Natural Building EAST, 2019
Join us at The Deanery Project for a landmark ecological design conference for designers, builders, planners, researchers, students, and home owners on September 28-29th.
Participants in Natural Building EAST will explore construction materials, energy systems and community design opportunities that can make a difference today in how we might individually and collectively reduce our carbon footprint.
Keynote speakers Chris Magwood, founder/director of the Endeavour Centre Ontario, and Mark Lakeman, founder/City Repair Project and Communitecture, Portland, Oregon along with local regional leaders in natural building and environmental design will use presentations, panels and hands-on workshops to share their research, stories and ideas.
Conference topics will include new developments in natural building and permaculture, site tours, case studies, and demonstrations of hempcrete, straw bale construction and clay plasters,
An integral part of the conference is identifying specific actions that can be taken on individual and collective projects to help mitigate climate change.
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Keynote guests
Chris Magwood, Natural builder & researcher
Chris Magwood has designed and built some of the most innovative, sustainable buildings in North America, including the first off-grid, straw bale home in Ontario. He is co-founder and director of Endeavour, The Sustainable Building School and co-editor of the Sustainable Building Essentials series. Chris is the author of Essential Sustainable Home Design, Making Better Buildings and four other green building titles. In the spring Chris completed his MA thesis at Trent University, Opportunities for Carbon Removal and Storage in Building Materials. He has helped hundreds of people work through the process of designing their own sustainable homes and achieve their dreams.
Mark Lakeman, Community convener & participatory designer
Mark Lakeman is a leader in the development of sustainable public places. In the last decade he has directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than three hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone. Through his leadership in Communitecture Inc., and its various affiliates such as the The City Repair Project, The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities.
Kim Thompson, natural builder
Kim has been involved in the international natural building community since 1993 when she built her two-story load bearing straw bale home in Ship Harbour with the help of friends, family and curious community members. Drawing on that experience she has continued to design, build and produce educational materials to help support a growing network of people committed to natural, low impact building methods. She is particularly passionate about clay plasters and paints.
An adjunct instructor with the School of Architecture since 1998, Kim is deeply committed to creating experiential, educational opportunities for students of all levels and backgrounds at the Deanery Project. Kim has served as Executive Director of the Deanery since 2012. She infuses all she does with her love for educating, learning, art, social justice and sustainability.
Charles Williams, permaculture designer
Charles is a Permaculture Designer and teacher with over 20 years of experience managing land projects as well as teaching about nature connections and stewardship.He has worked on a wide range of projects involving wildlife, forests, grasslands, livestock and gardens, along with infrastructure maintenance, surveying, developing land policy and managing easements. He has also worked extensively on building healthy groups through social permaculture and facilitation. In all of his work, Charles includes a spiritual component, founded in a strong belief around the need to foster connections between humans and their environments.
Pippa Creery & Bob Kloske, Earth-bermed tire house builders
Pippa and Bob will host a tour of their “retirement project”, an earth-bermed tire house. You will learn about how the building will heat and cool itself using thermal mass, about the ventilation system, the greywater recycling system and the rainwater collection system. Pippa is a former teacher and Bob has recently retired from a career working with Ontario Parks. They currently spend most of their time learning about and building their earth-bermed home. Bob also serves as Chair of the Deanery Project Board of Directors.
Alex Cole, Yurt creator
Alex has always felt that living spaces should go beyond their operational capacity and be the artistic interpretation of their creator, providing both aesthetic stimulation and symbolic healing. For this reason, over the last 15 years he has pursued the art of creative three-dimensional design.
In 2005, Alex founded Little Foot Yurts with the mission to create culturally exciting and unique handmade temporary shelters. His work successfully blends the ancient green wood working techniques from Great Britain with the sacred geometry of the yurt to create steam-bent structures that are uniquely original and exceptionally strong. In addition, by using coppice techniques, parts of the tree can be harvested for materials year after year without killing the tree. It is his hope that these traditional techniques can be used to build a more sustainable future.
Lorrie Rand, Passivist designer
Born in the Annapolis Valley, Lorrie’s work is approached with intuitive design skills informed by childhood experiences amid beautiful landscapes and changeable seasons on a Nova Scotia family farm. Her work integrates principles from the Passive House Standard and Biophilic Design for occupant comfort and health. Lorrie has extensive experience in residential design and is an enthusiastic collaborator on more complex projects.
Lorrie is committed to promoting the Passive House Standard as the best route to energy conservation in buildings. Lorrie is a Certified Passive House Designer and has a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies from the Dalhousie University Faculty of Architecture.
Amanda Marlin, Climate change adaptation leader
From Sutton, Quebec, Amanda has an undergraduate degree from Mount Allison University and a Masters in Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University. She has worked in the sustainable community development field for nearly 20 years. She is the executive director of EOS Eco-Energy, an innovative Sackville, NB-based environmental organization that focuses on helping communities and residents reduce and adapt to climate change. Her work with EOS has focused on climate change adaptation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, sustainable living, environmental education, and leading a great team of staff and volunteers. She was also instrumental in starting up Beausejour Renewable Energy, a renewable energy investment co-op. She lives on a small hobby farm in Sackville with her husband and their two children where they enjoy solar energy, raising chickens and living off the land.
Patty Love, Permaculture designer
Patty is a certified permaculture designer and teacher, and permaculture researcher based in the Genesee River Valley (Rochester, NY). She studies and practices regenerative design, permaculture, agroecology, natural systems, and edible forest gardening. Her work is informed from her experienced, education, reading, time in nature, parenting, and spiritual pursuits. She holds two Permaculture Design Certificates and a Permaculture Teacher’s Certificate in addition to traditional BS and MALS Degrees.
Michael Batty, Rocket stove builder
Mike is a Construction Contract Administrator, Architectural Technologist and Permaculture Designer with over 30 years of experience designing and overseeing the production of many types of construction projects throughout Canada. These have ranged from residential homes, commercial buildings, to multi-million dollar educational and health care faculties.
Mike has been researching and studying natural building design and appropriate building technologies including rainwater harvesting, passive heating designs and redirecting construction waste for many years and has worked to apply these design principals to all his design and construction projects. Solar heating and cooling options are a few presented to the clients. Although there is still much work to be done around the acceptance of these techniques, Mike believes that the education of others is the first step.
Mike has given numerous seminars on the Rocket Stove and Mass Heaters, demonstrating and showcasing their benefits and why everyone should have at least one rocket stove in their residence. Mike is a past Board Member and still continuous to help and support the Deanery Project on building project planning and execution & has been co-teaching the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course for the last two years.
Maggy Burns, Community facilitator
Maggy Burns was the Ecology Action Centre’s Managing Director for over 12 years. In that time she helped lead two extensive green renovations of the organization’s office, preparing the 100-year-old building for its next 100 years. The latter renovation garnered multiple awards. Maggy’s non-profit work over the past two decades spans sub-sectors including entrepreneurship, environment, international development, youth and experiential education. She currently works at the YWCA-Halifax on a women’s economic empowerment project addressing barriers to women in the trades. Maggy does consulting work as a facilitator and supports team building, strategic planning and fundraising.
Jennifer Corson, Architect & visionary
In 1992 Jennifer Corson and partner Keith Robertson’s mutual love for green design and construction provided the direction and pace for their mid-size integrated firm Solterre Design. Jennifer’s environmental enthusiasm was also the creative inspiration for a nationally-aired television program ‘The Resourceful Renovator’. As a follow-up to the sixty-five episode tv series, Jennifer wrote a book, ‘The Resourceful Renovator’, co-published by Chelsea Green Press and Key Porter Books. 
Jennifer is the president of Renovators Resource Inc., an architectural salvage and dismantling business in Halifax, which was established in 1994, a year after Solterre Design was founded. More recently, in 2014, Jennifer and Keith created ‘Solterre Build for Ghana’ program which is a non-profit coalition working in the Ashanti Region in Ghana. To date they have built a rammed earth library, a number of waterless latrines, a solar lighting program, and are funding a high school initiative, helping Ghanaian students continue their secondary education.
Eliza Star Child Knockwood, Film and community maker
Eliza Star Child Knockwood is a Mi’kmaq woman from Abegweit First Nation with a vital and powerful voice. As a filmmaker, speaker & facilitator, she shares her life wisdom and practical knowledge in eloquent and powerful ways. She speaks from the heart, bringing her unique perspective as a First Nations woman, single parent, and two-spirited person to people of all ages and backgrounds.
A filmmaker for over fifteen years, Eliza is committed to storytelling with new media to bring the past into the future. She describes herself as a Youth Bundle-Keeper, with the responsibility of passing on traditional and contemporary knowledge to this generation and generations yet to come. She is a passionate advocate for her diverse community, the land and sea.
Schedule
REGISTRATION
The Natural Building EAST “package” includes all conference sessions, breakfast, lunch & snacks on Saturday & Sunday and dinner on Saturday. Prices listed in the table below do not include the 15% HST.
*Speak to us about student/low wage earner discounts, and our bursary program if you are unable to manage the full registration fee. Priority will be placed on providing financial support for BIPOC and under-resourced community members to attend the conference.
Item |
Cost |
| Registration package | $295 + HST |
| Registration only, two days | $260 + HST |
| Registration only, one day | $155 + HST |
| Breakfast per day | $6.00 + HST |
| Lunch per day | $8.00 + HST |
| Dinner on Saturday | $14.00 + HST |
| Bunkie per night | $35 + HST |
| Camping per night | $30 + HST |
To register for the conference, please fill out this online form or download the fillable PDF registration form. Email the completed form to thedeaneryproject@gmail.com or mail to:
The Deanery Project
751 West Ship Harbour Road
West Ship Harbour, NS
B0J 1Y0
There are plenty of accommodations available in the local area and shared transportation with Our Rising. Contact operators of local accommodations directly for bookings and let us know if you’re interested in shared transportation with Our Rising.
For more information call 902-845-1888 or email thedeaneryproject@gmail.com
Conference Opportunities
There are many sponsorship options, opportunities to present, facilitate workshops, participate in panels and share expertise.
Sponsorship
You can support the important goals of Natural Building EAST by sponsoring us as a Partner, Champion or Supporter.
Other options include sponsoring a key note presenter’s travel or honorarium, contributing toward our bursary fund, donating items for swag bags and more! Please be in touch with us if you’d like to discuss different sponsorship opportunities!
Join Our Growing list of Sponsors!
Special thanks to all the sponsors who have helped make this event happen. We encourage you to support these organizations that are contributing to climate action. Click on the logo to learn more about our supporters.
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Volunteer
If you would like to volunteer to be part of this exciting event. We few have a few volunteer slots available. We are asking volunteers to commit to 5 hours for free admission to 1 day of the conference. Here is our volunteer schedule (updated Sept 25) NBE Volunteer Schedule Full 20190925
To be added to the schedule, please complete out our online Volunteer Registration Form and contact Mary Elizabeth, NBE Volunteer Coordinator, at DeaneryS2S@gmail.com to indicate your interests and preferred days.
