Building Sustainability Podcast

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This episode I'm talking with Caz Ingall, who is a willow coffin weaver.

We talk, not just of the process of weaving a vessel to bury a loved one, but a lot to do with the disconnection our modern culture has with death and the grief surrounding.

About Caz:

"I started working with willow more than a decade ago and was immediately hooked on both the craftform and the fact that I could be in control of everything along the journey of bringing a basket into being - from growing, harvesting and preparing the willow, to using only my hands and a few simple tools to create a wide variety of beautiful and functional items.

Helping to weave my aunt-in-law’s willow coffin after she died in 2015 was a profoundly moving and beautiful experience.  Not only did it open my eyes to a new level of willow work, it also really clarified my perception of our modern culture’s disconnection from death, dying and grief, and offered a way for me to take my basketmaking skills in a new direction.  

I knew at that time I wanted to eventually make my own coffins.  Five years later, over a period of four days, the amazing Mel Bastier taught me and my husband, Tom, how to weave a coffin from start to finish.  From this place, Wild Heart Coffins was born… "

Links from Episode 041

• http://www.marybutcher.net/
• https://outtolearnwillow.co.uk/ (Mel Bastier)
• https://www.instagram.com/foragedfibres
• Natural Burials
• Katrina Spade TED Talk
• https://recompose.life/
• Green Funeral Company TED talk
• https://asbp.org.uk/asbp-awards-2021-longlist
• https://www.patreon.com/buildingsustainability
• BuildingSustainabilitypodcast.com

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Connect with me:
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Today I'm talking with Alice and Gavin Munro from  Full Grown about their exceptional work growing complete chairs from trees. 

So the normal procedure is to wait 50 years for a tree to grow, chop it down and begin cutting it into smaller and smaller parts. At some point the parts are small enough and you can now join them back together with glue to make a chair. Depending on the competency of the joinery and strength of the glue, your chair might last 50-100 years? 

Alice and Gavin Munro have a different idea. Grow one tree that you train into the right shape to be a complete chair. Grafting the branches together to make solid joins that will last forever! 

"Taking a radical stance on the way we produce our objects, Alice & Gavin Munro are at the cutting edge of an emerging art form, an art form that highlights an interesting way to be closer to art and nature and to create symbiotic abundance for both.

Challenging the way we create products as well as how we see the items with which we surround ourselves, the Grown Furniture has an immediate tactile, visceral and organic appeal."

Full Grown Building Sustainability Links

• Ash Dieback
• Ferdinand Ludwig - Buildings made from trees
• Ferdinand Ludwig - Video
• Biophilia is an innate affinity of life or living systems. The term was first used by Erich Fromm to describe a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital.
• Horatio's Gardens
• David Nash (Artist)
• Kew Gardens
• Cradle to Cradle
• Dr Chris Cattle ( Grown Stools)

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Connect with me:
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How can we do the work to look after the planet if we don't look after ourselves? This is the question we are asking Faye Blake of Live Intuitively in Building Sustainability Podcast BS39.

Many in our industry burn out, because they are so focussed on doing the much needed work in advancing sustainability in the built environment that don't stop to notice whether they have sustainability within themselves. I know this from personal experience and have observed in in many of my colleagues.

This episode I'm talking to Faye Blake from 'Live Intuitively' about how Ayurveda teaches us to nurture and nourish ourselves. This then gives us the basis to then help others.

"Ayurveda places great emphasis on prevention and encourages the maintenance of health through close attention to balance in one’s life, right thinking, diet, lifestyle and the use of herbs. Knowledge of Ayurveda enables one to understand how to create this balance of body, mind and consciousness according to one’s own individual constitution and how to make lifestyle changes to bring about and maintain this balance."  Source - https://www.ayurveda.com/resources/articles/ayurveda-a-brief-introduction-and-guide

Free session with Faye at Live Intuitively

Take the time to recognise where there are integrity gaps in how you are living each day, so you can create a more sustainable lifestyle. 

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18428026&appointmentType=13847196

Links

• https://www.fayeblake.co.uk/
• https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/complementary-alternative-therapies/individual-therapies/ayurvedic-medicine

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Connect with me:
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Support this podcast - https://www.patreon.com/buildingsustainability

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A conversation recorded with Janna Laan Lomas, founding director and designer at Grain Architecture.

In this episode we discuss the architecture industry's response to climate change. We also look at Janna's training and how she got into architecture and sustainability.

You might also be interested to hear episode 37, also with Janna which focuses more on the nuts and bolts of how to design buildings in a sustainable way.

Topics covered in this conversation:

• Ethics - Turning down work if it's not sustainability focused
• Architects declare
• Donut economics
• Janna's interest in sustainability
• Designing a house from an early age
• Community
• Diversity
• The planning system with regards to country builds
• One planet development
• Janna's training at the Centre for Alternative Technology

Links from episode 38:

• UKHempcrete
• Terra Perma
• EBUKI
• CAT -  The Centre for Alternative Technology
• Round the woods roundhouse Instagram
• Architects Declare
• ACAN - Architects Climate action Network
• Donut Economics

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Connect with me:
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Support this podcast - https://www.patreon.com/buildingsustainability

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It's a Solstice/Christmas/New Year double episode with Grain Architecture's founding director and designer Janna Laan Lomas. 

In this episode we discuss the nuts and bolts of sustainable design from an architect's perspective.  

I also speak with Janna in episode 38, where we discuss her background and training, and the response from the architecture world in response to the climate emergency. 

This episode contains discussions on:

• Her approach to construction
• Insulation and Mass geek out
• Designing each room construction for the way it's used
• Glass in buildings
• Designing out membranes
• FoamGlas insulation
• Threshers Hall - A project I led for Hartwyn that was designed by Janna
• Structural Engineers
• How much does an eco house cost?
• Wobbly walls Vs Straight 

Episode 37 Links

• Lost words (book) - https://tinyurl.com/26z4azex
• Lost Spells (book) - https://tinyurl.com/27m9mmjy
• Bank Job (documentary)
• Suffolk 'Threshers Hall' Build
• Foamglas insulation
• Futurebuild exhibition 

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Connect with me:
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Support this podcast - https://www.patreon.com/buildingsustainability

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This week I'm joined by Clare Whitney from Clayworks for Building Sustainability Podcast BS36. 

Clayworks Clay plasters are unique blends of unfired clays mixed with minerals and pigments to provide healthy, breathable finishes for internal walls and ceilings.

Manufactured in Cornwall from abundant raw materials, they are amongst the most sustainable and healthy wall finishes available. They are recyclable, compostable, re-useable, and contain no toxic ingredients or VOCs.

As well as being 100% natural, Clayworks clay plasters are also high performance. They regulate relative humidity, allow buildings to breathe, and absorb toxins, odours and acoustics. They can also passively regulate temperature.

Clayworks Clay Plasters provide unique aesthetics – with a depth of cloudy tone and texture not found in conventional wall finishes. A seamless finish, they are ready mixed in a wide range of naturally pigmented colours and extraordinary textures, from luxurious silkiness to deeply coarse and rustic.

This is a bonus episode as I have managed to stack up a few recordings and wanted to get them to your ears in time for Christmas.

Episode 36 Links

• Clayworks Website
• Building Sustainability Podcast Youtube Channel
• Nicky Gibson leaf prints
• Architects Declare
• RIBA Challenge
• Down to Earth Project

Social Media Links

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

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Connect with me:
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Kiran Pereira is the author of the forthcoming book Sand Stories: Surprising truths about the global sand crisis and the quest for sustainable solutions. Kiran was raised in India where she witnessed the impacts of indiscriminate sand mining. Following her Master’s degree at King’s College, London, during which she explored this very topic, Kiran works as a social entrepreneur to find and promote solutions to the global sand crisis. Her work has been featured in the award-winning documentary Sand Wars and media such as The Economist, BBC Radio5, Al Jazeera among others. She lives in London.

Sand Stories BS35 Links

• Sand Stories website
• Sourabh Phadke - Clayfest 2019 talk 
• Sand Wars Documentary
• CDE Global

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Connect with me:
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Part 2  of the 2 part episode in partnership with Earth Building United Kingdom and Ireland (EBUKI.co)

We wanted to find out about the training available to those wanting to get into earth building in the UK and Ireland. All to often this information is provided from the trainers perspective and doesnt show the difficulties of getting into this industry.

In this episode I talk to Miki Z and Jamie Ingle.
This episode with conversations with  and ends with my thoughts on what we can do to better train the future earth builders.

Episode 34 links

• Clayfest
• Prince's Foundation

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Part 1 of a 2 part episode in partnership with Earth Building United Kingdom and Ireland (EBUKI.co)

We wanted to find out about the training available to those wanting to get into earth building in the UK and Ireland. All to often this information is provided from the trainers perspective and doesnt show the difficulties of getting into this industry. 

In this episode I talk to Kit Jones and Anna Castilla Vila. 
Episode 34 will follow straight on from this episode with conversations with Miki Z and Jamie Ingle and ends with my thoughts on what we can do to better train the future earth builders. 

Episode 33 links

• https://buildingbiology.com/
• https://www.cat.org.uk/
• https://www.ukhempcrete.com/
• https://princes-foundation.org/education/building-craft-programme-heritage-skills-nvq-level-3

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I'm very pleased to welcome the podcast - builder, photographer, publisher, editor and blogger... Lloyd Kahn!

Lloyd is the editor in chief at Shelter Publications, has now published eight books on building; this series is called The Shelter Library Of Building Books. Included are Home Work, the sequel to Shelter, Tiny Homes, and Lloyd’s favorite, Builders of the Pacific Coast.

In the mid-‘60s, Lloyd Kahn quit his job in the insurance business and began working as a carpenter, first building post and beam houses, then geodesic domes. In 1968, he became the shelter editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, which led him to publish two books on dome building and then, in 1973, the book Shelter (which went on to sell 270,000 copies). Lloyd’s been writing ever since.

Podcast links

• Shelter Publications 
• Lloyds Blog
• Book: Shelter
• Book: Tiny Homes
• Book: Builders of the Pacific Coast
• Book: Home Work
• Book: Small Homes
• Film: My Octopus Teacher
• Next book - Rolling homes
• Essays - Domes
• My roundhouse build, greatly inspired by Lloyd's books (shameless self promotion)

Connect with me
IG - @jeffreythenaturalbuilder
Twitter - @JNaturalBuilder
Facebook - Jeffreythenaturalbuilder
LinkedIn - Jeffreythenaturalbuilder

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Connect with me:
IG - @jeffreythenaturalbuilder
Twitter - @JNaturalBuilder
Facebook - Jeffreythenaturalbuilder
LinkedIn - Jeffreythenaturalbuilder
Support this podcast - https://www.patreon.com/buildingsustainability

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