In Search of the Vernacular
by Nicholas Chambers
For some, Crestone is the place of retreat. For others, it is just not Kansas anymore. But for some people it is simply our home. It is the canvas on which the daily livelihood of shelter, food, and energy is played out upon contemporary hearths of Earth. Crestone is the axis mundi in a very real and carnal sense: it is the birthing ground of our Indigo children!
The Crestone culture of alternative building and homesteading has inadvertently given rise to a vernacular lifestyle that is found most indigenous in our straw bale homes. Take the title: "The straw bale building capital of the world". This was not an emblem that was planned, bought, or even knowingly devised. Men, women, and children earned it as a result of sand-etched toil. They have been on the ground with pennies forging their dreams, visions, and futures in the vacuum left by a failed retirement community. This was the seed of what has become an endemic flourishing.
The Crestone straw bale is a distinct style of form and function that is at once tight and beautiful, while out performing notion s of what is "normal". Passive and active solar design with the thick walls of straw bales and tight roofs with high R-values have created homes that are warm in the winter and cool in the summer - near perfect consorts with the climate. Heating costs are low or even non-existent, and the price of hot water is merely a function of installation cost of the solar system and the sun.
Strawbale is not the only tradition here, but the locally produced material that is most inclusive of other approaches. Cob, adobe, rammed earth, spectacular carpentry, earthships, and earthbag can be found in varying proportions along with straw bale, while soy-foam insulation, various concoctions with cement, stone work, and beetle-kill timber and lumber all contribute to our high-performance and aesthetic building traditions.
Many of those who came here to find their slice of heaven were not builders when they began, but they certainly became so through adaptation. They are familiar with the frontier of individually pushing envelopes, while commonly fluent with hawk and trowel. Building has been their domestic chore, as mowing the lawn is for an urbanite, and the prime way to have a job. For not only did they build their own homesteads on nights, weekends, and holidays, but they built the homes and retreat centers of Baca's more cosmopolitan side.
The families and individuals who have made Crestone their single year round home are here for the long haul. They are the sacred earth warriors who also serve the role of the common people. They are the human capital that will build, fix, and maintain the functions and infrastructure of this community. Crestone as a place of national headlines needs these people as seafaring vessel needs its crew.
Visitors and prospectors alike should remember that this land is the raw material of the locals' existence. Engender and build upon what has happened. The cookie-cutter status quo is extremely resource dependent and therefore unacceptable here. We are at the end of the road here, folks; Shambhala is full of mosquitoes, thirty below winter temperatures, and apocalyptic spring winds. The shelter of family-built passive solar straw bale simply can't be beat.
During one of the coldest winters any of us can remember, with nightly lows of -15F this past season, builder, Sonny Rodrigues's home had only passive solar as their heat source. No woodstove, no gas boilers, no electric heat. With sixteen inches of isolated thermal mass in the floor, an adobe brick trombe wall, and thick earthen plasters over the straw bales, the sun's energy shines inside the house and is stored in all this mass for extended period of times.
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Building for a brighter future!
Unfinished Photo, LEED Home, Saguache, CO
Visit our home tour on June 18, 2011 from 10am-1pm
For directions click here.
Arayasun Construction Announces Open House/Tour of LEED certified Strawbale Home.
Saguache, CO June 5, 2011— Arayasun Construction and the homeowners, Andrew and Laura Archuleta, are hosting an open house/tour of a newly constructed LEED certified, sustainable strawbale home near Saguache (27551 County Road 43BB) on Saturday June 18, 2011 from 10am to 1pm.
Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building was designed and built using strategies intended to improve performance in metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. In the United States and in a number of other countries around the world, LEED certification is the recognized standard for measuring building sustainability. Achieving LEED certification is the best way to demonstrate that a building project is truly "green."
This 2 bedroom strawbale home includes an attached garage, home office, open floor plan with lots of natural lighting, grid-tied solar system, solar hot water system for in-floor heating/domestic supply, and passive solar which includes a 14-inch thick adobe floor for thermal mass. Sustainable materials used include adobe and lime plasters, cork flooring, clay alize finishes for the walls, Colorado beetle kill pine tongue and groove ceilings, and strawbale in-fill post and beam construction.
Arayasun Construction and its collaborators will be on-site to provide information about the construction of this home and its green/alternative systems. Anyone who wants to learn more about alternative, eco-conscious building is urged to attend. Light refreshments will be provided.
For additional information email: info@arayasun.com or call Sonny Rodrigues 719-588-6724 http://www.arayasun.com
Arayasun Construction is a full service, fully equipped ‘green construction’ company dedicated to quality workmanship, integrity, and professionalism. The Araysun team collaborates with architects, LEED inspectors, banks, insurance companies, and other industry professionals to achieve outstanding results. They work one-on-one with their clients to create sustainable, eco-friendly homes. Arayasun homes are said to be superior in efficiency, beauty, structural integrity, and craftsmanship, since they are experienced with developing off-grid living options and incorporating photovoltaic and solar hot water technologies. Their goal is to make green building a standard for anyone.
For slideshows of the building of this LEED certified strawbale home visit (http://arayasun.com/Slideshows.html). We hope to see you there!
Open House Tour:
(look for balloons on the driveway of home)
When: Saturday, June 18th
When: 10am - 1pm
Where: 27551 County Road 43BB, Saguache, CO
From Salida:
Take 285 to Saguache, CO, follow towards Gunnison approximately 4 miles from Saguache 43BB will be on your right. There is a National Forest Sign there as well. Make a right on 43BB and look for the balloons on the left. The road will go a couple miles before you come to the residential homes there.
From Alamosa:
