COURSES

The best way of building a roundhouse is in a group, and the best way to learn how to do it is in a group. I like to take on occasional projects to build roundhouses or round low impact buildings for many uses. This involves recruiting a group of volunteers who pay a fairly low amount, on a sliding scale, to learn how to do it. The client gets planning permission, if necessary, and pays a small fee plus supplying the building materials, which we gather in the main from local natural sources. I need about six months' notice, if you are interested in hosting a course on your land.

The Next Course - Sun 19th - Sat 25th July 2009

The Next Course is a one week only woodland shelter roundhouse course taking place in Longwood, near Lampeter. We will camp right by a prehistoric hill fort with fabulous views in all directions. No traffic, or even houses anywhere near. Lots of birdsong. The woodland shelter roundhouse will be about 50 metres from the camp in a glade in the broadleaf woods. The nearest town, about 3 miles away, is Lampeter, in Mid-West Wales. This will be a simple, funky structure of big roundwood uprights, wood henge, reciprocal frame roof and turf covering. The walls will be logs with a bit of forest floor between them. If you want to get hands on experience of building a roundhouse den in beautiful surroundings and are willing to go for it with good energy, there is a booking fee of £15 now, and nothing more! I'm looking for a committed core of 8 - 10 people for the week, supplemented by some daily visits from local volunteers. So email me (below) now if you want to come, and be willing to book within 2 weeks. Thanks.

Here's a stop motion film of the building of our visitor den:

My email.

Here's a course at Denmark Farm Shared Earth Trust, near Lampeter. This pic shows erecting the posts at the end of the first week, in Feb 2008.

erecting the posts of chestnut, charred at the bottom

And here is the henge at the end of the second week:

the henge complete at the end of the second week

Here we are at the end of week three, April 4th 2008:

working on hazel radials in the roof Mandy on the radials Charlie fixes dobbins of cleft chestnut around the eaves the first layer of roof covering canvas is on

And at the end of week four:

Walls half built and windows in

On a special roofin day on April 23rd we start turfin:

Everybody's goin turfin'

And here are three pics from the last week, when we (nearly) finished the walls, turfed the roof and had a dance to celebrate.

afternoon ceili to celebrate completion the inside east wall showing two bottle mandalas the nearly finished hut from the south west

Here, after a day finishing off, is the hut with a good head of turf in July 2008:

the finished hut with a good head of new grass

Cobwood course May 2008

We rebuilt our guest hut here as a rural bedsit made of cobwood, and most of the work was done as a course from May 12th -30th 2008. Thanks to all who took part, especially, and in no order:
Lisa,Louise, Beth, Ella, Dave, Josh, Kate, Ed, Niklas, Sky, Georgie, Sage, Hanuman/Mike, Amba, Adrian, Sarah, Faith, Scott, Neil, Ben, Alex, Nils, Jon and Sue. Here we are having just erected the roof members (this is the first cobwood roundhouse I have designed without a wood henge skeleton - we are keeping our fingers crossed that it stays up!):

the group after erecting the roof members Link to video of Charlie stick being removed:

Past Courses

The focus in 2007 was a three part course in Portugal, starting in Feb 2007. We built a multi-purpose roundhouse in this olive grove, using these big eucalypts for the main wood structure.

site

Here is work in progress in the first week. The roundhouse is in fact oval; about 8m x 9.5m. Quite big.

working eucalyptus cross-pieces for the henge;photo by Vasco

Here is how it looked at the end of the first week:

Roundhouse at end of stage one, with temporary tarpaulins on

And here it is on March 1st with the radials on the roof.

the oval roundhouse with radials on, ready for walls and roof. Photo: Caryn

The working environment was fabulous, the company great, the cooking superb and generous. Here is the ecocasa after stage three. It is a good space for workshops, drumming, dancing and music. We will put a membrane and earth on the roof in the autumn, when the grapes are in and hopefully before the rain comes, in mid Oct.

The fourth part of the course was from October 20th - 27th 2007. Here is a link to the people and place.

ecocasa in its setting with canvas roof

windows of reused double glazing units and cobwood on south face

north curved wall being built of rammed earth blocks made by cinva ram on site

And here is what it looked like after the fourth part, in early November 2007:

ecocasa with succulents planted in soil roof

For more info and details on Cabeca do Mato:
quintacabecadomato@gmail.com
http://quintacabecadomato.blogspot.com

Here are some pics of previous cordwood courses :
The May 2005 course:

raising an oak rafter into position on the henge resting on the rafters - pic Robert Steen setting bottles in the cobwood wall

Here are some pictures of the course in 2003:

heart of wood with bottle surround in finished wall of roundhouse shelter

This course involved a group building a cobwood wildlife shelter at Gelli Deg, off Cwm Cych, for the Clynfyw Countryside Centre.

laying the herring bone slate wall stripping ash rafters knocking the first lintel onto its support pins <IMG src= a busy scene turfin a mandala in bottles complete, view from N

Here is a cordwood den still in progress at Ixuxu, (www.tallergaia.org) Asturias, Northern Spain.

building the north wall and door frame of the guest hut at Ixuxu

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