…where you will meet “cob fathers” and “cob mothers” and gather with other folks who love natural building!
Friday, June 14 – Sunday, June 16
Join us in celebrating OUR 20th year at OUR ECOVILLAGE!
We are inviting the natural building community and friends to a fully immersive weekend of learning, gathering, honouring, sharing and celebrating!
The Natural Building Colloquium is a gathering for natural building enthusiasts: builders, teachers, professionals, and those who are passionate about natural building. It is a place to exchange the latest developments in practical applications and technology and share ideas with other people in the field. We will look at where the natural building movement stands in regards to professional support, permits, and finding qualified builders.
OUR “Lawful Permaculture” Demonstration Site & Education Centre is an immersion of a wide range of natural buildings that are cob, straw bale, rammed earth, earthship/tire, living roofs, or rubble trench foundations and are all permitted and engineered. Whether you are a green builder, regulatory official, designer, or home owner/builder, this (un)conference will open the doors for whole new ways of understanding ecological design and building.
This is NOT a workshop. We will gather for panels, presentations and network with one another with social time. We also plan on sharing our own stories as well as honouring the elders in the natural building movement.
Come early for plastering workshops with Athena Steen and Elke Cole or stay longer for experienced plasterers with Benito Steen.
Proposed Schedule Overview
| Time | Event | Location |
| All Afternoon | Mosaics with Shaylene | Chillage |
| Before 6pm | Arrival and Registration | Eatery Main Entrance |
| 6pm | Dinner | Eatery |
| 7:30pm | Opening Ceremony and Keynote Speaker: Mark Lakeman | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 9pm | Live Music & Performance by Topher Trick | Taj 2 |
| Time | Event | Location |
| 7:30am-8:30am | Breakfast | Outdoor Eatery |
| 10am | Greg Marchese | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 10:45am | Women and Building: Athena Streen & Elke Cole | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 11:25am | Break/Snack | |
| 11:45am | Engineering 101 with Mark Fleischhacker | Outdoor TBA |
| 12:30pm | Lunch | Outdoor Eatery |
| 2:15pm | Sustainable Builders: Michele Deluca and Natasha Danenhower | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 3pm | Panel – Collaborators and Contractors | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 3:40pm | Break/Snack | |
| 4pm | Panel – Collaborators and Contractors | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 4:45pm | TBA | |
| 6pm | Dinner | Outdoor Eatery |
| 7:30pm | Keynote: Ianto Evans | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 8:45pm | Elder Circle | Taj 2 |
| Late Night | Fire Circle | Top Field |
| Time | Event | Location |
| 7:30am-8:30am | Breakfast | Outdoor Eatery |
| 10am | The Mudgirls | Taj 2 |
| 10:45am | Panel – Going Forward | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 11:25am | Break/Snack | |
| 11:45am | Panel – Going Forward | Taj 2 & Livestreamed on OUR Facebook page |
| 12:30pm | Lunch | Outdoor Eatery |
| 2:15pm | TBA | Taj 2 |
| 3pm | Closing Circle | Taj 2 |
| 4pm | End of Event |
Memories from Past Gatherings
at OUR Ecovillage
We are calling in all past students and teachers of natural building courses and programs to join us! Share your story, reunite with long lost friends and colleagues by joining us here in person or watch the experience online with our livestream.
This is an exceptional opportunity to spend time with expert natural builders. Presenters will include Athena and Benito Steen – caneloproject.com, Pat Hennebery – cobworks.com, Elke Cole – elkecole.com, and more.
- Learn from experienced natural builders
- Network with leaders in the field and peers
- Find new resources
- Tour OUR Ecovillage’s natural buildings
- Discover new ideas from panel discussions
- Get advice for your natural building career
- Help us honour the “cob mothers and fathers” as elders of the natural building movement
Cost
*Prices includes camping as well as catered meals.
Early bird (before May 13th):
Single $250 plus taxes
Bring 2 People $475 plus taxes
Regular:
Single $275 plus taxes
Bring 2 people $500 plus taxes
Presenters, Authors and Teachers:
If you are interested in offering a 30 min presentation please email us with your proposed topic and a little background about yourself. We will offer special rates to our presenters.
Topics should relate to Natural building: Permitting, Engineering, Technique, Development, History, Future of Natural Building, Connected Systems, Issues, Problems and Solutions and other related topics.
Authors: Are invited to set up their book sales station and bring their publications.
Teachers: Share your upcoming workshops at an Information table/station. Bring flyers/posters.
Please email us with your proposed topic and a little background about yourself.
Featured Presenters
Mark (Mocean) Michaelson Lakeman
Board Director
Mark is a national leader in the development of sustainable public places. In the last decade he has directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than three hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone.
Through his leadership in Communitecture, Inc., and it’s various affiliates such as the The City Repair Project (501(c)3), The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities.
Sarah Frances
Board Secretary
Frances has loved building things since she was a kid helping her dad around the house. She loves space and material, loves picking things up and feeling the heft and texture of them in her hands. She began a building company, BabaYagaBuilds; in 2012 and has been creating structure with friends ever since. Frances also has an unyielding passion for stories and for the wonder that comes when humans create together. The past few years she has been the City Repair VBC Natural Building Coordinator. The superhero power this task evokes in her life is the one of Creative Purpose, the thrill and gratitude for life that comes when one is doing something 100% worthwhile and fulfilling.
Michele Deluca and Natasha Danenhower
Sustainable Builders
Michele has recently returned back to her home of Nelson, BC, to lay down some roots afters years of bouncing around learning and traveling. She has partcipated in two six-month natural building programs, and is now hooked for life! Her current dream is to create and contribute to projects that incorporate natural building, education, affordable housing and women in trades.
Natasha grew up beside a river on a small organic orchard in the Similkameen Valley of interior BC. Since then she’s been following a winding path of interests which include farming, permaculture, craft beer, sustainable building, facilitation, carpentry and woodworking. She dreams of federal policy which demands carbon sequestering buildings as a solution to climate change and also of staying in one place long enough to grow a vegetable garden that rivals her mothers in success.
Michele and Natasha are two new sustainable builders who will share about their experiences in the Sustainable New Construction program with Chris Magwood, Community Rebuilds in Utah, and the Red Seal Carpentry program. They will also discuss the desire for a network of community, idea exchanges and job opportunities in natural building across our province.
Gregg Marchese
Roundwood Timber Framing: More Art Than Craft
Sampling of some of the creative use of small diameter peeled and limbed trees (roundwood timbers) in Natural Building over the last 2 decades. From the elaborate to the simple, this will focus less on how and more on what can be done creatively. Limited focus on homestead-scale forestry intertie.
Gregg Marchese (mar-KAY-zee) has been more or less a natural builder for about 20 years. He has specialized in roundwood timber framing, rustic furniture and homestead forestry. Other interests include hockey, guitar, revisionist history and other taboo topics.
Bryce Langston
Producer Living Big in a Tiny House
Bryce Langston, world known producer of ecological design Small Home, is the producer of gone viral series “Living Big In a Tiny House”. Bryce is jumping in with an amazing framework for mirroring nature in our design work and how less is more … in going bigger and going home!
Watch Living Big in a Tiny House
The Mudgirls
Natural Building Collective
Building a Revolution: More than a decade of non-hierarchy consensus based decision making and small scale grass roots governance. Natural building too.
The Mudgirls is an all-women’s natural building collective from coastal British Columbia. They build houses and offer workshops that empower people to take back the right to provide themselves with shelter. They taught themselves everything they needed to know to build houses using the most abundant material on earth – mud. They learnt as they went, learnt to build by building, gathered skills and allies, and shared whatever they learned with as many people as wanted to come & do it with them.
The Mudgirls have been together for over 10 years; meeting new people, forging new paths, and spreading skills and knowledge in a joyful way is the very fuel that feeds the fire. How do you make a movement sustainable; keep it alive and thriving? It seems like the Mudgirls have learned that, too, along the way, and now it’s time to share it.
Registration
Full Weekend – On-site
Includes All Meals and Camping
Friday June 14 at 6:00pm to Sunday June 16 at 4:00pm
Cost:
Early bird – before May 1st $250
Bring 2 people for $475 plus taxes
Regular $275 plus taxes
Bring two people for $500 plus taxes
Full Weekend – Off-site
Includes All Meals
Friday June 14 6:00pm – Sunday June 16 4:00pm
Regular $245 plus taxes
Register Full Weekend – Off-site
Single Day – Friday June 14th Off-site
Includes Dinner
Friday June 14 6:00pm-10:30pm
Includes Dinner, Opening Ceremony & presenter & Fire Circle
Regular $43 plus taxes
Single Day – Saturday June 15th – Off-site
Includes Dinner
June 15th 9:00am-10:30pm
Includes Lunch and Dinner, Presentations, Demonstrations, Site Tour, Networking
Regular $145 plus taxes
Single Night – Saturday June 15th – Off-site
Includes Dinner
June 15th 6:00pm-10:30pm Includes Dinner, Evening Presenters & Fire Circle Regular $58 plus taxes
Register Saturday Night
Single Day – Sunday June 16th – Off-site
Includes Lunch and Dinner
June 16th 9:00am-4:00pm
Includes Lunch, Panel Discussion, Honouring Elders, Closing Circle
Regular $98 plus taxes
OUR Ecovillage
OUR Ecovillage is a demonstration site for permaculture and sustainable living. OUR buildings show a variety of natural building methods and designs. We have worked with regulatory processes and professionals to receive permits for all of our buildings and to blaze the path of legal natural building for others. One example is OUR re-zoning project, which has allowed other groups to follow our demonstration project with similar ambitions.
We offer accommodation in some of OUR natural buildings: the Healing Sanctuary, shared dormitory and other beautiful cob spaces.
During the colloquium we will offer glimpses into many of the natural buildings on site during a guided tour led by natural building expert Elke Cole. Elke had been involved in the design, build, and execution of OUR natural building projects from the start.
For More Natural Building:
Sculpting and plastering with clay
