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I just saw this article on BBC News and thought that I would link to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/6708717. stm

Hopefully they will get permission to build. I would love to be able to visit this when I visit my family over there.

The community plans to have approximately 9 houses on 70+ acres of grazing land. Also 75% of the materials have to come from the surrounding community or on site as per their development guidelines.

They allow tent camping for visitors, but I'm not exactly sure how they will work as they plan on charging a variable rate based on how you arrived to the camp. Could be easily scamable and I see a small flaw in this. Drive to a near by town put on a backpack/camping gear and walk less than a mile to the camp and get in for extremely reduced. Idea sounds pretty good I'd have to know more about it.

My fiancé and I spent half the day on a nice Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago at Mt. Vernon near the Potomac. We visited with Ed Raduazo who has been working on Cob and building with earthen materials for quite a while. We got a ton of information about the construction of cob and traded ideas on how to build using straw bales.

The first thing that we saw was an amazing wall that he constructed in his house as well as the earthen floor in his sun room. We looked at it from the inside first feeling its texture and listening as to how he constructed it. We then moved outside to see the unfinished wall portion that still needed to have its plaster put on it.

Next we took a small drive close to DC where Ed had worked on a project for kids at a local church playground. The project consisted of two small Cob playhouse structures, with a bench built inside for sitting and a small communication tube between the two structures.

Another structure that was there was a straw bale storage building. This is probably the way that we will go when we are building our house as our area will probably require insulation by code as well as climate. This is important also because we plan to use passive solar design to build with.

It has been a little while since I posted an update so I thought I would make a note of some of the things that I have done in the last month. The biggest thing is meeting with Ed Raduazo and seeing some of the constructions that he has worked on. I think that we both enjoyed the time we spent with Ed and he even gave us a small homework project. A wattle and daub bird house to practice our skills with. I hope to have some more pictures up soon in the Image Gallery.