo No. 9).

Earthbag construction is a low-cost method of making sturdy, long-lasting buildings. The do-it-yourself article explaining the process of this method is scheduled for the August/September 2009 issue of Mother Earth News.

Of all the sustainable building methods, one that receives far less attention than it deserves is building with whole trees. Well, they’re not exactly “whole.” The bark is removed (usually peeled by hand while the trees are still standing), and the ends are cut. But the trees remain round — not even one side is cut.

The advantages are that the unmilled wood is extremely strong, yet somewhat flexible. The trees are selectively removed from local forests or woodlots. And the homes are durable.

For further details and photos, visit Roald Gundersen Design or read Deep Roots, Strong Branches (be sure to watch the video that accompanies this article from Natural Home Magazine).