Hummingbird Wholesale is an organic bulk food distribution company based in Eugene, Oregon. They recently moved into a new facility and wanted to showcase their values by building their showroom facade with strawbales and earth plaster. Eugene-based architect, Nir Pearlson, whom I used to work for, brought me on board to consult and construct Eugene's first permitted commercial straw bale wall. It was an interesting experience working on such a large job site (36,000 square feet!) alongside many builders whom had never heard of natural construction before. It was an amazing opportunity to spread the word about natural building and demonstrate how beautiful building with mud can be.

Special thanks to all of the building team: Casey Slezak, Mark Lombard, Fezzo…

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This is a classy 12-person sauna made with round poles, heavy timbers and chip-slip infill. I was honored to work with Rio Roi and Jonathan Beech, two excellent Oregon carpenters, to create this magical building.The corner posts were quartered from a single cedar log. The walls are filled with wood chips coated in clay and earth plastered with local soil and finished with Linseed oil. The interior is lined with cedar boards and heated with a wood stove. There is also an outdoor shower and lots of intricate details throughout the project. The short doorway is made from a redwood slab and has a small stained glass window of Ganesh. I did several stained glass windows in the project and …

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This is an earthen oven with attached cob benches in the shape of a raven. It was built at Breitenbush Hot Springs over the course of 2010-11 with a series of small efforts in which the community members could get involved with its construction. The project was organized by Sarah Crampton and the roof structure was built by one of the community members named Patrick.