Awhi Farm – Timbrel Dome workshop with James Bellamy
Dynamic, innovative approaches and a ‘can-do’ attitude have clearly made the Awhi Farm Sustainability Centre a community project to keep both eyes on.
Over two visits, Steve Henry and I have been able to see a number of great low-cost projects unfolding before our eyes – one in particular was finished on our return visit on Wednesday.
In this short video, James Bellamy took the time to talk to me about the Timbrel vault workshop while students worked around him.
On our return visit the structure was complete as you can see from the photo below.
Self supporting Timbrel vault structure
On our way north James Bellamy, running a 3-day Timbrel vault building workshop. The tiles are pressed from local crushed pumice, cemented together with gypsum plaster to create amazingly strong arch and dome structures in a very short time.
Check out the courses at http://www.ecoshow.co.nz/Courses.html
This excerpt is copied from the above webpage:
“A building technique that dates back 600 years and is now being rediscovered due to it’s low use of building materials and therefore low embodied energy. Made from locally pressed tiles, beautiful spanning shapes are built without extensive formwork and at minimal cost. The designs of these dome shells work with pure compression and no reinforcement steel.
At Awhi farm a hand press is used to make the tiles out of our local materials of pumice and stabilized with cement.”
I can see Awhi Farm becoming a significant and integral part of the ‘sustainable community development’ space in the central North Island in a very short amount of time.
Thanks again for the whole Awhi Farm community for extending your time to us so generously. Hopefully, these blog posts go some way towards raising the profile of the Centre and encourages more people to visit and be inspired by the space you’re creating.
