Bristol Green House 2008
Stop Global Warming
Learn Green Building
This website is the on-going documentation of Rik Lander's project to build a workshop in inner city Bristol using eco-principles. The over-riding principle has been to bring as little in and take as little away as possible.

• blog
• plans
• links
• home

email: build@bristol
greenhouse.co.uk

• Foundations
• Tyre walls
• Straw bale walls
• I-beam roof
• Living roof
• Clay/Lime render
• Insulation
• Earthbags
LATEST NEWS
Tuesday 12nd August 2008
The Story So Far...
The purpose of starting this website was to share information about the fantastic alternative building techniques I have been exploring. As I am a novice builder I have spent many hours researching every choice I made to weigh up the relative ecological merits of each option. Consequently, I'm aware that there's a lot of contradictory and uninformed comment out there and a fair bit of greenwash from the makers of products. If you look at the forums, there is a great deal of assumption, guesswork and prejudice on offer alongside some sound advice.

The information on this site is not intended to offer the definitive answers to your questions about how
to build green, instead I offer some interesting methods and my own experiences and observations. Most useful are my mistakes, because you can learn from them, as I did, but without the pain.
Read the Blog
One more volunteer session in 2008
Learn green building skills by doing.

Rik Lander is building a workshop in a back garden in Ashley Down, North Bristol, using straw bale, rammed earth tyres and rubble filled gabions. The exterior walls need a top coat of lime render in September 2008. Details TBA.
The construction techniques we used demonstrate the principles of re-use, recycling and low embodied energy. They are not necessarily practical methods for the building industry, but we have shown they are possible for first-time self builders. This building has a VERY low embodied energy and proves that the human urge to build need not be environmentally destructive.


Over the summers of 2007 and 8 we have run courses on many aspects of green building and worked with Amazon Nails and Brighton's Low Carbon Network, builders of the Brighton Earthship. The project is concluding now in the summer of 2009.

The purpose of running the courses was to demystify the building process so that ordinary people can build in sustainable ways. Volunteering is essentially an exchange of labour for knowledge.
Courses:
Clay rendering.
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 Dates: Closed
Living roof construction.
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Straw Bale problem solving and clay work course.
 With Barbara Jones.

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Straw loose-fill insulation.
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Gabion foundations.
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Car tyre retaining walls.
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I-beam roof construction.
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Straw bale wall construction.
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 Dates: Closed
Get in contact to express an interest and we'll keep you informed of progress.