Join us in 2021 for a Natural Building course, internship or experience and learn about all aspects of sustainable building with natural materials.
What will be your options
- Some natural building each week on our Permaculture Internships which run every month
- A dedicated Natural Building Internship in summer 2021
- An 8 day Natural Building course in Summer 2021
- Date to be announced soon
Cost: tbc
Join our mailing list or follow us on social media to be updated with the dates
What is included:
- Tour of our permaculture farm and natural buildings
- Three Yoga classes per week
- Three healthy meals per day, most of the produce coming from the farm
- Working on real-life projects using most of the natural building techniques from straw bales to cordwood
- Free camping (or option to hire a caravan, tipi or tent)
Facilitator: Laurence Manchee
Since starting Keela Yoga Farm and with the help of volunteers, the local community and course participants, Laurence has completed a straw bale house which he now lives in, the straw bale community house, a wattle and daub chicken house, a long drop compost toilet using stone and wattle and daub, a straw bale greenhouse and a cordwood barn. He has been managed over 400 volunteers at Keela Yoga Farm and also runs Permaculture internships and Food Forest courses.
What will you learn and work on
- Firstly you will learn by doing. You will have short theory classes and long days of natural building. It will be fun, practical and sustainable.
- Natural buildings should make use of local resources and be built in a way that fixes carbon, requires less energy to heat and cool and recycles rainwater and greywater. They should also be fun to build!
- During the 10 week internship in 2020 we did the following (2021 details to follow).
- Build a straw bale room under an existing roof to be a classroom and winter yoga room, this includes:
- Making a wall foundation with stone or earthbags
- Making wooden frames to hold the walls, windows and doors
- Cutting, stacking and tieing the bales in place
- Plastering the straw bale walls with clay from our land
- Plaster the outer with walls with clay and lime for a protected finish
- Make and install windows and doors
- Incorporate bottles, cordwood and cob into the walls for decoration
- Incorporate a rocket stove thermal bench heater into the room
- Work on finishes and maintenance on other buildings including:
- Long drop compost vermiculture toilet
- Strawbale community house
- Wattle and daub chicken house in the chicken food forest
- Start a new build for housing the sheep
- Learn how to draw and design a new structure with to-scale drawings
- Create a foundation with drainage
- Run water and electricity to the house
- Build a timber frame for the roof using roundwood from trees that we will harvest
- Install a roof
- Rainwater catchment
- Theory and tours
- Theory classes will be given throughout the 10 week period
- Tours of existing buildings and the farm will be given on every start date
- Build a straw bale room under an existing roof to be a classroom and winter yoga room, this includes:
All of these items will be covered in the 10-week internship depending on time. We may do more items or fewer items depending on the number of people that join and the speed in which we get it done. The priority will always be given to finishing the straw bale room.
If you join for less than the full 10 weeks you will still get the full tour of all the work and much of the theory. But you will not get to work on all of the items above.
