Demonstrations 2021

Shawn King – Symtemenos (Consulting)    

Cob Cottage Company & Building by The Handful  Workshops)

Skillset: Specific expertise in consulting on materials choice and design engineering for durability, resistance and adaptation to extreme weather and seismic events, aesthetics, and minimal environmental impact using natural, local, salvaged, repurposed, and on-site materials.

Workshop and individual instruction in and technological development of appropriate technology and techniques for DIY earthen ultra-ecological family homes and other built-environment components such as garden walls. Emphasis on earthen and locally-harvested or salvaged materials, minimal cost and minimal environmental impact for passive solar-rational new construction and retrofitting of conventional structures by their owner-builders.

Experience: I have been organizing, teaching, and leading workshops on natural building techniques, materials, design, and siting with Cob Cottage Company and the North American School of Natural Building since 2012. The workshop series included 9-day intensives designed to prepare novices of all ages to effectively build their own natural home and teach others in the process. I have developed workshops and taught along-side Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley, authors of The Hand Sculpted House and founders of both the modern cob revival world-wide and the North American School of Natural Building, an organization connecting natural builders from a wide variety of styles and lineages to shared information and expertise. I have directly advised on design and implementation of many build projects, enhancing the soundness of design choices, reducing carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, lowering costs, and simplifying design and build process.

I have built my own cob cottage by hand, remodeled my own conventional house with natural paints and plasters, installed earthen floors, and built and cooked with earthen bread ovens.