Creating environmentally designed habitats for sustainable living in Costa Rica and beyond…
When I first started researching green building I found pretty quickly that the vast majority of material, books, websites, etc. are made for people living in the temperate zones of the US and Europe. There is a ton of material for them. When you look for green building resources for the tropics though, not so …
Continue reading "Green building in the tropics- thermal mass"
Kim Obermeyer of hipEhabitat.com talks about his design for a cool roof - a double layer roof that will prevent heat from the sun from radiating into the living space. The roofing system features pre-painted structural zinc roof panels with 2"x2" spacers and Plycem cement board bottom layer.
We started building the beach house way back in March - or was it February 2013? The point is, it's been so long that it's hard to remember. The main delay has been caused by an irresponsible carpenter with a lot of excuses (mostly lies) and a weak work ethic. We had been waiting for …
Continue reading "Beach House Progress – Plycem Walls and Bamboo Siding"
Our wood dramas continue.... If you've been reading about the progress of our beach house construction you'll see a repeated theme - we've been delayed by the local carpenter again and again. Now, the house is pretty much finished - concrete work is done, custom window bars are installed, floor is nice and colorful, etc. …
We have begun building up on the ridge! First project - a place to store our tools, saddles, surfboards, wheelbarrow, and the building supplies that we'll need to collect when we're ready to start building the actual house. The name for this sort of building is a bodega. We wanted it to be as cheap …
One of Nicaragua’s most valuable resources turns out to be wind. Super strong (often hurricane force) and consistent winds blow across lake Nicaragua. These amazing winds are basically Trade Winds that are funneled and amplified as the high pressure on the east coast (Caribbean) rushes through the gap in the Central American Cordillera to the …
On a trip to the Osa Peninsula last year we looked up someone called "Super Steve" who we were told was building some beautiful things with bamboo. Despite the fact that we showed up out of nowhere, Super Steve aka Steve Jurries invited us in and gave us a tour of his property which included …
Continue reading "Tiny House with Bamboo Construction on the Osa Peninsula"
Our friend Ben is really excited about earthships. He wants to build one here in Northern Nicaragua. I didn't know much about them, but undertook a program of self-study reading through all three volumes of Michael Reynolds' Earthship books. The basic idea is finding the cheapest, most sustainable method for building. Reynolds tackles this problem …
We had been searching for it for nearly a year, since we learned about it in Ecuador. Guadua bamboo (Guadua angustifolia and other species) is the giant bamboo species native to Central and South America. It is one of the strongest and best species to use for load-bearing construction and we wanted to find some to …
Everyone loves a tree house. This one is particularly pleasing. Inspired by an acorn, this 8' domed tree house was made of fiberglass, resin, wood and glass by San Franciscan artist Jay Nelson in 2007 for Larry Rinder. It was intended to be discovered on his property by visitors and used as a creative space. …
San Francisco based functional artist Jay Nelson built a tree house in Kauai for pro surfer family Aamion Goodwin and Daize Shayne. The top floor is 30 feet up, with 140 square feet of interior living space. Imagine sipping coffee at eye level with tree-dwelling birds, savoring that giddy heights-induced adrenaline rush with every look …
Fire ants suck! They're just like regular ants except they swarm, bite, and then leave a painful itchy reminder for hours - usually all over your feet and ankles. I dislike mosquitoes but I hate fire ants. Even though I hate the fire ants, I still don't want to spray poison all over the place. …
The walls are up, the siding is on, and our cute little 18'sq cabana is nearly finished! We had to leave Nicaragua at this point and are very excited to get back down there and put in the details like counter tops, stairs, etc.
On our standard tri-yearly drive between Oregon and LA we finally stopped in the deliciously named Hopland to check out the Real Goods Solar Living Institute. The Tiny House was obviously appealing – a micro home on a trailer built with recycled materials including a recycled solar panel desk. We liked the size, the feel …
A friend of a friend's place in NY, also has old tire terraced gardens, crushed rubber paths and an awesome 40'+ foot inside climbing rope!! Click the link to watch the video: http://www.sciencefriday.com/embed/video/10407.swf
Designing the window placement was a fun experience that involved measuring, re-measuring, and measuring again, then erasing, measuring, and changing the dimensions multiple times. Our friendly red-headed framer was smilingly patient as we changed our minds back and forth. Right now there are windows on three sides with the North-Western wall window-free since it gets …
Building in Nicaragua is both much easier and much more difficult than it would be in the States. This project in particular is easier than most since we're building on Coco Loco property with full access to power (except when it goes out) and water, and we don't have to worry about any sort of …
Continue reading "Building in Nicaragua – Concrete Floor, Tile, and Wood Dilemmas"
When trying to figure out what type of siding we'd use for our new cabana we checked out the cabanas at the French Guys restaurant (who also have a few cabanas). They used guanacaste horizontal siding and it looks really nice even after a couple of years. Then there was a killer lightning storm!
Using the Barefoot Architect by Johan van Lengen to get a few ideas during the design process.
Accessing the palm fronds for the thatch roof turned out to be one of the easiest things we’ve had to do so far. There’s a property nearby owned by a friend full of the right kinds of palms, so we simply had to have a chat with the caretaker there and negotiate a fair price …
Continue reading "Building in Nicaragua – Palm Fronds for the Thatch Roof"
Mangle, mangle, mangle! We were told we needed to get some varilla to support the palma (palm thatch leaves used for our roof). So we said “OK, where do we get that”? We could either buy it from a local guy or at the market for 30 Cordobas (cords; exchange rate = 22 cords/US$) per …
Continue reading "Building in Nicaragua – Is Cutting Mangroves ever Sustainable?"
It’s been brewing for a while and now we’re going for it. We’re planning an eco-friendly community on an amazing piece of land consisting of two ridges, a hilltop, and valley situated behind a bay with great waves and a beautiful beach within easy walking distance. There’s an estuary on one side of the bay …
Continue reading "New Ocean View Eco Community in Northern Nicaragua"
The video footage of the Eucalyptus plantation experience and the start of the roof assembly.
The house progresses rapidly. It’s amazing how quickly the eucalyptus posts can be assembled into home shape. Our nine supporting pillars were bought, cut, delivered, and cemented into place within four days. For the rest of the roof structure we needed thinner diameter eucalyptus and drove a few Kms down the main highway towards Chinandega …
Continue reading "Building in Nicaragua – Eucalyptus Plantation Politics"
A video summary of shopping for the eucalyptus posts that will become the pillars for our cabana in Nicaragua.
Lately our home base has been a thatched roof cabana at El Coco Loco, the Eco-hotel where we run our women’s surf and yoga retreats. Since the guys at Coco Loco have been letting us crash there in between retreats, whenever their 5 cabanas are full with paying guests we get relocated to a tent, …
Continue reading "Building a Cabana in Nicaragua – Eucalyptus posts"
Esterilla is essentially flattened bamboo and can be used as flooring, wall paneling, and anything else where you need a strong flat material. In Ecuador we saw it used as walls in many local homes. We happened to come across a few guys actually making the Esterilla and stopped to check it out. Click play …
The search for a sustainably built home has led us all over the place in the past months. We’ve been learning a lot about various green building methods and materials, from hay bales, to clay, earth ships and bamboo. We want to build a home-base in Nicaragua and decided that the giant grass, …
Eco:Design:Life 