Posted by Michael Blaha, November 10th , 2009.
I was fortunate to visit Joshua Tree this weekend. I met up with friends made at the Water Woman Festival in October. During the festival I didn’t really take any photos… to busy plerking ( play-working ). This time I made sure to take some!
There were 4 building projects during the festival. A temple led by Sun Ray Kelly; a cob bench and shade structure led by Kata Polano; Ray Cirino’s cob bench with built in rocket stove cooker; and a pond built by Gregory Glenn or the “goddess dipping pool”. The temple and pool are complete, though the two cob benches are still under construction. We were working on that this week end.
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Posted by Michael Blaha, May 17th , 2009.
On Friday I went to AdobeUSA 2009 Conference in El Rito. It was hosted and co-sponsored by Northern New Mexico College. A college that offers a certificate program in Adobe Construction.
Presentations that stuck out for me were Pallet Building by Dafyd Rawlings; Carole Crews speaking about traditional ways of working mud; and Tim White‘s talk on plaster increasing energy performance, sometimes by 10%. Between presentations I snuck off to take some pictures…
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Posted by Michael Blaha, March 7th , 2008.
Photo by Kelly Hart.
Kelly Hart has created a great slide show that displays earthbag construction and finished projects. He has also published a new web resource at earthbagbuilding.com. I’m a fan of earthbags. Benefits of earthbag construction include less water consumption, flexible earthen material ratio, courses and go up in moments ( no waiting for cob to dry). Bags can be plastered with earth or papercrete as Kelly has done. This type of construction is a form of rammed earth. The bags create a modular flexible form that stays in the wall. The polypropylene bags deteriorate in the sun, so covering them is very important. If you went to the moon, bring polypropylene bags and a shovel and you can build a shelter there… I suppose they would be called moonbags then.
Posted by Michael Blaha, July 2nd , 2007.
The last month was a busy one. It started with a visit from David Sheen. We toured around New Mexico documenting natural buildings for his upcoming film. We shot photos and interviews at The Lama Foundation, The Taos Pueblo, The 2007 Adobe Conference, The Greater World Community and other various building wonders.
Check out the photos here:
Old Brick of Cob, New Mexico »
Earth Armada »
Goddess in the Details »
Adobe USA 2007 »
Posted by Michael Blaha, December 1st , 2006.
I didn’t have a lot of experience building when I began this project, but I always enjoyed making forts and helping with the family house when I was young. I’ve worked with sculpture before, and in a way that’s what Project Moonunit is to me… that or a goat shed, winery, art studio, guest house, a mud hut, hacienda, ‘dobe, spaceship, pod, playground and home.
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