Natural Building at Lama Foundation, p.2

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The Hondo Fire of 1996 wiped out all housing but one house (the Aspen A-frame), and by some miracle also left the main Dome, the old Kitchen and the Community Center’s foundation in Central. While many residents had only the clothes on their backs and a pile of ashes instead of their house, the slate was cleared for new buildings. Of the 22 buildings that burnt down, 20 had been on the “major repair” list.

As helping hands and relief came up the mountain to rebuild Lama, straw bale and earthen plasters became the dominant building materials. In 1998, the natural building convergence “Build Here Now!” started, combining a wide variety of natural building and permaculture topics with Lama Foundation building projects. New buildings were sited to fit in with a larger community plan, zoning regions for residential, agricultural, and hermitage. Also, new buildings were fortified to be true 4-season dwellings, using solar gain, straw bales and efficient wood stoves to be quite toasty on those below zero nights.

Today, Lama’s summer season (mid-May through late-September) is the main time when building occurs. (Winter and Lama’s annual schedule for creating the community container prevent the building season from being longer.) Natural Building internships evolved from the need for extra hands to help prepare the building sites for “Build Here Now!” convergences into in-depth natural building seminars. Further, summer community members with an interest in natural building are encouraged to “get muddy”.

At the time of this writing, it is starting to feel like the extremely demanding rebuilding efforts can be relaxed a little. There are still so many building projects in process and others waiting to be started, so we see that Lama Foundation will continue to offer the opportunity to learn about natural building for the foreseeable future.

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