Live From the Tiny House Fair: What Do You Want Out Your Composting Toilet?

Abe Noe-Hays of Full-Circle Composting Toilets polls the crowd

Here's what we came up with:
-no odor
-small
-no insects
-easy to clean
-low input/easy to maintain
-sanitary
-discrete
-affordable
-beautiful
-can operate at low temperature
-useful [by]product

What do you want out of your composting toilet?

Live From the Tiny House Fair: Building an Eco-Village

Guest post by tiny house dweller, author, and former Yestermorrow Intern Matt Wolpe.

Starting with 14 acres and a lonely sugar shack, Gwendolyn Hallsmith delicately wove several tiny houses into her broader vision of an eco-village in Cabot, Vermont.  Treading lightly on her land (leaving the majority aside for preservation, which supports seven families) tiny houses are carefully placed throughout to serve as guest houses, studios and temporary housing while families build their permanent housing - which then frees the tiny houses up for adaptive reuse.

Gwendolyn, as a zoning and code savvy visionary, stressed the importance of using a municipal sewer and water system as a responsible way to cluster housing on a smaller portion of a larger plot of land, noting that when you are relying on a septic system, residents need to be spread out further from each other, causing more interruptions of the existing landscape.

More home sites are available at Headwaters if you are interested in joining Gwendolyn and company.  Additional info can be found here: http://headwatersfarm.blogspot.com/

Overheard at The Tiny House Fair: Boats and Lunchtime Musings

For those of you who have devoted hours of your time pouring over design solutions for living in small spaces, you've probably discovered the treasure trove of clever furniture and space uses in the sea-bound world. I caught a couple of snippets of marine inspirations and aspirations at lunch today:

1. A university administrator and recent empty-nester came here this weekend because she's plotting for her next life step: unrooting herself from her long-term home and setting out for an adventure. She dreams of living on a boat, but because of sea-sickness and the maintenance required of water-worthiness, knows she can't do it on the water - so why not on land? Hopefully this weekend will give her some of the tools and inspiration to retrofit a boat-home-on-wheels!

2. Have you heard about the Air Head Composting Toilet? One of PAD's participants favors this system over the many composting toilet options on the market or for making. Originally designed for boaters, this system is small, effective, efficient, and easy-to-maintain. It handles solids and liquids separately, diverting urine for easy disposal (e.g. remove it, dilute it, and water your fruit trees!); the poo-container is lined with coffee filters, which you dump into the aerating basin by "flushing" a lever. Add some carbon-material to the mix (she likes to use CoCo Core - a coconut husk product) and after some time you've got good, water-saving, human-generated compost! Hopefully I'll get to learn more about this at the afternoon's Full-Circle Composting Toilet talk.

Live From the Tiny House Fair: Think Outside the Box

(and building for a whole heck of a lot less while you're at it)

What a way to start the day!

"the cub", a.k.a. smurfmobile

Strolling across the sunny lawn to breakfast this morning, I was excited to see the arrival of "The Cub," a 4'x7' house on wheels that brothers Deek and Dustin Diedricksen of Relaxshacks are cozily calling home for the weekend.

The two started off today's activities with their talk "How to Build Your Own Home for a Heck of a Lot Less - Thinking Outside the Box." Anyone who's morning coffee hadn't quite kicked in yet, was quickly awoken by Deek's charisma and wit as he and Dustin related their experiences with building small-sized treehouses, trailer houses, and "ground-bound dwellings," using largely found, salvaged, and alternatively-purposed materials. In addition to testing the limits of what constitutes a dwelling space, making "cheap" art, and creatively building, the two are dedicated to re-directing the waste stream, getting functional materials out of the landfill and into use.

With over 20 years of "freeform building" under their belts, and Dustin's work as an environmental toxicologist, the two had a wealth of knowledge, experience, tips, and tricks to share. What I was most struck by, however, was the strong sense of freedom to experiment, learn, and push boundaries they'd granted themselves by seeking materials outside of the conventional. With stacks of found and free wood and odd windows, why not see if you could build a home in under 40 sq. ft? Why not create asymmetric window and siding patterns? Or use salad bowls and pickle jars as protruding windows and inset terrariums?

Some of Deek and Dustin's Tricks and Tips for Salvagers, Trash-Pickers, and Tiny-Livers:

- Keep a materials salvage Road Kit in your car, including: tarp, straps and bungees, crowbar, hammer, drill, Leatherman/multi-tool
- Let people know that you're interested in collecting building materials - word gets around!
- Develop a relationship with your local mom'n'pop sawyer and lumberyard
- Surf Craigslist (especially in affluent areas)
- Visit the "Take It or Leave It" section at the transfer station
- Ask for mis-mixed "oops" paint at the Loews or Home Depot
- Project Phasing: with some poly- or weather-protecting finish, it's fine to leave plywood sub-floor or sheathing exposed as your flooring or siding; don't worry about "finishing" it until you come by the money or desire!
- Get creative with typical household items - a glass bowl can become a window, a metal pail could be a sink, a teapot is a perfect planter
- Try It Before You Buy It - airbnb.com is full of tiny houses for rent, so next time you travel, thinking about booking a small space instead of a hotel room
- Space-Savers: Murphy beds, fold-down tables, shelving nooks behind stairs or in protruding windows, stair step seating


Do you have any creative ideas for inexpensive, small-scale living? Share your dreams and designs!

Live From the Tiny House Fair: Building a Community

Two of our featured speakers and their houses: the Ecovative Mushroom Tiny House and the COMET camper have arrived, growing our weekend tiny house community.

Lee Pera and Brian Levy from Boneyard Studios kicked off the event with a talk about how their tiny house showcase on an alley lot has been a vehicle to build community in DC. 

I was excited to hear Lee and Brian talk about how the Boneyard project evolved, from a monthly Meetup group daydream, to a parking lot turned community garden and inhabited space - a place to expand the conversation about small-living and issues around affordable housing. 

As Lee and Brian shared their passions for community outreach and dialogue, a lively energy permeated the group - it was clear that people had been anticipating being in a room with so many like-minded enthusiasts. Questions ranged water and sewage solutions, complicated zoning navigation, and the presenters' aspirations for their own tiny-living; and each response only brought up more questions - it's a good thing we still have two days to continue the conversation!

How do you reach out in your neighborhoods and build community and awareness about housing issues through tiny-house-living?

Live From the Tiny House Fair: ...GO!

The scene is set!

The Yestermorrow campus is held in a ready stillness, our presentation rooms ready for eager listeners, our staff bustling about the grounds, as our first guests start to trickle in.

tent ready for the welcome dinner

the first roving-home to arrive

camping area - all marked out

wood shop yesterday, presentation space tomorrow

yestermorrow chairs ready for the first talk in the main studio: building community 

our executive director and operations manager ready to check-in our attendees

Live From the Tiny House Fair: Get Ready, Get Set...

The rain clouds have cleared just in time to get the finishing touches on Yestermorrow's campus as we prepare for our Tiny House Fair guests to arrive! We're gearing up for a beautiful and lively weekend with a host of lectures, conversations, and events led by over a dozen small-living notables, not to mention the ample opportunities all attendees will have to engage in conversations about alternative living, community-building, and innovative technologies.

For those of you who aren't able to join us in Waitsfield, we'll be reporting from the event throughout the weekend, so be sure to tune in and join the conversation online!

Conference Room Collaboration

This spring, when we looked at our capital improvement projects for the year on the Yestermorrow campus, we decided to focus on one area during our "spring break" week. Unlike the typical spring break (sunny beaches, beer, etc), here at Yestermorrow we close to classes for a week each spring and fall to work on facilities projects—things we can only do when there are no students around. This April we decided to put our energies towards sprucing up the conference room and lobby. And in typical Yestermorrow fashion, it was truly a collaborative project.

The first step in the process started in February with the design of a new conference room table, spearheaded by instructor Ben Cheney. After a visit to the "boneyard" out on the tennis courts, he picked out three thick slabs of maple that we had harvested and milled a few years back in a Stump to Sticker class. He decided to leave the live edge on the two long sides, and after the wood had acclimated in the shop for a few weeks, he glued up the three slabs into a tabletop. Then back in his own metal shop in Montpelier, Ben fabricated steel legs which were then joined to the tabletop, with room for inevitable expansion and shrinking as the wood shifts over the seasons.

The next step was looking at the other furniture in the room and thinking about our options. The Woodworking Certificate students were looking for a project for their veneer week, led by instructor Steve Skonieczny. After working together on the design and a series of mock-ups and models, they decided on a pair of tables, one in the lobby and one in the conference room, that mirror each other with different veneer and wood selection. And they designed a curved brace to support each table, to make it easier to clean underneath. 

With both tables underway, and our break week upon us, it was time to get out all the existing furniture in order to paint the walls and trim and lay down the new floor. We ordered pre-finished birch flooring through Lathrop's mill over the mountain in Bristol, VT (Exclusively Vermont Wood Products). Dave Warren and our intern team installed the flooring in two days along with some new baseboard trim. While the new floor was going in, we brought in professionals to strip and re-finish the hardwood floors in the lobby. By the end of the week we did a deep clean and had furniture back in place and everything ready for students arriving on Friday night.

We also were lucky enough to connect with a new project called Embracing Art. A group of professional artists decided to share some of their artworks with non-profit organizations that are doing good work in their home state of Vermont and beyond its borders. They donate these artworks to shelters, environmental organizations, educational institutions, and many other kinds of non-profits. We were lucky enough to connect with Montpelier artist Maggie Neale, who donated a recent piece of hers entitled "Intersections", a combination of oils and collage. It now hangs as a focal point in the conference room space.

Our next step is to replace the computer station table with a concrete countertop which was just poured the last weekend of April. We're waiting for it to cure, and once it's been sealed we will install it on the east wall. We're also finishing up a few new cork boards for the walls but wanted to share with you the photos of our "new" space, it feels great!

-Kate

The Nature of Design

A guest post by Malena Marvin, Yestermorrow instructor

Modern humans are terribly good at transforming raw earth, at a massive scale, into toxic “waste” products that ecosystems cannot re-assimilate. We do this when we make products, develop energy, and when we house ourselves. By all measures, we are doing this too well, and too fast, re-making our planet into one that is less and less conducive to life.
 

photo by Malena Marvin

We need to change how our species makes and creates. But simply exchanging “green” materials for “conventional” ones won’t cut it. What’s required is a revolutionary re-wiring of how we design and build our habitat, derive our energy, and make our things. The mainstream of design needs a new worldview, and quick!

Luckily, the instructions for this “new” design philosophy are intrinsic in our own biology and the ecosystems we live within. The field of biomimicry is rolling out nature’s blueprints, and the concept of biophilia is helping us to see that this is good news for our stressed out, isolated, and medicated modern selves. Indeed ecological designers and permaculturalists are re-envisioning a world in which humans regenerate their own landscapes, creating thriving ecosystems whose biodiversity feeds our souls just as it does our bellies.
 
But we can take ecological design even deeper if we acknowledge that how we learn so often trumps what we learn. Sitting in front of the glowing tsunami of electronic information can introduce our brains to important abstract concepts, but it will not address the fact that in order to design like we are part of nature, we need to authentically experience ourselves as natural. Ecological literacy may be taught in the classroom, but ecological fluency must be earned outdoors, through observation and physical inquiry.
 
Our counter-evolutionary cultural insistence on living physically and emotionally separate from our support (eco)systems has created a dangerous negative feedback loop. We interrupt this loop whenever we spend real time experiencing what is wild and nonhuman. It’s our imperative as designers to consciously translate that experience back into our habitat, so that we can create space that awakens because it is alive.
 

photo by Malena Marvin

The Nature of Design reconnects designers with their animal natures, taking the pedagogy of design beyond its rectangular classrooms, and out into the living, breathing, photosynthesizing world. We track projects and ideas in deep ecological design at natureofdesign.org and our courses research how back country immersion and experiential study of ecology influence creativity and the design/build process. A recent peer-reviewed study bolsters our approach, finding that "…four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increases performance on a creative, problem-solving task by a full 50%.” The Nature of Design is bringing this line of inquiry to the field of design and architecture.

If you like these ideas, or know someone who would, consider taking a field- and nature- based Nature of Design course through Yestermorrow this year. Students will explore biomimicry, biophilia, and other concepts in ecology and ecological design on a multi-day backpacking trip before diving into a culminating design project in the studio. Through hands on activities, readings, and discussion, students will ask: How does immersion in a natural environment impact creativity and design decisions? Can an experiential understanding of natural processes lead to more "natural" design? What would it look and feel like to truly align contemporary building with the principles of ecology?

Seattle Wanderings

image courtesy www.seattleplace.com

Turns out, everyone says Vermont and Seattle attract the same kinds of people. I'm not sure that's true, but there certainly a lot of Yestermorrow folks in that neck of the woods. I recently returned from an expedition to Seattle, WA. It was fun to catch up with people and hear what they're up to since Yestermorrow. Here are a few of their stories...

Jeremy Culver was an intern at Yestermorrow back in 2002 when he was in architecture school at Ball State University. After graduation he headed west and has been in Seattle ever since, working as a design/builder for a firm called Carlisle Classic Homes, where he's one of the main project managers for their renovation and remodeling clients. In his spare time (along with raising three cute kids) he has spent the last seven years renovating a 700 square foot bungalow in West Seattle. When I got a tour of his home I immediately recognized a number of touches that reminded me of Yestermorrow and the projects Jeremy worked on when he was here- attention to joinery, unusual hardware selections, and a natural wood finishes.

Janie Barnett first arrived at Yestermorrow in 2002 and over the next few years took seven courses. She went on to build the home she designed in the Home Design course in nearby Fayston, VT which features super insulated walls, passive solar orientation, locally sourced lumber, reclaimed materials and beautiful details. Her experience designing and building the house has led her to continue to pursue research in green building and building science, and since she moved to Seattle she's been advising others on how to build homes free of toxic materials and electro magnetic frequencies.

Catherine Calvert is an architect at VIA Architecture where she is Director of Community Sustainability for their Seattle office. She came to Yestermorrow in 2010 to take our Farm Design course as a way to further her interest in design connected to food production and urban agriculture. It was exciting to hear about some of the pro bono community projects her firm has worked on to support urban gardens in the local area among other projects.

Sam Kraft and Ji Shon were both Yestermorrow interns (2006 and 2004, respectively) who both ended up studying architecture at the University of Washington. Sam just graduated and Ji is finishing up her M.Arch this semester. Sam has continued to build a variety of projects while he was in school through Abacus Fine Carpentry and is in the process of forming a design firm which hopes to combine technology with an eye towards nature, and also incorporating Permaculture design.

Kristin Engelbrecht Bleem was an intern in 2006 and since settling in Seattle owns her own painting firm, Eager Beaver Works. She tackles all kinds of projects from historic home renovations to new construction, and provides handywoman services. And every once in a while when she gets bored she leads groups of college students on exchange programs in India to study Buddhism. A multi-talented lady.

I also got to see (briefly) two recent intern graduates, Chris Landingin (now an apprentice carpenter for a small design build crew) and Jess Osserman (on the job hunt) as well as former intern Scott Szeman (who admitted he had not touched a hammer since his internship in 2008 and has gone back to investment banking).

While at the University of Washington I did a presentation about Yestermorrow and visited with Steve Badanes (longtime YM instructor) and Kimo Griggs (former instructor) who both teach in the architecture program there. And had a shop tour with YM woodworking instructor, Steve Skonieczny, who runs his own cabinetry and furniture business out of Ballard Woodworks, a woodworking school and professional cooperative located near downtown Seattle. He is one of five professionals who work out of the shop full time and occasionally teach classes.

It was a whirlwind trip, but great to re-connect with so many Yestermorrow friends and hear how their time at Yestermorrow has influenced their careers and lives.

-Kate

Solar numbers are in!

With the start of the new year, it's a good time to look back at 2012 and where we've been. I took the opportunity to check out our 2012 solar production numbers compared to the past few years (our 28kW array of AllSun Trackers was installed in April 2010). We produced 38,283 kWh in 2012, up from 35,255 kWh in 2011. This equals 75% of the annual electric load for our main campus building.