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Episode 24: Building with Mud
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Support the video series- purchase Ecovillage Pioneers on DVD. Click here Heavy Autumn rains have made progress difficult for the ecovillage pioneers in Pembrokeshire, but they have still built two beautiful reciprocal frame roundhouses.
The term 'reciprocal frame' was coined by Graham Brown of Findhorn in about 1987, so it hasn't been around for very long. I will call them Reciframes to save syllables. The idea has been around for ages - Leonardo da Vinci designed a floor using reciframes where none of the floor joists was as wide as the floor itself. In Japan there are many ingenious structures using the principle, and those Morris dancers among us will remember the Sword dance where six swords are held out into the centre of a circle by the dancers and placed one on the other until they are locked together. The flash young handsome dancer (there's usually one) then leaps up onto the sword reciframe in the centre and is supported at shoulder height by the rest to the accompaniment of wild cheers and windblown scots bagpipe music. Yes children, try this at home. The first reciframes I heard of in Britain were the whisky barrel houses at Findhorn community, and Jack Everett's dojo near Stroud. Once grasped, the idea of a reciframe is very easy to make your own, and it is spreading very fast as people learn how easy they are to make, how efficient and strong they are, and how great they look from underneath (and above, until you put the roof on). |
Comments
Anyway do you have a copy of the whole video of this? can i have one? just send it to my email then i'll just save it to my computer and transfer to ipod or then from ipod transfer to computer? ahaha.. thanks!