Guide – Design and Build with Cordwood

Design and Build with Cordwood

31 July- 27th August 2017

Design and Build with Cordwood, a 4 week building workshop in Östertälje, Sweden. During this workshop we built a cordwood building to suit the needs of the newly established social enterprise Eko-Odlarna. They cultivate organic produce on a small plot of land on the outskirts of Östertälje.

Cordwood is a building technique that uses the material and resources from the 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. In this workshop we investigate suitable ways of building in cordwood, how to process the raw materials on site and how to design a cordwood building with partially reused materials.

The workshop also has a large focus on the method of “making architecture”, how can people contribute with skills, knowledge to the process of designing and making structures in a collaborative way. In the workshop we practice co-creating design and developing insights on alternative processes. We have the opportunity to work closely with the users of the building, which will bring new perspectives to integrate into the project development.

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