Workshops
Held on June 1st, this full day of hands-on design-build workshops will provide opportunities to more fully understand the nature and opportunities for implementing vernacular technologies - a robotic sawmill, compressed earth block walls, and field to frame straw panels will be designed, built, and tested.
Grown Intelligence / Robotic Sawmills
Conventional wood construction reduces the natural forms and grown intelligence of trees into dimensional lumber via a series of orthogonal cuts. From rectilinear geometries to rounded corners, lumber is optimized for speed of construction, predictable structural performance, and ease of human labor. This workshop draws from pre-industrial wood construction techniques, land art practices, and conventional sawmilling methods to frame and introduce alternative approaches to building with curving and branching tree specimens.
Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann - Sylvan Scrapple
Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann - Tangential Timber
Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann - Living Rooms & Parlor Tricks
Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann - Sylvan Scrapple
Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann - Tangential Timber
Structural Straw Panels / Field to Frame
Ace McArleton and Jacob Deva Racusin
Members of New Frameworks will facilitate a hands-on learning experience in constructing a structural straw insulated panel (S-SIP) with participants. Beginning with the straw, we will map the construction of a panel from field, through design and engineering, through manufacturing, through installation, to durable, healthy, climate-restorative building. With bales of organic wheat straw from our local farm, we will teach how to frame, insulate, square, and finish a straw panel, using our light-manufacturing process and basic equipment and tools. We will discuss the purpose of each component of the panel for the creation of high performance construction projects using plant-based materials. After creating a panel, the workshop will conclude with possible testing for moisture resistance and structural loading in the NJIT labs.
New Frameworks is a multi-racial, women-, queer-, and trans-owned worker cooperative committed to a kinder sort of building.
Locally sourced natural materials like native hardwood, clay, and stone soften our impact on the planet.
Ecologically-minded building practices and comprehensive, full-service systems design make our buildings at home on earth while providing state-of-the-art comfort and efficiency for the people that rely on them.
Founded in 2006, New Frameworks practices high performance natural building towards the construction of climate justice and regeneration in our region.
The New Frameworks team installing structural straw insulating panels.
Structural Straw Insulated Panels placed in the Field.
Unfired Local Soil / Compressed Earth Blocks
How can we use the knowledge of frugality from the past to create a more sustainable future? Can we mix the renewable, low toxic, easily recyclable and natural building materials with today’s demands of rapid construction times, building codes and picky dwellers? The focus of the workshop will be on the production and assembly of compressed earth blocks into a low wall.
Compressed Earth Block made during workshop seminar on ReCirculate investigating using locally excavated left over earth masses from road construction to produce building blocks
Rammed earth, HSB Living Lab, Gothenburg to investigating local clay for pre-fab elements
Compressed Earth Block made at public workshop, Frihamnsdagarna, Gothenburg