Climate Action Collaboration
If you’re looking for ways to respond to the climate emergency threatening the planet, you won’t want to miss the Natural Building EAST conference coming up at the Deanery Project in Ship Harbour on September 28-29.
According to United Nations findings in 2018, Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. … the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale.” Together and individually, we need to explore new approaches for how to live, build, and create community. Natural Building EAST: Climate Action Collaborations is the Deanery’s response to that challenge.
Lesley Magee, Renew Coordinator at the Deanery, said the conference was intended “to provide an opportunity for builders, designers, planners, homeowners, suppliers, and anyone else interested in natural building to come together to share ideas on how natural building practices and materials can play a part in mitigating climate change. An overarching theme of the weekend is climate change adaptation. We’ll look at actions people can take at the individual and community levels.”
This two-day event will contribute to strengthening and growing the community of people who are already looking at alternative building strategies to create healthier spaces and healthier communities. Executive Director, Kim Thompson, notes that Natural Building is core to the Deanery, “We actually held the Atlantic Natural Building Colloquium at the Deanery site in 2005 – before we transformed it to the Deanery Project. At that event, about 60 people gathered to share best practice and build case studies around straw bale and earth construction. People in Atlantic Canada have continued to lead R&D in these areas.”
Natural Building EAST brings together what Thompson describes as “a wonderfully generous group of people involved in alternate construction and related work who are always eager to share time and resources.”
Two of the key presenters will be Chris Magwood and Mark Lakeman. Magwood describes himself as “obsessed with making better buildings for people and the planet – zero net energy, zero carbon, zero toxin, zero waste buildings”. He is co-founder and director of Endeavour, The Sustainable Building School and co-editor of the Sustainable Building Essentials series.
Image from Chris Magwood’s portfolio – 2018- Green-Up Ecology Park, Blog post by Jen Feign
Mark Lakeman, (Communitecture.net/) became involved in collaborative design of public spaces in the 1980s. After leaving the
Post by Jason Fifield on Mark Lakeman’s Communitecture site — Straw Bale – Raising Event This Weekend
corporate design world, he spent 7 years travelling and studying approaches to building in different cultures. He says that experience “relit the fire of enthusiasm for design.” Fusing influences, especially from indigenous communities, he has focused on the importance of community spaces.
“People are interested in permaculture, sustainability, regenerative culture, green building, and all these terms,” Lakeman said. “A Cheyanne man told me, ‘You need to figure a way to express how all these things come together – without words.’ Building gathering spaces is an attempt to demonstrate those interests and ideas in a physical space.”
Natural Building EAST will provide a forum to explore building that is sustainable and restorative – for both private and public spaces. There are opportunities to participate, sponsor, or volunteer. To learn more about how to get involved, visit thedeaneryproject.com/natural-building-east .
You might also want to consider the upcoming Natural Building weekend (Sept 20-22) thedeaneryproject.com/permaculture-design-certificate
This article published in Eastern Shore Cooperator, September 2019
