About a week ago, while watching Shingeki No Kyojin, we had a conversation about the nature of community and how hard it is to connect with other like-minded people on the physical plane. So we agreed that we should try and help others who are in similar processes to do their stuff and not only think of what benefits us in our projects. A few days later @fenngen 's mom shared us a call for help to build a house with cob in a neighboring town, and we heeded that call. Today we wanted to share with you a few pictures of the place and get those bio-construction imaginations rumbling (hehehe, get it? Rumbling. What? No more Otakus into permaculture around here?)
We hitchiked to Aysén, which is the nearest town to these new friend's home but after that there were still 25 km of rural road left, so we waited and they came for us on their motorhome which is an old minibus which they adapted themselves to live in. Sorry but we weren't too aquatinted yet to start taking pictures on spot. Maybe another time they'll allow us to show you what it's like.
Inside they have two beds, a sink and kitchenware, as well as lectric plugs that are solar powered.
This was our first view at arriving. As you can already see, many of its materials are recycled, Ani shines by contacting people and companies that stop using the materials. Their doors, windows and pallets have been obtained from people who have wanted to give them away due to disuse.
As you can see a lot of the structure is made of pallets, while the main pillars are native tree lenga trunks. Despite the recycling there is still some monetary investment close to 3.000.000 CLP (3.735 USD).
Here you can see one of the sides, on the left you have the kitchen installation and on the right the bathroom. The last thing we helped do was raise the water tank to the structure that you see there. The system will be by gravity and they will be able to use rainwater for these two rooms.
The place is surrounded by trees, rivers, lakes and mountains. These 3 used a little further from the ground, but still quite close.
The view is beautiful 🤩
The first layer of cob is being applied at the moment. It is a mixture of lime from the subsoil around the house and straw. You can see in between the pallets there are many bottles which is a good idea to save up on material, and anyone who's built with cob knows how important that is time and energy wise.
For the foundations they used sacks of mixed sand and stones that they made themselves. Since being close to rivers and lakes they had a lot. Around the house, ditches were made under these sacks where they placed large stones so that the water would drain easily through there and not so much humidity would enter.
This is one of the walls we helped to cover. Work went pretty fast as when a bigger group is working it's easier to stay focus on the job while entertained in the conversation.
We also helped finish this wall, since it was almost ready. In the afternoon when the sun sets there was a beautiful light as we drank the te, the green bottles provided a magical touch.
Before we show more of the build, let's go on a little walk around the piece of paradise that surrounds the house.
This tree is called arrayan, and it is a native species of Chile. It grows in places with lots of water and has a particular relationship with the element as it brings it up from the deep ground, making it very valuable to ecosystems. It is said that hugging one of these tree has healing properties which you can see @choli took advantage of. The particular tree in the picture is one of the biggest both of us have seen of that species.
The place is surrounded by all this magical native vegetation, where their daughter runs around and plays freely with her imagination.
On one of the few walks we went out there, @fenngen ran into one of the two kittens playing in the woods. Sister and brother who found them in another small town in the region, both very playful and cuddly, at night they liked to make a mess 🤭
Kitten time!
Flower and fruit from an unknown bush/tree. @fenngen tasted the fruit and had to almost immediately spit it out because of insane bitterness 😂
Back to the house... The kitchen is a nice open space with lots of light, wielding an old fashion woodstove to cook and heat up. They are planing of building one of those big ass rocket stoves that have a long tunnel with cob on top so that you can sit and warm up your bottom on those dark and cold winter days.
The rest of the kitchen space which is where they sleep now during the construction.
Second floor skeleton looking nicely.
Well dear Hivers, we hope you enjoyed the post and got some good ideas for your own future projects. More coming up of our construction soon so stay tuned. Have a great week!