12th day - party day!

Today is the last day of the 1st workshop. As a coincidence, the village organizes a village dancing night we plan to attend. But as planned, saturday morning was a regular working day.

Franišek Kurtin from Ecoshop fixed the solar shower in the morning:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

We attached the data logger to the cables - now we are able to measure the drying process as well:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

David is finishing the reinforced plaster layer of the dome:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

This is the view of the dome - we finished this part just as we planned:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Last bit of work inside - smoothening the surface of the dome. We can not introduce too much moisture:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The cleaning crew - straw can be used for everything:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The most important items - ventilators with 7000m3/h to dry the plaster. We have 4 of them in action for teh next week.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

In the evening singing in the dome and saying goodby to the participants leaving:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

LAter having fun at the village dancing evening:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The last participants are siting at the fire until early morning:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

11th day - visitors day

Today was visitors day - too bad nobody thought about taking pictures... about 70 people came for a visit, and 60 people stayed for the presentation.

Yesterday evening Zuzana organized a Slovak dance evening - lot's of fun but exhausting:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Participants trying the steps...

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A round dance for everybody:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

In the morning we started to build in the sensors - we managed to put in all the important ones before the infills were finished with the gravel/clay mix. Here laid out before installation:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

We put the cables in the outside clay, making a hole for the sensor. Sensors we built into the clay or foam glass were wrapped in a facade textile that is open to vapors but protects against dust and clay. Most important will be the measurements in the last few cm of straw:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Catching the cables thrown up to the skylight - not possible to walk on wet clay:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Sitting in the skylight...no structural problems.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Last changes to the slope - the curvature is nearly final, so it has to be done right:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

In the afternoon there was strong rain pouring down, but before we finished early a lot of material got moved. Lot's of strong hands:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The slopes are nearly finished and are nicely shaping up:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

With a clay layer the surface looks nearly finished.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Tomorrow there is still some more that needs to be filled in, and the clay plaster has to be finished on the outside. On the inside the domes needs to be smoothened - but maybe we are bringing in too much moisture. It does dry slowly in this rainy weather....

10th day

Today is the second last day and of course a group photo needed to be taken:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The mood is exstatic, people are still full of energy. Here some pictures from the breaks. We have a swimming pond in the garden which is very popular:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

and a solar shower:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The infills look a bit strange, a combination of strawbales and foam glass in bags, but it does the job.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

This is a relative moisture and temperature logger from Denmark specially made for straw bale buildings. Today we set it up and tested the cabling. Affordable and easy to set up. Looking forward to the first measurements after we build them in tomorrow!

From Strawbale Dome Minke

To smoothen the surface of the dome, we calculated we need about 12m3 of material - a clay/gravel mix usually used for roads. Ideal for us, not too wet and hopefully will dry quickly.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The mix was then moved up the dome by a people's chain.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Ropes were put up to simulate the curvature of the final dome to help us get the geometry right:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The cooks Jakub and Lucia with a huge Pumpkin:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Another task today was making the wall of the vaults even with a light straw/clay mix.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

A rather "muddy" business:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

A ventilator in the skylight helps drying the plaster - our greatest enemy is time and moisture. Please some more wind...

From Strawbale Dome Minke

A look into the vaults with the scaffolding still standing in the middle:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Our great friends the Lithuanians had to leave tonight, driving back to Kaunas. Thank you for your work and inspiring us all. If anybody is interested in their prefab straw bale building or amazing clay plasters, see their web sites www.ecococon.lt and www.indigas.lt. Eduardo (in the middle) is coming back for the second work shop and will be responsible for the artistic side of the clay plastering. Something to look forward to.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

At night there was fun for the young:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

while the older listened to our organic farmer presenting his circular farming concept.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Tomorrow afternoon (Friday) from 15-18h there will be an open day at the building site - you are welcome to pay us a visit!

9th day

Today we got a phone call at 06.00 - the lorry driver with the foam glass was asking for directions. Directions were easy to give, but two cars were in the way and no place for unloading was suitable, so we quickly hurried to make space. The 1t big bag was pulled to the side with the car:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Another 40m3 of foam glass for fill in:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The German plasterer brought some fine straw he is planning to use in the interier plaster:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

View of the inside after the first layer of clay slick:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Today I also got a picture of the skylight ring without support - one cable for opening the skylight and one for downlights that will be attached to the ring.

From Strawbale Dome Minke

A view out of the skylight down on one of the vaults:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

The main task today was to fill in the valleys between the vaults - although we ran out of strawbales half way through and had to use more foam glass, all triangles were filled in:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Maki smoothing out the irregularities of the dome:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Every straw bale building has to have a "window of truth" where the original straw bales are visible - here at the entrance trying out a reclaimed window from the mill:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Re-baling: shortening a bale with a double needle...

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Sieving some sand with clay particles to find out if it can become a suitable additive to our clay mix:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Clay plaster in the dome, smoothened:

From Strawbale Dome Minke

Tomorrow we will hopefully fill in all the triangles and smoothen the valleys - luckily the day was windy and the clay plaster is drying out quickly!