The above 12-ft x 12 ft nature adobe brick building was the first structure I built on my land. It’s purpose was to allow centralization of all the off-grid utility infrastructure necessary to make homesteading this desert property comfortable. For example; the water-well is located 4-ft from the west wall of the building. The pump is a solar powered Lorentz Submersible Pump to a depth of 150-ft. All piping and electric run underground into the building. All the plumbing, valves, 80-gal pressure tank, back-up batteries and solar electronics are inside and out of the elements. The outbuilding also serves as storage space and maybe the most important: Shade from the sun!

Building this structure allowed me to obtain experience learning adobe construction methods on a small scale so lessons-learned could be applied to future natural building projects

Cob is an effective, low embodied-energy, Clay/straw material & building method developed and used since ancient times. Click Here for info on cob My land being primarily clay, makes it an ideal site for building with ‘cob’.

Inspiration for natural building from Anasazi architecture - Chaco Canyon, NM

Design concepts emerge from an aerial fly over view of a farm in Kenya, Africa, from the film Powaqqattsi. A still image was taken and a building outline emerged

Dreams emerge into reality as the stone stem wall becomes the basis for the studio currently under construction. For more info, see ‘cob studio’ link above-right