Yestermorrow Design/Build School

This course provides students with a comprehensive exploration of all facets of creating an energy efficient, climate-specific natural structure. In this one-week course, we will engage in studio sessions, hands-on materials exploration, lectures, slide shows, and site tours. In the studio, students will develop a basic schematic design of a project through the creation of drawings of elevations, sections, plans, and scale models. Topics include straw bale construction, fiber-clay infill and other natural wall systems, clay and lime plasters, natural roof options, alternative foundations, water and energy conservation systems, permaculture and building-site relationships, and social and cultural contexts. Emphasis will be paid to designing and detailing for success in cold, wet climates.

This class will teach students how to think their way through the design and construction of a naturally-insulated building through presentation, lecture, conversation, and field trips. We will also build a demonstration project that will incorporate a variety of different insulation materials, including strawbale, straw-clay, and woodchip-clay, to explore the nature of the materials, develop skills in application, and understand appropriate detailing and best common practices for construction in cold, wet climates.

Building with earth is an affordable, intuitive, attractive, safe and ecologically sound method of construction. Learn to prospect, identify and test for suitable building materials; mix and build using cob, adobe, wattle-and-daub; install windows within earthen walls; attach doors, roofs, and cabinets; and sculpt niches, shelves, and furniture. We will discuss utilities installation and building logistics for earthen structures as well as the appropriate use of mass in different forms in the cold-climate built environment.

Henry Beston noted how the hand-made thing has the mark of the living soul. This course will teach you how to create and apply beautiful hand finished plasters and paints on many wall surfaces. The course will cover at a basic level three principle plaster and paint mediums: clay, lime, and gypsum, and finish with plaster coats, paints, and washes of clay, lime, casein, wheat paste, mica, pigments, and other natural ingredients.  Students will leave this course with practical experience mixing and applying a wide variety of finishes on various wall systems. 

The Advanced Plasters & Finishes course will focus primarily on the creative and artistic potential of lime plaster finishes. We will explore how to locally source and formulate fine finish plasters from common raw materials. We will then learn to apply them creatively, using techniques that have been in practice for hundreds if not thousands of years.  Included will be tadelakt, fresco, limewash  and common integral colored lime plaster finishes.  Students will be encouraged to learn the basic rules of lime finish plaster formulation and application, giving them the confidence to explore their own regional materials and create their own unique works of art. 

In this course, students will learn how to create a durable and beautiful earthen floor that can be constructed with gravel, sand, and clay. Through lecture, presentation, field trips, and hands-on demonstration projects, we will explore the basic recipes and techniques of building an earthen floor, and how they can be successfully integrated into a variety of building designs. 

Finishing walls with natural, nontoxic products imparts a number of benefits to a building, whether you are working on a plastered strawbale wall, or interior gypsum wall board. The ingredients are simple and safe, the process is creative and fun, and the possibilities are endless! In this course, we will look at the art, science and practice of making your own paints, washes, and other finishes with clay, lime, casein, wheat paste, mica, sand, pigments, oils and other natural materials. Students will be introduced to a variety of materials and their working properties, as well as gain a solid understanding of the basics of where and how to apply these products to different wall systems. This class will be mostly hands-on, with discussion ongoing throughout the course.

The Natural Building Certificate will conclude with students engaging individually on design, research, or small modeling/building projects that propel their learning to the next level.  Project topics are chosen by each student, based on their interests, in consultation with the instructors.  Students will present their Practicum's on the final day to a panel of experts for critique and input.