The original natural family living magazine, founded in 1976. Reader-supported
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Locally-sourced natural materials and hand labor combine with inspired design to create an attractive, sustainable and healthy timber-framed straw-clay "EcoNest." A bird builds its nest using the materials at hand to create a shelter that’s highly relevant to its bioregion. And that’s the model used by Robert Laporte and Paula Baker-Laporte, a pioneering natural house designer and builder who have just finished helping to create one of their EcoNests an hour-and-a-half northwest of Toronto. The New Mexico-based Laporte is a timber framer, natural house builder and teacher who used to live in Sudbury, Ontario. Paula is a University of Toronto-trained architect, baubiologist and author specializing in healthy and ecological design. Their elegant, hand-crafted EcoNests – one of which was featured on the September/October cover of Natural Life – embody the principles of sustainable building, health and beauty. They utilize natural building techniques that include timber framing, straw-clay walls, earth plastering and natural, non-toxic finishes. Paula and her team at EcoNest Design work with clients to design their dream eco-homes. Robert and his team at EcoNest Building build the shells and special home features. Together, they teach four-day workshops, which create the straw-clay walls for clients’ homes.
The EcoNest they helped create in Ontario this past summer is located at the Riverstone Retreat Centre. Local timber-framer Joshua Thornton was the instigator of the project. He is the author of a recently completed research report on straw-clay building for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and suggested the concept to owners Ernie and Edith Martin, who wanted a highly ecological structure. Other collaborators were local architect David Macaulay and local builder Randy Martin, in addition to the owners. But Thornton says that “none of this would have been possible without the enlightened, progressive professionalism of our local building inspector Ray Holliday, and sewage inspector Les Mackinnon on behalf of the municipality of West Grey.” EcoNests are made by combining loose clay, loose (not baled) straw, wood chips and water into a slurry that is lightly packed between wooden slip- forms. When the loose straw is combined with the slurry, the clay coats the straw in a protective mineralizing coating, which adds longevity to the fiber. After the walls cure for two or three months, they are plastered using an earth plaster mix, both inside and out... To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's digital edition, which includes access to this and other back issues. Wendy Priesnitz is Natural Life's editor. She is also the author of 10 books. Read her blog. |
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from
Natural Life magazine, November/December 2008
