I’m probably going to blow all the punk credibility I ever had by admitting this, but when I was growing up in the early to mid nineteen seventies I became a big fan of the band YES, not least because of their album cover artwork by Roger Dean. Gracing releases such as ‘Close To The Edge’, ‘Fragile’ and ‘Yessongs’, these featured beautifully crafted watercolours of fantastical landscapes that offered my imagination an escape route from the rather mundane surroundings of South East Essex. My mum bought me his book ‘Views‘ as a Christmas present in 1975, and I spent many many hours pouring over his illustrations, especially his semi-organic architectural  forms that seemed to capture exactly what I thought Hobbiton would probably look like. Eventually the spine of the book gave way and the whole thing fell apart at just about the same time as my hormones started kicking in and the Sex Pistols heralded the dawn of punk. Lord of the Rings, Roger Dean and my prog-rock album collection were filed away in the cupboard labelled deeply unfashionable,  never to be refered to in polite company again…

Some 33 years later however I’m thinking that maybe its time to out myself about this particular guilty pleasure, and acknowledge what was, along with Clifford Harpers’ ‘Visions’ series of drawings, probably a prime influence on my ideas about what houses and communities might look like if we were all to start living more low-tech, sustainable, holistic and earth-connected lives.

Seems Roger too still has his vision, so check out his ideas for the Willowater and  Home for Life projects…

“The village style community we propose to create will be a highly inspirational neighbourhood, a role model for community building. It will effectively address many of the critical issues sometimes overlooked; issues such as security, communications, the environment, sustainability, practicality, children and the less abled, spiritual amenities and materials.

“Home for Life is a concept that embodies the results of many years of research into the way people respond emotionally to interior spaces - the sort of spaces that produce a sense of security and well being as well as being practical and secure, spaces that are peaceful and tranquil such as bedrooms and home offices and kitchens that inspire and energise.

“The project will embody a wide range of important environmental credentials including being exceptionally energy efficient. Quick and economical to build with earth sheltered elements that blend well into the natural environment while also preserving the local habitat.

“Special attention will be paid to how the home fits into a community enhancing the sense of security, choreographing pathways and roadways in such a way that they do both a practical job of connecting as well as inspiring the user as they move through the village.

“Utopian dreams are seductive and invariably fall short of pre-determined ideals. We expect Willowater to be a learning process and we are sure to fall short of perfection.  We also expect to build something incredible, using all the best practices and knowledge that the project team has acquired, something amazing that will be a huge step forward in our understanding of what a community can be, a real achievement and a real inspiration to both the people who will live there and to others who will dare to develop new communities in the future.” - Roger Dean

A few weeks ago I looked at my now decrepit wooden greenhouse and wondered exactly where I was going to start with regards dismantling it. My question was answered when I reached up and lightly pulled one of the roof support struts and it disintegrated in my hand - the whole structure was even more rotten than I’d thought. Within half an hour I’d basically deconstructed the whole thing apart from a couple of still rather solid uprights attached to a couple of concrete posts. However I did neglect to take any ‘before’ pictures as the whole event happened so spontaneously, which was rather a shame. This week my son Jack and I removed the last remains of the old greenhouse and leveled the ground. I also went round to the local MOT place and scrounged 8 tyres, still with hubs intact, that I intended to put on top of 8 paving slabs to use as ‘piers’ on which the whole structure could stand. However once we laid them out in situ I realised that these would actually make the whole thing far too high off the ground, so after much effort getting the tyres home one by one plus getting my sister’s builder husband to drop off several bags of hardcore and rubble with which to fill them, the tyre plan is now abandoned…

I struggled to carry 8 of these tyres home from the local MOT garage only to find that I didn't need them after all. Still I'm sure they'll come in handy for something...

So probably now we will just build the office directly onto the paving slabs with some kind of waterproof membrane (maybe strips of the tyres if I can cut them up??) to rest them on? Anyway, today Jack and I have been levelling the slabs using some of the afforementioned rubble and some ‘gone off’ cement to adjust their heights, and this afternoon its off to B&Q to start pricing up the timber.

One of the most amazing parts of the permaculture design course I co-ran in Los Angeles last year was the opportunity to visit the Cal-Earth Institute in Hesperia and see at first hand the ‘earth bag’ buildings originally conceived by the late Iranian architect Nader Khalili, and whose work is now carried on by his UK born wife Iliona

As Wikipedia explains; “Earthbag construction is an inexpensive method to create structures which are both strong and can be quickly built. It is a natural building technique that evolved from historic military bunker construction techniques and temporary flood-control dike building methods. The technique requires very basic construction materials: sturdy sacks, filled with inorganic material usually available on site (such as sand, gravel, clay or crushed volcanic rock). Walls are gradually built up by laying the bags in courses — forming a staggered pattern similar to bricklaying. The walls are almost always curved to provide improved lateral stability, forming round rooms and domed ceilings like an igloo. To improve rigidity between each row of bags barbed wire is often placed between the courses. Twine is also sometimes wrapped around the bags to tie one course to the next, serving to hold the in-progress structure together and add strength. The structure is typically finished with plaster, stucco or adobe both to shed water and to prevent any degradation from solar radiation. This construction technique can be used for emergency shelters, temporary or permanent housing, barn or most conceivable small-to-medium-sized structures.”

More of my Cal-Earth photos here BTW, an article in the UK Permaculture Magazine refered to this technique as ‘building with dirtbags’, a phrase I used several times and that provoked much mirth from the students until Scot, my co-tutor, took me to one side and explained that “here in the States the word ‘dirtbag’ has a whole different meaning…”

Just a teenage Earth Bag baby...

The closest so far to ‘detailed plans’ for the garden office, sketched on the back of a bit of scrap paper the other day, but good enough for my purposes of getting down the basic structural ideas.

Ideally all the building materials would be recycled, but the logistics involved in arranging to pick up scrap timber from Freecycle donors is just too challenging as a non-car owner (plus I’m finding that despite there being some 3000 members of Westcliff Freecycle, people just don’t seem to respond much to ‘wanted’ posts these days…), so the next best thing will be to use FSC certified timber and have it delivered, but at least what I obtain will be exactly the spec I’m after rather than bodging and ‘making do’ (which i’ll probably be doing enough of anyway…).

I’ve set myself a budget of £500 which is fairly notional, and looking at what I think I need is probably too high for basically a series of timber uprights and quite a bit of cladding plus insulation materials, but thought better to overestimate rather than under, and if anything is left over it gives me permission to buy a rather expensive CD box set I’ve got my eye on (well I’ll need to listen to something on the stereo once its all built and up and running won’t I??)

What I’m going for is basically going to be a free standing structure, using a large pallette scavenged from a skip as the base (it was almost too big to go out of the back door so we had great fun trying to manuevere it outside) which will rest on top of 8 old car tyres (a trick I saw at the Sustainability Centre in Hampshire a couple of weeks ago - they have constructed a number of yurts on platforms resting on top of car tyres filled with rammed chalk) which in turn are resting on top of a base of paving slabs, so plenty of distance and protection from the ground and its dampness.

I’ve also done another little sketch in order to work out the angle of the roof and how the solar panel might be mounted.

I would thoroughly recommend the new book edited by Jenny Pickerill and Larch Maxey to anybody interested in the subject. I’d like to find the time to review this properly, but in the meantime download a copy and check it out…

Low Impact Development is an idea whose time has come. A radical form of sustainable housing and livelihood which is in tune with the natural environment, it offers us innovative solutions for the environmental, social and economic challenges of the 21st century.

This book 90-page A5 book outlines the what, why and how of Low Impact Development. In addition to exploring its potential, the book contains inspiring stories from those who have put Low Impact Development into practice, and plenty of ideas of how you can get involved.

A hardcopy is available for £5 from here, or you can download a PDF version from here. You can do this for free, though we do suggest a donation of £3. Please click here to donate

See http://lowimpactdevelopment.wordpress.com/ for more information and other news from the world of low impact development.

“The allotment and its makeshift sheds are seen as one of the last bastions of individualism against the onslaughts of the professional designer, and against municipal tidiness and imposed order” - Ward and Crouch, ‘The Allotment, its Landscape and Culture’, 5 Leaves books, 2007.

Thanks to Simon Wallace for the following;

Shed Appeal

On a cold winter’s day in late 2008, amateur artist, Mary Wallace from Westcliff-on-Sea, was looking for something interesting to sketch in pen and ink. Following a chance visit to her local allotment site, inspiration arrived in the form of that classic self-build, the SHED!

A resulting series of “shed portraits” proved really popular with plot holders at Westcliff Land Cultivation Society’s (WLCS) allotment site. Demand was such that copies of her black and white drawings also featured in a recent edition of ‘Dig This’, the WLCS newsletter. (available online at www.wlcsallotments.org.uk)

Drawing for donkeys

Word spread quickly across the site, with further interest from plot holders keen to have a one-off portrait of their favourite building.

Sketching for fun and relaxation rather than profit, Mary exchanged the resulting drawings for cash donations to SPANA, a veterinary charity that provides practical care for around 400,000 working animals (and the people who depend on them) in eight countries in North Africa and the Middle East. (www.spana.org)

Arty-folks Vs Artichokes

Growing up on a farm in north Essex and claiming to come from a long line of bodgers, Mary feels sheds reflect aspects of the owners character in their designs. Plotters tend to have a healthy interest in the “make do and mend” culture, often recycling whatever is to hand.

The results can be a slightly ramshackle self-build, but each one is different and individual. Anything goes and allotment sheds remain highly visible and interesting examples of architectural anarchy in an all too ordered world.

Shed sell-out?

There is talk of shed greetings cards and a calendar, but for the moment Mary is content with supporting SPANA through sketching and simply chilling out down on her “shed-tastic” allotment.

If you are interested in supporting SPANA visit their website above, or e-mail me at cybershed2007@hotmail.com, thanks, Simon