Natural Building and Cooperative Economy

If we consider our dwellings as a form of nourishment for our souls, then natural materials are the whole foods of building. While some modern materials truly provide benefits, such as those that are glazed to allow for passive solar gain, many are not worth their seemingly low price and should be avoided. For example, Masonite Corporation made a cheap siding out of its wood waste that not only required toxic glue to hold together but also absorbed water in any place where the finish had worn off. The inexpensiveness of this product was far outweighed by its poor quality, toxicity, and lack of durability. On another note, consider that a finely crafted traditional timber frame house uses significantly less wood than a comparatively sized industrially manufactured stick-frame structure. If we design spaces to be hand built and efficiently compact, we can justify the use of natural resources that might otherwise seem expensive or frivolous.

If we are willing to be our own builders, then the world of natural building truly opens up. Many natural building techniques are labor intensive, which often makes them prohibitive when hiring help. However, traditional materials usually offer superior qualities to modern ones. Adobe bricks, for instance, have superior thermal properties as compared to concrete blocks, yet they require far less energy to produce.

Indeed, many modern materials have been created just to replace those qualities lost when natural materials were abandoned. When straw and wool, for example, were discarded as building materials, fiberglass and rigid foam insulation had to be invented to fulfill those lost functions. Unfortunately, many new materials such as these not only contain large amounts of embodied energy, that is, the energy expended in its manufacture and transportation, but many toxic chemicals as well. The energy required to produce cement for concrete, for example, is enormous compared to that of hand digging soil and lime out of the earth. So if we are willing to build for ourselves, to engage family and friends, and members of our community, we have the opportunity to once again enjoy the benefits of natural building.

Vishu Magee writes that natural materials, as well as natural forms, call to our own nature and to elemental forces. Elizabeth Murray believes that nature connects us with the archetype of regeneration. She claims that we can resanctify land by putting our own soul and spirit back into it. Christopher Day adds that only the experience of actually doing the work can make the materials live inside of ourselves and enliven our esthetic sense in turn. So doing our own building can be a healing activity not only for our land but for our bodies as well.

Indeed, doing our own building work is essential to making a deep connection with our place. Christopher Alexander writes that the emotional energy generated from the creation of a living thing can only come through the intimate connection developed in the process of making that thing. Magee adds that sensing something in our bodies is a sign that we have truly come to understand the power of that thing. This potency, created through direct inner experience, is that which energizes and makes palpable what would otherwise remain as abstract meaning. So building work can play an important role in the personal transformation that is the prerequisite of any meaningful effort aimed at societal transformation.

This work of direct inner experience has a transformative capacity as a result of the possibility of accessing that which Angeles Arrien calls our four inner archetypes. In The Four-fold Way, she describes them as blueprints for human behavior and claims that they are present in the mythic structure of societies everywhere. These archetypes include the following:

(1) Warrior, whose way is “showing up and choosing to be present,”

(2) Healer, whose way is to “pay attention to what has heart and meaning,”

(3) Visionary, whose way is to “tell the truth without blame or judgement,” and

(4) Teacher, whose way is to “be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.”

Clearly, building our own homes for ourselves will require each of us to deeply engage each of these paths and, in the process, present us with the opportunity of becoming more human.

Natural building provides us with all of the possibilities just described, yet its greatest potential may be that of reestablishing a culture based on cooperation. As the pace of working by hand does not fit well within the capitalist paradigm and as more and more people desire a healthy home, there will be a convergence of trends. This convergence will be bolstered by the increasing number of people who are being excluded from economic participation as corporations attempt to hoard every last ounce of material wealth. This phenomenon holds the possibility of reversing the more recent economic relationship between labor and materials. Today we often feel pressed for time and so rely on money to purchase materials. However, as the capitalist system unravels, and people increasingly find themselves ‘unemployed’ (that is, out of the business of making money), we may find that we have the time available to once again provide for our own basic needs.

While most individuals have the potential ability to grow their own food, building our own house by oneself poses more of a problem. When we seriously begin thinking about how to rebuild our local economies, we will find that this task is impossible to complete without cooperation. Traditional farming communities have known this, and neighbors would all gather around when it was time for a ‘barn raising’. No one would charge for their time and labor, for they knew that they would get their turn to receive the help of the community.

Natural building is already restoring this tradition of cooperation. Many strawbale homes are built today not by paid construction crews but by groups of workshop participants who exchange their physical labor for the opportunity to learn and experience.

Paula Baker & Robert Laporte have created a more formal organization of this kind, called the EcoNest network. The EcoNest is a strawclay timber frame structure that is built by an organization of workshop participants led by the Laportes. Prospective families take part in a prerequisite number of four-day workshops, gaining knowledge and experience in the act of building houses for other families. Once that number has been reached, knowledge and experience deepened, the network arrives at that family’s home to participate in the building of their house.

It is from just such trends that old traditions can be reestablished. Communities can be rebuilt through cooperation rather than torn apart through competition. If we unite, we have the possibility of defending our home places from predatory corporations. As we regain control of our local economies, we will have the opportunity to transform the dynamics of our economic relationships with each other. As cooperation becomes the rule, rather than the exception, we will have gone a long way toward manifesting a Better World and to actualizing our hopes and dreams for the future.