Natural Building Introduction and Interior Clay Plastering

I’m typing this by the glow of a few candles and quite a bit of pain in my left thumb as I was just stung by a wee scorpion. Hard to see those buggers at night when all you have for light is a small flame. This incident makes me think of a natural building design I read about and wish was implemented in our present place of stay which describes lining the outside of a building’s foundation with glass bottles imbedded in the cement or among the stones making it difficult for scorpions to crawl over into the house and sting you on worse places than the left thumb.

The interest in natural building methods seems to be growing in first world cultures where people are waking up to the wisdom of the ancestors and looking for a way to use local, affordable and abundant natural materials in the design of their homes.

The demand for experienced natural builders is also high so I feel lucky to have been able to get some time with Oliver Goshey from Abundant Edge to talk about natural building and what got him into this career.

Oliver seems to have a broad world perspective starting with being born in Japan and moving to different places around the globe with his parents nine times before he took off on his own. He has been traveling for 12 years since then. One feeling that kept consistent through such a transient existence, Oliver said, is that of wanting to be in some way a provider and have positive effect on the different places and cultures of which he was a part.

While picking up some construction and general labor type jobs over the years, Oliver always found that he wanted to not only help provide comforts and amenities to the families of these communities but also wanted to respect and help regenerate the surrounding natural ecosystems.

His education in engineering led him to a job with a natural building company focusing mainly on cob structures and natural plastered finish work and also allowed him introductions to some inspiring natural building teachers. He now runs his own company designing and offering consultation services as well as doing a weekly podcast interviewing natural builders from all around the world.

We chatted about Permaculture and how it’s never defined by any one specific design or another. At it’s core, Permaculture is a set of principles and ethics with which one can use as a lens to view how a design or way of doing things might work most efficiently and in a way that aspires to exist in harmony with the surrounding eco-system.

Now what defines natural building practices? Oliver explained it in a way that emphasized the use of as much locally sourced, minimally processed, recycled and repurposed materials that are found in abundance. This of course changes drastically between where one is located - even between neighbors. Observing and assessing what is available along side the needs of the client are the essential first steps. 

Designs, of course, need to be very well thought out and planned with the consultations of the local people and what one gathers through extended observation of the surroundings. Just because it’s a natural building doesn’t mean it is assured to be cheaper or more efficient. Materials that might need to be transported onto a site and the labor needed to do so along with mixing what’s needed for a dense monolithic wall system is a lot of work.

The idea is to try to take as large a view as possible as to how ones living and building touches the surrounding world. We are now globally connected to all hemispheres with trade routes allowing for imports of almost any material imaginable. How does sourced materials affect the air and water and natural environment around the globe? All this is carefully considered whenever trying to implement any sound natural building design.

I asked Oliver to share an example of a natural building design that anybody can implement in almost any environment and he came up with one of his favorite parts of a building project which is interior clay wall plastering and finishing.

Let’s have a look at what Oliver has to share about clay wall plastering.

First off, why would you want to do an interior clay wall plastering? Well, clay specifically has a ton of benefits for the quality of air in an interior space and the control of humidity. Because clay is so absorptive and a natural filter, it can regulate the humidity to a point where one doesn’t even need to wipe off the mirror in the bathroom after a hot shower.

Almost more importantly, especially in this day and age of air pollution apocalypse like situations in overpopulated, heavily industrialized places like some parts of India and China, clay plastering can be a natural and simple solution for indoor air quality assurance.

Even in first world societies we find health problems coming from the use of many prefab, chemical treated and mass processed building material found on a lot of homes that have been build in the last 50 years. A clay plastering job has been proven to help filter out a lot of those potentially harmful chemicals from being absorbed by our bodies.

Sounds good right? So, let’s get to work!

Clay is available in almost all environments depending sometimes on how deep you want to dig down or if you want to buy a few bags locally. There are various levels of impurity and that can be easily tested with this method from the Abundant Edge website.

Once a decent amount of clay is sourced, it’s mixed with an ‘arrogate’. If you want a smooth finish then fine sifted sand would be your best bet. For a more textured look; less filtered sand is great.

Along with the clay and the sand you also need a kind of ‘binder’. Clay and sand on their own will start to flake and dust off when dried. A binder, for example, a mix of wheat paste made from cheap flour and water, kind of like a paper mashe, works great to keep everything sealed and finished.

In more needy societies, where using an essential food source to plaster a wall might be frowned upon, a commonly found cactus can be chopped up and soaked in water which exerts a kind of mucus like substance. This works well as a natural sourced paste like binding solution.

Once your three materials are gathered, clay, arrogate and binder, do some test patches with different ratios of mixes. Put them on a part of the wall. Take notes and observe which mixes produce your desired result. You never know how it’s going to behave until you see how they dry in that environment.

That’s about all one needs to know to get started on their own clay wall plaster job. Some aesthetics like pigments and whitening along with artistic moldings and designs can be a lot of fun as well.

You can find a number of other more in depth methods and ideas for plastering here on some of the Abundant Edgepodcasts.

Oliver’s now got me more excited about trying a in interior clay wall plastering then I ever thought possible.

Thanks again to Oliver and check out someof his neat desings and fascinating podcast interview with natural buildersfrom around the world on abundantedge.com

Hami -