The 2nd week started with a lecture by Cordwood DIY builder Olle Hagman, taking us through the history of cordwood building, the development of the technique and how it’s being used today. Olle also joined us on site with some valuable advice.

The first week of LearnBIØN course #3 Design and Build with Cordwood started on the 1st august with an introduction in Järna. The team was gathered with participants from 9 nationalities, all with unique skills that each one brings to the project.

On July 28th 2017 the BIØN-team leaded by AK0 with the help of the local partner association Sabinarti delivered the outcome of LearnBIØN workshop#2 to the local community of Casaprota, the small town in central Italy that has hosted the workshop.

LearnBIØN workshop#2 is getting in the final face. Since a few days the little training-prototype is being wrapped with a natural insulation layer. We decided for 80mm wood-fibre panels which we protect with a diffusive yet waterproof membrane. The panels are entirely made of wood and easy to cut on site.

Time is running in Casaprota! During the third week new members joined the team and their help was very useful to complete some key goals.

We finally got the insulation panels in wood fiber and the steam barrier; putting them on site was quite fast and after that we could install the last wall layer, a quincha panel covered with earth, sand and straw just on the external surface.

The LearnBIØN course #2 focused on lightweight constructions in earth building. While the first days were dedicated to explore an adjusted version of wattle-and-daub-techniques, in a second step the workshop-participants got the possibility to learn about lightweight, monolithic walls made of straw and raw earth.

One of the question marks our network deals with is which local resource is suitable for which productive reality. On one hand the use of natural materials is an invitation for manual work: the processed products are mainly nontoxic and most of the techniques are simple enough to be learned by everyone with the right motivation and a few purposeful training sessions.

We are definitely going into the hot phase of the workshop Design and Build with Wattle-and-Daub and Light Straw. The second week is over, after some hours of hard work and fascinating discoveries about our principal material, the earth. We are proud to announce that we made impressive progress!

The first week of LearnBIØN course#2 Design and Build with Wattle-and-Daub and Light Straw is concluded. An enthusiastic group of participants from different countries and with different professional backgrounds have had the possibility to assess the features of locally available earth samples through empirical tests, to understand the working principle of a wattle-and-daub frames build with the quincha-technique and to accomplish all the necessary working steps for it practically.

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.

The last week of the course has arrived. With it comes a central part of the learning process, learning the secrets behind building a vault. To help us sharing this knowledge we received the architect Miguel Rocha from CEDAC Terra that counts with numerous experiences with arches and vaults in Portugal and Spain.

During the third week of the course Design and Build with CEB the masonry with 1 and 1/2 brick was continued until arriving to 140cm. This was the starting point of our arches with 170cm diameter. The centering was made by a local carpenter and is a contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional ones, instead massive wood, oriented strand boards (OSB) were used to shape the arches form.

Another week has passed at the Design and Build with CEB course in Portugal. It was the time to take out the foundation’s formwork and see the result of the previous week of work. It seamed like a desirable pool, that was quickly filled with gravel. A layer of juta fabric and a regularization bastard mortar (cement and lime) helped prepare the surface for the upcoming masonry.

For the project that we are planning to build in July, with the participants at LearnBIØN Workshop#2 Build and Design with wattle-and-daub and light straw and the local community of Casaprota, we still need some canes.

On Sunday 14th of May, we would like to invite you everybody to a study and work day in the middle of the Sabina hills. The one day seminar includes hands-on activity and a short theoretic introduction on building with canes.

The first week of Design and Build with CEB workshop in Portugal has passed with the achieved goal: the foundation is finished!

19 participants from 7 different countries engaged in the challenge of building a prototype that can host 2 residents/volunteers in our Oficinas da Cerâmica e da Terra.

On Thursday, 13th of April, LearnBIØN Workshop #2 (Build and Design with wattle-and-daub and light straw) has officially been lanced in Casaprota, central Italy. AK0-chairman Arch. Stefan Pollak met Marcello Ratini, mayor of Casaprota and Arch. Renato Vivaldi Tesser, chairman of SabinArti, the local partner organisation, for the project start.

Another week has passed at the Design and Build with CEB course in Portugal. It was the time to take out the foundation’s formwork and see the result of the previous week of work. It seamed like a desirable pool, that was quickly filled with gravel. A layer of juta fabric and a regularization bastard mortar (cement and lime) helped prepare the surface for the upcoming masonry. Studying the masonry bound-pattern according to the building new dimensions was the next step.

Saturday 18th of February the AK0-team together with a group of volunteers have started to harvest the canes needed for the raw-earth walls they are planning to build in next July. The canes have been sourced on a private estate in the hilly Sabina region, 60km north-east from Rome and only some hundred metres from the future building site in the town of Casaprota that will host the workshop.

Here, in Montemor-o-Novo, it was an intense weekend. We received our 3 volunteers to start producing Compressed Earth Blocks stabilized or not, with different mixes. We worked with 7 different recipes, mixing clay, small stones, Natural Hydraulic Lime, ashes and cement.

We start in Montemor-o-Novo in Portugal with our first 4 week workshop, running from 20th april- 20th may. The course teach how to design and build with Compressed Earth Bricks. A great oppertunity to learn from professionals in vernacular building techniques. Join Oficinas do Convento in this great spatial exploration in a practical build workshop.