The recent heavy snow and icy conditions have certainly been bringing out the creative energies of Sharon Needham’s family in Essex…

According to Wikipedia, igloos are shelters constructed from blocks of snow, generally in the form of a dome. Although igloos are usually associated with all Inuit, they were predominantly constructed by people of Canada’s Central Arctic and Greenland’s Thule area. Other Inuit people tended to use snow to insulate their houses which consisted of whalebone and hides. Snow was used because the air pockets trapped in it make it an insulator. On the outside, temperatures may be as low as −45 °C (−49.0 °F), but on the inside the temperature may range from −7 °C (19 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F) when warmed by body heat alone.

Constructing an igloo (text and diagram from Wikipedia)

The snow used to build an igloo must have sufficient structural strength to be cut and stacked in the appropriate manner. The best snow to use for this purpose is snow which has been blown by wind, which can serve to compact and interlock the ice crystals. The hole left in the snow where the blocks are cut from is usually used as the lower half of the shelter. Sometimes, a short tunnel is constructed at the entrance to reduce wind and heat loss when the door is opened. Due to snow’s excellent insulating properties, inhabited igloos are surprisingly comfortable and warm inside. In some cases a single block of ice is inserted to allow light into the igloo.

Architecturally, the igloo is unique in that it is a dome that can be raised out of independent blocks leaning on each other and polished to fit without an additional supporting structure during construction. The igloo, if correctly built, will support the weight of a person standing on the roof. Also, in the traditional Inuit igloo the heat from the kudlik (qulliq) (stone lamp) causes the interior to melt slightly. This melting and refreezing builds up an ice sheet and contributes to the strength of the igloo. The sleeping platform is a raised area compared to where one enters the igloo. Because warmer air rises and cooler air settles, the entrance area will act as a cold trap whereas the sleeping area will hold whatever heat is generated by a stove, lamp or body heat.

Happy new year from Humble Designs!!

Rob Hopkins’ regularly updated ‘Transition Culture’ blog today features a report back from his trip the the Hollies Sustainability Centre in West Cork, Ireland. Its a project he was involved in setting up from 1998 onwards before moving to Totnes to concentrate on Transition Towns, and its really interesting to see his account of how things have evolved and moved on. Its also a feast of Humble Designs, particularly intriguing is the cob greenhouse, an experimental combination of two low impact but effective technologies; “greenhouses are great growing spaces, offering protected spaces and harvesting sunlight, but they lose the heat they gather just as quickly.  Cob walls have great thermal mass and can store and re-radiate heat.  So, put them together!” Whether the idea will work is yet to be seen as the structure isn’t quite complete (needs a few more window panes putting in), but check out the full story here

Some interior shots of my garden office as it starts to become a place to get some work done rather than be worked on!

White Cedar shingles for the roof arrived the other day. Now just need some decent weather so I can get them up…

I spent a while chatting to John Boshier at the Permaculture Association AGM yesterday about his ideas for setting up a sustainable low impact ecohamlet project and thought it would be appropriate share his vision here.

Find out more about Ecohamlets and how you can get involved with supporting them here

What is an eco-hamlet? A hamlet is a settlement that is too small to be defined as a village. An eco-hamlet may well have many of the characteristics of an eco-village, but be too small to fit the definition of one. It may also be too small to be defined as a co-housing scheme, but share many features of one. This web site is about a project to create an eco-hamlet.

Why create an eco-hamlet? For people who wish to live in a sustainable way, with like minded neighbours to share resources with, while having their own private space, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find suitable sites in the mainstream housing market. Land with residential planning permission is very expensive and mostly held by large house building companies, so a settlement on this scale is possibly the largest that can currently be created by ordinary people.

What would it look like? The Vision and Ideas pages go into a little more detail, but the proposed eco-hamlet would consist of a small group of houses, and possibly houses divided into flats. It would have surrounding land occupied by smallholders, making at least a partial living from the land, and where food, fuel and other resources for the settlement are grown. The homes would be occupied by people working on the land, running sustainable businesses based on the site, working locally within walking or cycling distance, and probably retired people who would be available as extra pairs of hands to help out wherever needed. Using the ethics and principles of Permaculture design, it would be a fair and sustainable community, where resources are used productively, nature and people are cared for, and people are able to live happy and fulfilling lives.

Who would live there? To buy and develop a suitable site would need a number of residents with money available from savings and the sale of their house. There would also be people with little or no money to invest, but with energy and skills to contribute. There would be a diverse mix of ages, skills and activities, as would be found in any community, but there would be a shared vision.

Where would it be located? At this stage it depends on the people who get involved, but would be somewhere in mainland Britain. There is currently a preference for South West England or West Wales, but this may change.

I may be interested, what do I do now? Read the rest of this web site (by following the links below), and get in touch if you would like to get involved. This project is at a very early stage and ideas will develop as more people get involved, so anyone joining at an early stage will have more influence in the final outcome.

Desk/worktop now installed after a hiatus of a week or so… Although there’s still work to do its actaully starting to feel like a real work space…

I’m actually doing some work out here, the broadband signal seems alot better today than last time, and enjoying a nice bottle of London Pride to celebrate!

This is my first post actually from the garden office as it nears its completion, the broadband signal is absolutely awful so I’m going to have to think about boosting it somehow, plus its almost pitch black in here now, and I’m wishing I bought the cheap solar shed lights I saw in Wilkinsons the other day! I’m also pretty sure there is a fox sniffing around outside, so maybe it’s time to go indoors for tonight…

I hate cutting Jablite, it sets my teeth on edge…

We’ve been away on our holidays to South Devon as well as working on the garden office when I’ve been able to fit in the time, so there has been progress, but I hav’nt had an opportunity to update the blog until this morning. I’m pleased to say thatthe roof is now on, although it was a bit of a race against time getting the roofing felt underlay put on before we went away to provide a bit of basic protection from the elements. Still undecided what to finish the roof with, I’m thinking cedar shingles at the moment, but need to do a bit more research…

Anyway, here’s the latest batch of pictures…

Corner windows

External view

Door on

Window in place

Roof on

Starting to panel the ceiling

Insulating the roof

Through the Zen window

Panelling and insulating the interior walls

Tongue and groove walls going up

Walls and apples

Inside view

Front view

Windows