Our tool shed – entirely made out of salvaged wood and featuring the first true traditional wooden shingle roof in Costa Rica.
Natural building is a method of building which places major emphasis on using natural materials that are locally and sustainably sourced. Like anything, this means vastly different things depending on who you ask. So a proper definition is necessary along with a more exact language in order to understand what natural building is and how one can build naturally.
What’s a “building”?
Any building, no matter which, is made up of 3 elements: first and foremost, a roof! Second, a frame to redirect the load of the roof to the ground, and lastly a foundation where the building connects with the ground. This applies to any and all buildings – from skyscrapers to earth shelters and even naturally occurring shelters such as caves, nests, etc. This basic understanding alone gives us a very good sense of what a building is and what it’s primary purpose ought to be. i.e. to have an open space under a roof! Walls, windows, furniture, etc are all extras. These are not absolutely necessary for a building and are not always present or even desirable in some natural buildings (depending on climate conditions, location, purpose, etc). But a roof, a frame, and a foundation are what define what a building is.
Thus, in the context of natural building we need to address how to build naturally these 3 elements, and how that process would differ from conventional building.
What’s “natural”?
Natural materials are materials which can be found directly in the nature around you, without processing, heavy machinery, complex manufacturing, or reliance on a network of modern transportation. Basically you should be able to build a natural building using simple tools only and with raw materials that can be found and extracted by yourself from the nature around you.
Now that we understand what natural building means we’re able to recognize a natural house or structure when we see one. The thing is that natural buildings are very rarely built nowadays. Most so-called natural builders don’t actually practice natural building. For example, building a “cool” cob house means nothing in terms of natural building if your roof is made out of tin (or relies on conventional sheeting), your foundation is made out of cement, and you made your cob with purchased clay extracted far from your site. Cob walls, floors, windows, decoration, and other extras may be natural and perhaps trendy – but they aren’t what make up a building. That’s one of the reasons why most so-called natural buildings are actually entirely conventional.
A hundred a fifty years ago, most structures were natural buildings, and many natural buildings from past epochs still stand today. Some of them many hundreds of years old. Natural buildings, when built properly, last longer than their conventional counter-parts, are healthier, non-polluting “inside and out”, easier to maintain, and anyone can potentially build his own natural home (no complex machinery is needed).
How to build naturally?
Understanding the basic concepts behind natural building is necessary, and almost sufficient to have the correct approach to building naturally. First of all you’ll need to look for materials that are abundantly available in the nature around you. This assumes that you are building your home or structure somewhere where there is nature. But if you are building where there is earth – you’ve already got something to build naturally with.
Natural buildings need to be made out of the most adequate materials based on your climate, house site, etc. For example cob isn’t appropriate in the tropics for a building. Thermal insulation isn’t very important but an intelligently and carefully designed approach to deal with high humidity is necessary for a healthy house. Building with wood is adequate where you have an abundance of quality wood which you can cut yourself in a woodlot you can manage yourself – not wood that you purchase from a unknown site.
The same approach of harmoniously building with what there is around you applies to the methodology for designing your building. Orientation, height, elevation, etc are all factors that need to be determined based on your specific site.
Here at Raices del Sol we teach and practice what we consider true natural building – raising buildings on natural foundations, with natural frames, natural roofs, and everything in between. We do our own forestry and logging, harvesting the materials we use for building right here on site and we do it all entirely sustainably and with no complex machinery.
Interested in seeing how it all works from the ground up? Tired of the one-sided approaches to natural building and of the narrow workshops? Join our upcoming 3 month program and learn to build your own natural home from the ground up using a wide variety of traditional techniques and natural materials.
Natural building and integrative farming internship →
Some of our recent natural building projects:
Newly raised timber frame for our nursery. Built during the first half of the fall 2013 natural building internship. All using wood we harvested and milled ourselves from fallen trees in our private wildlife refuge and brought to the site through our jungle trails by men and horses.
Chicken coop entirely made out of natural materials from within a few hundred meters of the site: fallen or dry wood, bamboo, and palm. Not a single nail or screw or anything else. See pics and detailed description of the fascinating natural building process →
Our tool shed – entirely made out of salvaged wood and featuring the first true traditional wooden shingle roof in Costa Rica. Learn more about how we built it →
Further resources on natural building:
- Lots of pictures and interesting insights on natural building on our blog.
- Overview of natural building on Wikipedia.
- Collection of natural homes around the world.
Learn to build your own natural home →
Contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss any given natural building method.