Apply to Design and Build with Cordwood, in Östertälje, Sweden

Design and Build with Cordwood is a 4 week building workshop. During the workshop we will build a cordwood building to suit the needs of the newly established organic farmers in Östertälje.

Cordwood is a building technique that uses the material and resources from the natural Swedish environment, with wood, clay, sand and straw as the main components. The technique can be described as masonry with wood, where cobs or left over pieces of wood can be masoned together with a mortar mix made from clay, straw and sand. During the workshop participants will learn this method while building a useful structure, a direct learning by doing approach.

We will investigate suitable ways of building, experiment with pattern making and detailing, how to process the raw materials, and how to organise self-building strategies and participatory building as a form of development.

Through the workshop we hope to alter the way the technique has been seen as just an ancient building method. The workshop will explore if and in what way this technique can have a relevance for today’s built environment.