But first! Our last meal in preparation for living off trail mix and peanut butter on bagels:
braised turkey with apricots, squash, and chickpeas mmmmmm
Here is Cody Lundin's house, built directly into the hill for optimal thermal mass to heat and cool his dwelling depending on the weather outside. For insight on Cody's personality, check out this clip: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/dual-survival/ He was hilarious and intense (an interesting mix), with tons of ridiculous metaphors...he did a lot of acid in the past. Super cool guy.
For those of you who don't know Drew, he is SERIOUS about water. Before heading out on our trip, he sought every corner for the perfect water bottle, and here it is. A full half gallon capacity:
And yes, he did drink more than the half gallon per day
After arriving, Cody introduced himself and got to know each of us a little before showing us different sites we could work on while we were living with him. We decided to work on an outdoor kitchen for this area:
Note the cistern which holds all the rainwater he harvests from the top of his carport
A minute sample of some of the materials we could work with
Checking out the view from the top of his house
Look at these stairs I made! Too bad we took them down the next day to accommodate our new plan
Kickass stairs Matt taught us to build. Again, Matt saved the day with his years of stonemason experience! The stairs are level and to code (height of 7 inches) BOOYAH
The above is what we accomplished at the end of one day, with design time in the morning. Cody then took us on a tour of his sweet abode.
The entrance to his house:
Takin off shoes
Bandanas abound!
Through passive solar orientation and the thermal mass of the earth covering his house, the inside temperature of Cody's house is kept at a comfortable mid 70s temperature. Amazing for the intense hot and cold Arizonan weather.
The main atrium/kitchen
Skylight in his bedroom (YEAH I HIT THAT just kidding)
His studio with solar panels. His house is completely off the grid!
In the lofted 'guest room' in the studio
bison rug
lookit his house, all nestled in the earth
Exhausted and dusty, we trekked to base camp to set up for the night. Check out Christine's camp:
Our first primitive skill was cooking ashcakes from flour and water on a fire. Actually quite delicious, especially with some baked beans mmmmm (and I think the gas we all got and kept releasing surreptitiously through the rest of our days there was totally worth it OH so many poop jokes).
Oh and I dug my first poop hole! To maintain sanitary conditions, we would dig a 1.5 ft deep hole with a post shovel, and whoever went last before it reached 6 in below ground level would have to dig the next hole. I felt like manning up and dug a hole even though the first hole could have easily held another one, two go's. HARDCORE. Ok enough about poop.
I caught Nancy looking like a surgeon to revive her sleeping mat/pool float
Embers left after our fire
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Then it was back to work at 9 am. We had a hearty breakfast of oatmeal with apples and raisins, and worked through the day.
The swale we built to channel water to the herb garden (which comes up later)
Securing rebar to create an armature for the counter/grill
Our work music, supplied by Cody
The swale! You can kind of see where water will come down (upper right) and get directed into the channel
Continuation of the swale into the garden
Wiring up more rebar
Working diligently on the swale
Admiring our handywork
After setting up the skeleton of our structure, we had to create an 'oreo' (Cody loves Oreos) of parachute material sandwiched by chicken wire to hold the concrete up
End of day 2: (in addition to completed swale and foundation for herb garden)
Moving her tent to less rocky territory, and conquering the new land
You can't tell because I look so happy but I am filthy in this photo
Nancy's :D tan, a souvenir from our portfolio day
Sunset in the desert <3
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Day 3 - finishing up the parachuting and laying down the base coat of concrete!
To keep cool under the oppressive desert sun, we got creative
or fratty:
Completed parachuted rebar!
Then the fun part, playing with concrete! Which is highly corrosive to skin by the way. Now from these photos, I don't want you to think that we were just doing Cody a favor by adding to his house. He definitely put in his share of hard manual labor (often the most strenuous parts)and acknowledged that we were helping him out as much as he was by giving us the experience to actually work on someone's property (without any kind of professional license!)
Mixing concrete by hand, because he's a badass
End of day 3: base coat of concrete laid down! Note how my wall has been replaced by our counter. Haha, oh well
This is what concrete does to your hand if you don't wear gloves
After chowing down on some dinner after a long day of hard work, we learned how to make cordage out of dogbane, or any fibrous woody grass. Friday nights are traditionally movie nights at casa de Cody Lundin, so we spent the night plopped down in the studio and watched a great cinematic masterpiece, starring Chuck Norris.
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On our fourth and last day, we put the finishing touches on our mangrove countertop. I don't have many photos of the actual process because it's difficult to take pictures when your hands are concretey and the sun is hot and concrete is rapidly drying. But it was a ton of fun, especially flinging concrete onto barely adhesive spots.
The last day was also the hottest, getting into the mid 90's. We drank a ton of water and doused our work shirts in water every hour or so to keep cool. The shirts were actually sent to Cody the day before we arrived from a fan who apparently inherited the shirts and had no need for them. Definitely came in handy!
We broke some granite and Christine made a sweet sunrise backsplash for the sink
Nancy and I sculpted the lizard to frame the grill. While working behind the lizard, Christine got stung by a scorpion twice in a row (she was fine though). We joked the lizard serves as a call to bring more lizards, with new habitat in the shade created by the counter, to eat those vengeful scorpions.
Christine's work, from top to bottom: planted shrubs, painted stepping stones, and broccoli pipe
Dawnielle and Drew's magnrove corner
Awesome sweat pattern on Matt's back
Granite mosaic/cutting board
Christine's tree, with a gorgeous green granite counter top on the right
Completed bench over the swale!
Nancy's tree and Monica's transition into the stiars
My corner mangrove
The kitchen! We left room for other 'tribes' to embellish, knowing our limitations with how much time and resources we had
Basically praising us for our hard work :]
Group photooooo
Cody took a bunch of photos of us with his camera. He was a big fan of the "power shot", and rolled around on the ground getting an angle from below and telling us to look stoic or jovial. So odd coming from him, but funny. He also does a SPOT ON impression of Tony, sheepish British accent and all.
Cody was especially impressed with how we integrated our project with the existing structure
Javelina skull! Just for kicks
Then Megan, the Ecosa program coordinator finally made it to pick us up (after getting a new tire for the Ecosa bus, which broke down last year getting to Cody's as well), but not before we learned how to make fire from a bow-drill set. Well, Nancy and I were the only ones to actually do it, since everybody else was really pooped, and we only made smoke. Oh and I burned both of Cody's hands by accident...oops. He was able to make fire within a minute though! Incredible.
Odd to have this be the last photo I took on Cody's property
Jokes on the bus ride home. Christine's probably fantasizing about being able to shower. We were DISGUSTING, with dirt and dust and limestone deep in our pores.
Although we weren't as strapped to survive as we expected, the trip was still very intense, with lots of manual labor from 9am-5pm each day. We were surprised at the amount of work we got done, which was due to our great team dynamic, and our sense of accomplishment was topped off with an excited and satisfied client who happens to have a show on Discovery. No big.
Part of the experience focused on realizing that every line we draw as designers is someone's sweat equity to make that line happen in the real world. We definitely got a sense of that, as we toiled and dug and planted and moved and concreted under the intense sun.
Another part of the experience was getting a sense of baseline sustainability, with no frills. No running water, no air control, just us and our bodies and the environment. When you don't have a waste basket or pipe channeling your water out of sight, you really become aware of all the resources you use on a daily basis. It gets to the whole idea of needing feedback loops instead of thinking we're in a linear system, where we use resources and then channel them away to some unknown location and once they're out of sight, they're out of mind. Being back in our apartment and using the sink seems so wasteful to me now, as the water just gushes out and away, instead of being meticulously controlled by my hand for exactly what I need it for. And that's just one example, and we weren't even living in true aboriginal style. Lots to think about.
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Today I didn't take enough photos to upload, but we had a book discussion on Ecological Ethics, I did a presentation on Le Corbusier's Ville Contemporaine (which sucked to have to do right after a week without internet or computer, but it got done and I was pleased with how it turned out), we watched the first hour to the film Mindwalk, which was about systems thinking and SUPER intense on my brain, then more drawing practice with Gary. A pretty relaxing day once my presentation was done, though now I'm absolutely exhausted since I woke up at 5 am to finish it before class. So, off to bed research Prescott building history I go!
x-posted rompalime.blogspot.com
Really Cool pic blog, thanks for sharing!
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