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Have
you ever dreamed of another kind of life? Not the job that you don’t
want to go off to in the morning, or the house you have to keep on
paying for year after year, but a life closer to the earth, a little
place in the country that you build yourself, a garden and some solar
panels for electricity, time to be with those you love and to do the
things you most want to do. |
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An
impossible dream? Maybe not. Right now people all over are working to
create an alternative to a consumer society that gives us less and less
satisfaction and is more and more destructive to the earth and to us, as
well. |
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Explore the world of natural building and meet some of its pioneers who
are creating beautiful and inexpensive houses out of earth and straw,
houses that you can make, too. This is a way of building that can
transform how you see the earth and yourself. |
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Linda Smiley and Ianto Evans who
pioneered the use of building with earth, straw and sand called cob in
the U.S. and who now run the North American School of Natural Building
in Coquille, Oregon where they and their students have used natural
building methods to create a little village.
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Coenraad and Courtney
Rogmans who took a piece of undeveloped land, built straw bale and cob
buildings complete with solar electricity and a water catchment system,
and who teach natural building workshops. |
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White Oak Farm, an
organic farm and educational center, which is putting the final touches
on a striking timber-framed straw bale and cob community center. |
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Brendan Flanagan,
with his family and friends, turned a remote wooded hillside into a snug
community of homes and gardens. |
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Rob Bolman, an
advocate of incorporating natural building techniques into mainstream
building practices, who created an ecovillage in the middle of Eugene,
Oregon, and who speaks passionately about the link between natural
building and social justice. |
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Meka Bunch who after
only a week-long workshop, built his own elegant cob cottage and who
works sharing natural building with people abroad. |
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Kiko Denzer, a
sculptor and cob builder, and his wife Hannah, an organic gardener and
baker, who transformed a dilapidated outbuilding in the country into a
cozy cob home surrounded by beautiful gardens. |
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