Archive for the ‘News’ Category
We think the majesty of natural building materials is demonstrated through the variety of buildings that they inhabit. Natural materials look both forward and back in time.
Carpenter Oak, designers of timber architecture, have installed at projects, from Windsor Castle to the Great Hall at Stirling Castle, to a Buddhist Temple.
We shall be sharing a space at the Homebuilding and Renovating show in Birmingham, March 28- April 1
Come and see (both of) us.
The use of earth and clay plasters has increased in recent years, with interest groups concerned with the conservation of historic buildings, ecologically sensitive new construction, alongside a growing interest from industry in innovative materials.
Earth and clay plasters and mortars, along with green bricks plasters and mortars are currently the most product oriented areas of the earth building family. Although many of the commercial products in this field are imported from Europe, there are a growing number of product suppliers and manufacturers in the UK. The European-wide acceptance of training standards for earth plaster which was achieved in 2011 mean there is opportunity now for a growth in the sector.
The third EBUK conference explores these issues, from user, developer and supplier.
Speakers include:
• Tom Morton (Arc Architects)
• Adam Weismann (Clayworks)
• Katy Bryce (Clayworks)
• Ben Gourley (University of York)
• Nigel Copsey (Earth, Stone and Lime company)
• Andrew Heath (University of Bath)
• Neil May (Natural Building Technologies)
• others to be announced.
Venue: The Ron Cooke Hub at the University of York,
Heslington, York. YO10 5GE.
More info here.
Clayworks will be showcasing at Grand Designs, NEC, this weekend 7-9 October. Paul Fitzpatrick will be at the Grand Village, an area dedicated to sustainable building skills, and holding clay plaster demos every day.
Clayworks is the guest of Low Impact Living. A run down of LILI events can be found here.
Paul is a great addition to our building team. He brings with him over 20 years of plastering experience. Our building team is growing and we are proud to have him on board.
In this picture Paul is helping to lay the top coat of a clay floor in an old working Smithy in Mawnan Smith, near Falmouth. The floor will be polished and sealed with four coats of linseed oil and beeswax.
We attended Ecobuild 2010, Earls Court, London, to launch the new brand and show off our prototype blocks and plasters. A very busy 3 days for our crew of 4. Developers, self-builders and architects – a great way for us to sense where Clayworks products will be in the future.
We have now officially named our new company Clayworks. This incorporates our existing building company, Cob in Cornwall (now known as Clayworks services division) alongside our new products division, manufacturing compressed clay blocks and ready to use plain and pigmented clay plasters. We are striving to make the majority of the ingredients used in these products from local waste materials.
My brother, and Adams brother-in-law, James Bryce has moved to Cornwall with his family from Hong Kong to help develop the business side of bringing clay blocks and clay plasters to market.
Busy building season upon us again
We are in the throes of our busiest building time – balancing different cob and lime new build and restoration projects. This season is going well as we now have a crew of six excellent team members. Despite this, the work is still very labour intensive and re confirms our desire to speed up the process of building with clay by producing compressed clay blocks. We have been working on developing this, as well as a making a ready to use pigmented clay plaster, for the last year.