5 May 2012
Our new house is finished, housewarmed and occupied with great gratitude.
Here are some recent photos by brother-in-law and brilliant photographer, Ron Terry:
2 March 2011
Following our 2006 move to a Permaculture community, Jarlanbah, near Nimbin in northern New South Wales, we have been planning and building our ecological sub-tropical home and office.
Our design intent embodies many social and ecological housing design principles I have valued in my career in housing and planning.
Our new home and office are currently under construction and we are coming to the end of a five-year building program. Initially we lived in a tent, then in a shed and now in the partly built house.
We have made great progress with an ambitious project: foundations poured, sub-floor constructed, roof on, a huge 4-metre wide verandah built, two gigantic rainwater tanks and water management tank installed, on-site waster management almost complete, composting toilet built.
All walls are now clad and insulated inside and out, decking completed, sub-flooring down in all rooms and all windows and doors installed.
Karl, fortunately an experienced welder-boilermaker, welded the under-floor bracing and brackets for the box gutter.
We have been helped by many generous friends and skilled local tradespeople.
As I write, Rainbow and Trout, our local plumbers, are putting in the on-site water management system and all the plumbing, Mark is finishing the electrics, Laurie and Gerald, the bobcat drivers, are making the driveway and digging the pond for outside the front entry, Giles is working with Karl on designing the landscaping, Bill and Sebastian are taking out the dead trees and mulching them, Toni (a local Permaculture student) is creating a herb and vegetable garden, George and Ken (now in their nineteenth month on this job!) are building the bathroom, Shane and Jason are tiling it, the laundry and the kitchen, Karl is painting bookcases, I am choosing colours and Toni and I are painting doors, windowsills and walls in the hall… the bamboo flooring is stacked ready to be laid…
Postscript, 10 March 2013
Returning home after a month in Boston in Feburary (brrr!) teaching planning students at Harvard and offering classes at MIT and Tufts, I marveled at the beauty of the Northern Rivers.
The stunning, sunny sub-tropical landscape.
A Vancouver colleague asked why I didn’t return to Canada to live permanently.
Enough said!
More Delights: August 2013: Karl’s winter garden!
