Natural Building

Bamboo Treatment

Bamboo Treatment

Bamboo is a wonderful fast growing grass, it comes in all shapes and sizes and has an incredibly diverse list of uses from many cultures all around the world. Bamboo is incredibly fast growing and can grow up-to a meter a day and achieves 80% of its height in the first 2months of its life! This ability to grow quickly and produce a huge variety of usable products has got many a permaculturists and green living enthusiasts excited by its potential.

Timber Framing: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Needed to Know

Timber Framing: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Needed to Know

Either way it’s important to know that timber framing takes patience and practice if you’re a beginner. The tips in this article are intended to introduce some important concepts in timber framing and to solve some common problems before they even arise, in order to set you up for success in your sustainable home build.

Natural Building & Clay Carving - Add Artistic Expression to Your Home

Natural Building & Clay Carving - Add Artistic Expression to Your Home

Now you have an expanse of clay before you, a blank canvas to express yourself upon. Have fun! Feel the warmth and beauty of the clay, and tap into your inner artist. Get dirty, and share the experience with someone else! With some practice, you might be surprised what kind of beautiful things you can make with just a bit of Earth!

Timber Framing: A Real Application of Sustainable Forestry Management

Timber Framing: A Real Application of Sustainable Forestry Management

The deforestation problem that constantly threatens our global forest resources is one that we can overcome. To accomplish this, though, we must again learn to give our forests real value. The main idea here is that our forests must be more economically valuable in their current state than they would be under competing land uses. If not, they will be deforested.

Building an Adobe Shower with Tadelakt Plaster

Building an Adobe Shower with Tadelakt Plaster

We recently completed our adobe shower and thought we would share with everybody how and in what order it was executed.  The building blocks of the design were Adobes that we made with our 2018 apprentices and student groups that visited us through the year

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

At Rancho Mastatal we have been building sustainable homes from natural materials in the tropics for over 15 years. In this time we have tried many different styles, building materials, and designs. We would like to share with you our opinion for the best natural and sustainable home design for the tropics.

How to Make an Earthen Floor for Your Sustainable Home

How to Make an Earthen Floor for Your Sustainable Home

Earthen floors add a great earthy touch to your sustainable home; whether that’s in your cob house or conventional stick frame home. They have more give than concrete or tile, meaning they are more comfortable and easy on your feet.

Contemplating an Uncertain Future: The Ranch and Climate Change

Contemplating an Uncertain Future:  The Ranch and Climate Change

Climate change, after decades of lulling at the bottom of the news cycle, has belatedly made it into the headlines as increasing numbers of people become aware, convinced and concerned about the environmental and social impacts of the Earth’s evolving atmospheric conditions.  I frequently think about disrupted weather patterns and what my role in this unfolding story should be.  

Permaculture Education: Virtual Reality and Keeping it Real

Permaculture Education:  Virtual Reality and Keeping it Real

Nearly a decade ago I moved to where I live now-- a tiny, isolated, town in rural Latin America. Its charms include lush towers of tropical rain forest, rainbows of succulent fruits, and a nightly chorus of a thousand frogs. A single disheveled bus leaves in the morning and returns at night, except on Sundays, or when the road washes out. The place is home to farmers, families, and a spattering of eclectic foreigners. The town's namesake, the Mastate, is a tree that bears a thick white sap which people sometimes drink in coffee, like milk.

Timber Framing in the Tropics

Timber Framing in the Tropics

The rainforests of Central America might not be the first place that you think of when you hear the term “timber frame construction”, but with initiatives in Monteverde and Mastatal, Costa Rica is starting to make a name for itself in the region for this post and beam building technique. We started to build the infrastructure of Rancho Mastatal Sustainability Education Center in the small rural community of Mastatal, Costa Rica in 2001.

Getting Inspired About Natural Building

Getting Inspired About Natural Building

Over the years of natural building at Rancho Mastatal my feelings on the process have gone through many stages. From the initial excitement of- wow, how cool you can build a house from the materials on your land, and all it takes is time, practice, and anyone can do this! To over time, after building many walls, an understanding of how long it takes to build a natural home and all the work that it entails.

Re-plastering: What will be unveiled?

Re-plastering: What will be unveiled?

On the building list one of our goals is to correctly re-plaster old structures to enhance their look and highlight our unique architecture. Over the last couple years we have slowly been giving our old structures new face lifts. Using lime plaster techniques that we have been learning, practicing and perfecting we have transformed various run down plasters into beautiful canvases of art.