Natural Building
If you’re building in the tropics, it’s essential to choose methods and materials that can stand up to humidity, heat, heavy rain, and pests—without sacrificing sustainability or beauty.
So what is natural building? I would say the definition goes deeper than just constructing buildings with “natural” materials. After all how do we define what natural is?
Natural pigments are a fun part of natural building and the options are almost endless.
Have you ever heard of natural plasters? If not, check Rancho Mastatal Natural Building course. Maybe you attended a course somewhere or had an enjoyable experience with some friends helping them at their natural home project or maybe you have seen some videos online.
Simply defined Tadelakt is a type of polished lime plaster. Many cultures around the world have polished lime plaster, but none have captured the imagination in the way that Tadelakt has. At the Ranch we offer a variety of day workshops and our Tadelakt day workshop is by far one of the most popular natural building options.
Llegar a un curso de bioconstrucción es una señal. Quien busca el conocimiento teórico y práctico en este campo, probablemente haya empezado a transitar un camino hacia el cambio de mentalidad y forma de vida; posiblemente muy pocas personas que aterricen en un curso de este tipo lo harán por azar y la mayoría lo hará como consciente consecuencia de su inclinación por un cambio de paradigma, de estilo de vida, por la búsqueda de coherencia entre el discurso y la práctica. Este fue nuestro caso.
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.
Lime plastering as a craft form has endured the test of time due to its versatility and the accessibility of limestone as a building material. When produced and applied with care and experience, lime plasters yield an elegant finished product.
With proper instruction, patience, and focus, it is entirely possible for a beginner to accomplish amazing things with this building technique.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
In the natural building world at Rancho Mastatal there is no lack of projects to be done. I think as a team we have collected a list that will take us past 2020. And we already have been building our infrastructure for the past 16 years. One could say we are natural building addicts!
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.
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.
Rammed earth is an ancient method of constriction used by civilisations such as the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians over 10,000 years ago. Essentially, Rammed Earth is a mix of soil, sand and water mechanically compacted into a high density framework, which is the stripped and allowed to cure.