Building with Hempcrete or Hemp-Lime
A group of lucky participants was treated to an excellent weekend workshop on building with hempcrete (or hemp-lime), led by UK architect and hempcrete pioneer, Tom Woolley. Tom is the author of Hemp Lime Construction and Low Impact Building, and has been involved in...
High-straw earthen plaster recipe
It’s no secret that we love clay plasters at Endeavour, and the best case scenario is being able to use a clay soil right from the building site. It just so happens that we lucked into this for the teachers’ union office project! After digging some test...
Framing systems for teachers’ union office
Wood framing is a conventional building practice that we use quite frequently at Endeavour. For the teachers’ union project, we are using wood framing for both the floor system and the exterior walls. The walls and floors may not look very different from...
Earthbag foundation for floor system
In addition to the Durisol stem wall foundation, our project for the teachers’ union office includes two long sections of earthbag foundation to support the floor joist spans inside the building. The inherent insulation value of the Durisol blocks made them our...
Helical pier foundation
The timber frame portion of our project for the teachers’ union rests outside the walls of the building, requiring individual foundation piers for each of the 14 posts. Typically, these would be poured concrete piers each with its own wide footing, resulting in...