Bethel's House

Arrived in Hokkaido on April 16. Bethel’s House http://bethel-net.jp/, a community including adults with special needs, is renovating a café with natural building materials including straw bale and earthen plasters. Oiwa-sensei is the architect and I’ve been asked to lead construction of the straw bale portion. Kids mixing earthen plaster. Bethel’s House is located in Urakawa, 2.5 hours from the Sapporo airport. Shimono-san, a member of the community picked me up at the airport. Shimono experiences paranoia, etc. We had a great conversation on the way to Urakawa. So nice to spend time with people who don’t pretend that they’re perfect. Really reminds me of Kimberton Hills. On April 19 visited a timber-frame and thatch structure built by the Ainu Association of Hokkaido. The Ainu are indigenous to Japan. Kyle with master plasterer Mr. Noda on left and Mr. Jinouchi's son.Completed the bale raising and brown coat on April 22 and returned to Fujisawa City on the 23. Window of truthShimono drove me to the airport and we again had a great conversation. Shimono experiences paranoia such as thinking that he’s being observed when using the restroom, or being followed by police, etc. He also experiences television news as if it relates directly to himself. For example, after 9/11 he received baptism because he felt that he was somehow responsible for the terrorist attack. The beautiful thing is that Shimono can tell me about his experiences and laugh about them. He’s been a real teacher.

April 24, 25, and 26 was the third International Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo　http://begoodcafe.com/main/ecvc2009. I’m told that it was the largest ecovillage conference in the world with nearly 1000 people in attendance. International guests included Ross and Hildur Jackson, founders of the contemporary ecovillage movement, Vinya Ariyaratne of the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka, and Kyoungsoo Lim, Chief Executive of E-Jang, a social enterprise involved with ecovillages in Korea. I was a volunteer staff member responsible for the care of Ross and Hildur Jackson. On the 26, I presented with Shinichi Tsuji, Yoshioka, and Mukaiyachi. Shinichi Tsuji is founder of the Sloth Club http://www.blogger.com/www.sloth.gr.jp in Japan and professor at Meiji College. Yoshioka is owner of Café Slow and working to establish a network of “slow” cafes in Japan dedicated to local and slow foods and fair trade and organic goods. Mukaiyachi is founder of Bethel’s House and professor at Hokkaido Medical University. The presentation was one hour and explored the incorporation of people with special needs in intentional communities. Yoshioka presented briefly on Elmore, a large community in Holland including people with special needs, I presented briefly on Kimberton Hills, Mukaiyachi briefly on Bethel’s House, and Tsuji lead a discussion. On April 27, Ross Jackson and Kyoungsoo Lim presented at Nihon University. After the presentation, we drove to Konohana Family in Shizuoka Prefecture. Konohana is a land-based intentional community of about 50 people ranging in all ages, and growing 250 different crops including 11 varieties of rice. On April 30 I returned to Urakawa, Hokkaido to continue construction on Bura Bura Café, the straw bale café managed by Bethel’s House. Bura bura suru means to hang out.The construction process is being recording in a blog written by Megumi, a member of the community. Please have a look at the months of April and May: http://mcmedian-urakawa.blogspot.com/.

On May 3 I returned to Fujisawa from Hokkaido, and the next day, May 4, I departed for Mie Prefecture. Hideto Oshima, a straw bale architect and builder, is building a straw bale home in Mie Prefecture for a client. I installed 12 temperature and relative humidity sensors, 9 within the north straw bale wall, one within the foundation, one sensor monitors the room, and one sensor monitors the outside environment. The primary purpose of the experiment is to compare two slightly different foundation systems. Both Oshima and Oiwa-sensei use a “U” shaped foundation with an air passage under the straw bale wall vented to the outside. Oshima separates the air passage from the straw bale wall with a layer of earthen plaster while in Oiwa-sensei’s design the first course of straw bales are in direct contact with the air passage below.

Finally back in Fujisawa. In addition to research, managing the student permaculture garden. Spring crops look real good! Research studio raises ukokke, a breed of chicken renown in Japan for its small, expensive eggs traditionally used in Chinese medicine. With chickens, who needs a tv?

Cherry Blossoms, Wine, and Straw Bale

April 4 and 5, travled to Yamanashi-Prefecture with four friends. The trip had two themes, wine tasting and cherry blossom viewing.　Kyle mixing powdered green tea.　 Blew $400 in two days. Not typical of Kyle.Attended the Japanese Association of Rural Planning’s annual conference on the 11th, then traveled to Chiba-Prefecture to collect data from Fu-Ryu, a straw bale café/gallery.

November 2008

November 21-25 served as a staff member at the Japan Straw Bale House Association’s workshop and seminar in Tochigi-Prefecture. Construction continued on Nasu Dymaxion Village, a complex of load bearing straw bale buildings. The first building built last year was the Toilet Hut with living roof. During this years workshop we raised and plastered the straw bale walls of the Kitchen Hut. Similar to the Toilet Hut, the interior is finished with an earthen plaster while the exterior is finished with lime plaster. In order to access the straw to monitor the moisture content of the straw using a GE Bale Master Moisture Meter, I set three PVC screw top lids into the wall. The lids are removed in the photo, but screw on to a short piece of pipe to fully seal the wall.

Had a successful sweet potato harvest. We’re raising a couple of chicks in our research studio.
November 30 and December 1 visited Brown’s Field , a health and sustainabililty center in Chiba-Prefecture. Peter Buley, an American friend I met at Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont, is building a tree house at Brown’s Field. http://www.brownsfield-jp.com/brownsfield.htm
I slept in a tree house that was built previously. We visited a home being renovated with natural materials near by. Peter helped with much of work on this home as well. The home features rammed earth walls, light-straw-clay walls, and cordwood walls with an earth based mortar. Un-split bamboo is apparently embedded in the rammed earth walls.

Villa del Pino: A Straw Bale Home in Fukushima-Prefecture

From July 26th to the 31st, I was working on straw bale project in Fukushima-Prefecture with the Japan Straw Bale House Association. The first floor is conventional fiberglass insulation and siding, while the second floor is straw bale. The exterior is finished with lime-silicon plaster, while the interior will be finished with dry wall. Before the dry wall is hung, the interior is also plastered to prevent vermin, fire, and moisture from entering the straw bale wall.The housing development is surrounded by a national park. Nearby, a cobalt blue lake created roughly 100 years ago after a volcanic eruption. And misty mountains.

Café Slow

During the months of May and June, I’ve been working as the primary builder and workshop instructor of the straw bale portions of Café Slow, a café just west of Tokyo and the nucleus of a number of environmental currents in Japan and abroad. http://www.cafeslow.com/
The café serves fair trade coffee and vegan, organic meals, and sells various organic and fair trade goods. The café needed to move from its previous location and wanted to use straw bales in its new interior. There were a total of 10 workshops in which well over 100 people participated, children and adults alike.
This is what the site looked like on May 1.
On June 14 and 15, Café Slow held an opening party.
At the entrance of the café there is a small straw bale wall inspired by the Okinawan Henpun, a wall built just inside the entrance of homes in Okinawa to keep unwanted energies and spirits from entering the house.

We also plastered the bathrooms with Keisoudo, a commercial earthen lime, cement plaster.
Café Slow was designed by Oiwa-sensei, the architect I work with most for my research. Beginning in July we’ll be building a straw bale café in Chiba-Prefecture for Saya Takagi, a rather famous actress who’s become a back-to-the-lander. However, unlike Café Slow that uses straw bales mainly as an ornamental interior, the straw bale café in Chiba will be a post and beam structure with straw bale infill.

Health Insurance and the Medical System

On May 20, I attended an event in Osaka featuring contemporary Cuban culture with an emphasis on the Cuban medical system. The day was divided in half. During the first part, we watched Michael Moore’s Sicko and a movie about Cuban agriculture. The movie Sicko deals with the American medical system and health insurance problem. I recommend seeing it.

The second film covers contemporary Cuban agriculture. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost most its ability to import chemical fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals. Rather suddenly, the entire country shifted to organic agriculture with an emphasis on self-sufficiency including urban agriculture.

In the second part, we listened to a presentation by Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che Guevara. She spoke mainly about politics and the Cuban medical system. As I understand it, health care is free in Cuba.

After the event, I spoke with Lisa, a friend, about the medical and health insurance systems in the US and Japan. I’ve noticed that often the hospital stays in Japan are longer than in the US, in order of magnitude. For example, Lisa also tore her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and had a reconstruction within the past couple of years. She spent a month in the hospital, whereas I spent one night. This may be difficult to understand, even fathom, but her entire hospital bill came to almost 400,000 yen. That’s almost $4,000. It would be difficult to spend a day in an American hospital without running up a bill larger than that. But since she, like myself, is covered by the Japanese National Health Insurance System, she paid 160,000 yen. About $1,600.

My cousin Grant arrived in Tokyo on May 13. On May 14 we took the bullet train to Osaka, and then traveled to Wakayama, where we stayed with Kudo-san. On May 15 the three of us went to Kyoto to see the Aoi festival, one of Kyoto’s three famous festivals. In contrast to the Japanese Matsuri of common folk, the Aoi festival was traditionally observed by the aristocracy. On May 16 I traveled to northern Kyoto-Prefecture to conduct research while Kudo-san showed Grant around Kansai (the Osaka, Kyoto, Nara region). Have been studying traditional Japanese architecture, timber framing, and earthen plasters. Notice that the pillars of this massive structure are not anchored to the ground. Simply the weight of the building holds it in place and allows it to move slightly in the event of an earthquake. Traditionally, temples and shrines are roofed with Japanese Cypress bark, while homes, etc. are roofed with thatch, straw, or tile.
Unfortunately traditional roofing methods and materials are becoming less common. In fact, many thatch roofs are covered with metal. Notice the door of this storage building is built of earth plastered on an internal wooden frame.
Rain-screens to protect gable ends. And when not protected. Notice the wooden bars preventing a burglar from breaking in through the window are implanted in the thick earthen plaster.

On May 17, participated in an earthen plastering workshop at the straw bale milk processing plant in Kyoto-Prefecture. On May 18 I stayed with the Okunushi family (Satoru, Namiko, Shino-chan, Fumi-chan).They're renovating an old Japanese farm house. Wide concrete sink, wood fired bath, etc.On May 24 and 25, my research studio baked and sold pizzas at an art event in Fujino, a community in the mountains of Kanagawa.