The straw bale and plaster work are now done at Ian & Lisa's home on Alexander Acres farm near Vanessa, Ontario. My good friend, Tyler Parr has headed up the job and been fortunate to work with plenty of other good friends, Hallie Church and Caitlin Carlisle, among them. Ian and Lisa want the place to have a relaxed and organic feel to it with plenty of artisitic touches and I think it's definitely getting there. They also plan to do a free flowing, curving double brick inter

This home is on the Niagra escarpment on an old family farm with beautiful rolling hills. The home has been laid out so you can see the gorgeous views from many different angles. It is a double stud wall and a highly insulated envelope. Materials have been chosen to minimize any chemicals and toxins.

The sustainable building design and construction students have been hard at work learning how to layout a site and build and pour footings. ... and during their formwork inspection they were told that they went well above and beyond best practices to a level of workmanship rarely seen! Great work by all.

We visited Fleming College's incredible School of Trades campus in Peterborough for our Working at Heights training. We were able to actually get in the harnesses and be suspended to see what it's actually like after a fall. What an incredible facility. I am excited to see more of an emphasis being placed on trades within our education system... and government funding to make it happen. There is a huge need to get people into the trades. In the images below, you can see the "

We are on site now with the students from the 2015 Fleming College Sustainable Building Design & Construction program. We are building a staff lodge duplex for the Haliburton Forest Wildlife Reserve staff. The log walls are being sustainably harvested and milled on site by Ecolog Homes. We are very excited to be working with James Blackman and Mark Allen from Tapial Homes and Muskoka Sustainable Builders. They will be teaching our students how to build a rammed earth foundati