Bread Oven for Danish Refugee Women

I had a very exciting email out of the blue from an organisation called FAKTI. They are a refugee centre for women and children in the centre of Copenhagen. A safe and welcoming place where women can come to learn Danish and English; to converse in their own languages with other refugees and to have access to legal and medical aid while they prepare their applications for asylum in Denmark.
These people have suffered great hardships in their journey to Copenhagen which leave physical and emotional scars long after their applications have been processed. Many continue to attend the Fakti Centre to help new arrivals once they have established new lives in the city.

I was invited to come and stay with a Danish woman and her family for a long weekend and build a bread oven in a 'Garden of Tranquility' which is being built by the women on land adjoining the centre.  Mette met me at the airport in a nissan micra full of kids clothes, car seats, bags of clay and a wheelbarrow.

We gathered materials from the farm she lives on and volunteer help from the centre, among Mette's friends and family, and a Catalan father and daughter who were 'Wwoof'ing for the summer holidays. The women  at the centre recognised the process of making cob for the oven from their own experience in Syria and Afghanistan and taught the skinny Danish men how to put their backs into it. 9 nationalities were represented and language was no barrier.

The act of making over the scrub land is in itself a balm to many. For those without the strength to help dig over beds, the garden will become a place to meet, have meals, for children to play and for scars to begin to fade. One of the key elements of the garden is an earthen bread oven.

For me, the Danish attitude to asylum seekers puts the British attitude to shame and I am not surprised that a rising number of disillusioned young men are becoming radicalised in the UK. These women have a place to find support and education they can feel empowered to make the most of their chances in Europe. If they need help with their children, they can find it here. When I left, they cried at the taste of home I had helped them build in their Danish garden. I cried to be leaving.

The boys learning how it's done

Homemade biscuits and hot coffee for the workers

Mixing clay slip

Women together

Mette, loving her oven

English and Danish work boots

Planning the garden design

Tadelakt on a Pizza Oven

My Belgian friends Saskia and Steffi came to visit me and so I got them working on protecting a pizza oven for the winter in a friend's garden.

Hempcrete on Exmoor

After a successful experience with Hemp-lime Construct, I joined them again to work on this beautiful new-build on the highest point on Exmoor. In November. Following a disastrous first experience with a fraudulent hemp-crete supplier, this homeowner bravely decided to risk hempcrete for a second time but this time with us. The old mud-lime mix had been removed by the time we arrived, oak lathes replaced or repaired and we were set. The building has silver shimmering chestnut shingles on the roof, copper guttering and a red dry stone retaining wall in the garden. A straw bale garage had been build as well and this became our go-to place when the cold outside became too bitter for our fingers. It was a lovely space and the incredible views far outweighed the downsides of working in the winter, even after mice ate my crumpets. 

We received this email from the homeowner a few weeks later;

"Hello All

Hoping you had a good time at Christmas and didn't suffer too much from the storms. 

Dunmoor survived very well  - and no water in through the roof! The winds came from the south west. We'll have see what happens if we have rain driven from another direction.

Since you left the doors have been replaced, the sills have been set in ready for the windows whose frames are now painted and the ceilings are lathed ready for plastering. I've bought a moisture meter.

So we're ready to go and all feeling very positive about the new year.

Thanks for your incredible hard work and your good cheer - and of course the beautiful job."

Hemp-lime Restoration of a Tudor House, Oxford

This grade2 listed Tudor house was destroyed by fire. Working with Hemp-Lime Construct I was a part of the team involved in the restoration work. Hempcrete or hemplime (same thing, different names) is close enough to the original materials in the building that we were approved to use it by English Heritage. It had taken Pat 2 years of living in a caravan and washing in a bucket in the shadow of her burnt out home to get permissions and insurance together to fund the restoration. By the time we were finished, the wood burner was lit, the rooms were warming up and she was almost ready to begin decorating. Hemp-Lime Construct went back to lime render inside and out once the hempcrete had time to cure and she was thrilled with the results.

Last Day with Het Leemniscaat

Last day at Het Leemniscaat. Happy clients, tired team, ENORMOUS (beautifully rendered) house

Rammed Earth Holland Park Eco Centre

One of my first construction jobs was on this project in central London. I was part of a team of 5 involved in the creation of a rammed earth external wall of the new Eco Centre in Holland Park. Rowland Keeble of Rammed Earth Consulting headed up the project but the construction was undertaken by Jason Hawkes, Dhanya Prem, Ben Rogers, Llewellen Jones and myself. 

Holland Park Eco Centre: 'Built over 10 days in the grips of sub zero temperatures the materials were brought in prepared to the site in bulk bags. The team had to batch load into a mixer with water to get the moisture content right, then bucket and barrow to the formwork. The material was a grey brick clay mixed with 'twenty to dust', a red crushed limestone. We had to make the decision over how much equipment to use and how much labour, it's not a very big job but still 50 tonnes. The site was also not that big and the cost of a front end loader and driver with a ticket to drive it all had to be taken into consideration. Rammed earth can lend itself to many situations but these questions of what materials, what labour, what equipment and what plant need thinking through each time. In central London labour is expensive, but highly flexible, in a more rural site labour may be cheaper but can it compete with a digger and driver?'

That's me (top left)

Making Pizza Ovens in Amsterdam

Saturday Dec 8th, Saskia and I got up at 5am and drove to Amsterdam! We had a brief pit stop for coffee and croissants which I fell on like a starving waif at 6am and regretted as soon as we arrived at Tierrofino where the most delicious, overly filling food was laid on for us. There were 6 of us on the course, and the group bonded really well. Christo Markham, the leader taught us some really interesting ways to build pizza ovens and had suggestions I'd never have thought of on my own. For example, the clay is less likely to crack if sugar is added to the mix.

This is one they made earlier and the tadelakt'd over to finish..

Free food and a free book! Bonus!

Insulate underneath with upcycled bottles, keep them in place with adobe bricks and popped clay, all stuck down with clay slip.

 Remember to make the base big enough to accommodate walls of 20cm thick and still leave room for a sizable pizza and door..

 
Level out the clay base with a wooden float and then lay the fire bricks and make them level too.

Build up the sand form, trying to keep the sides vertical as long as possible before curving into the roof.

Saskia quality checking the bricks..

 Adobe bricks, clay, sand and sugar mortar, Straw and clay slip insulation. And my enormous winter knitwear, brrrr.

 More clay, sand, sugar render with embedded jute netting to reduce cracks

While you're down there...

Sand all scooped out, looks perfect!

Examples of other amazing things to make with clay, rammed earth and tadelakt: