Kensington Kids Cottage
Kensington Metropark, Farm Center, Milford, Michigan, USA.
!
About the Project ~ a description and history of the Kensington Kids Cottage.
This inspiring project is a collaborative effort* to create a learning structure at the Kensington Metropark Farm, using natural and local materials! The Kensington Kids Cottage began its construction on July 14, and was put in "a state of suspended animation" for the winter, awaiting the final earth plasters and thatching process in spring of 2007 when the warm weather returns. The Phragmite Reed Grass will be harvested by volunteers during the winter of 2006-7.
Local materials were procured from the site and surrounding region by the Kensington Park and Kensington Farm staff.
The timber frame was constructed from trees milled on-site: ash trees (whose death resulted from the Emerald Ash Borer)as well as some cherry and oak trees (that were previously downed for a variety of reasons.
Strawbales for the north wall, and earth for the Compressed Earth Blocks used in the east and west walls and the earthen plasters that cover all the walls, came from nearby the Kensington Farm.
Poles used to give lateral support to the strawbale walls and horizontal perlins for the thatched roof structure were gathered by the
The south-facing stone wall was made from the field stones collected on the Kensington land. These stones originally were rolled and deposited by the glaciers of 10,000 years ago. In the last century, the land was farmed and the stones were often moved into piles by the settlers.
The thatched roof is made of reed grass, Phragmites, an invasive local plant that grows in marshes and along water ways - even the expressways!
2008 Update: The Kensington Kids Cottage is finished. About 700 bundles of reed were collected during the winter of 2006-2007 by an incredible group of volunteers. These "friends of the cottage" included the Kensington Metropark and Farm Center staff, Raisin River Institute and Great Lakes Green Initiative and the Strawbale Studio Program, plus many other interested people! In the spring the roof began being thatched by interns and helpers under the guidance of Deanne Bednar. 300 bundles of reed were purchased from Thatcher William Cahill to meet our needs, and a beautiful copper roof designed by Bob Prud'Homme was constructedby Chris Williams of the Kensington Metropark Farm Center with the help of several willing assistants!
The finish plasters, a beautiful sculpted bench, a dramatic stone column completed the building.
The grounds around the structure are being developed into a learning destination for the Farm visitors, and include a variety of historic fencing techniques, native gardens, gate and walkway designed and implimented by a variety of Metropark folks!
Workshops and activities are being planned to share information with park visitors and groups about sustainability, natural building and permaculture.
Contact Information
for those connected with the construction of the Kensington Kids Cottage
Ferndale, MI Robert Prud'homme is committed to using "sustainable" or "green" building practices. He has most recently
been involved in building the first sustainable home in Birmingham, MI. Credentials: AIA
The Kids Cottage at the Kensington Metropark Farm!
Text from the Raisin River website: http://www.rriearth.org/cottage.html
"Natural building techniques are being used in the construction of a demonstration children's cottage/classroom at the Kensington Farm Learning Center. The work is being completed by a diverse crew of volunteers, including men, women and children.
The 300-square-foot cottage is mostly made of materials found onsite at the metropark. Dead ash trees, felled due to the emerald ash borer, were milled onsite to make the timber for framing the structure. Earthen block, straw bales and fieldstone walls were finished with an earthen plaster. This winter, volunteers will collect phragmites, an invasive plant species, and bundle the harvested reeds into thatch for the roof. The permanent thatched roof will be added in the Spring.
Natural building workshops were offered to cover the basic principles for compressed earth block (CEB) and strawbale construction, and earthen plaster application. A workshop on roof thatching techniques will be held in January 2007.
Follow the project's progress and view photos at the Kensington Children's Cottage , a website hosted by Great Lakes Green Initiative (GLGI). GLGI is working with several high school students who will be reporting on the project as part of a collaborative environmental journalism project with Michigan State University. http://www.glgi.org "
- This collaborative team effort was initated by The Strawbale Studio Natural Building Project with a grant from the State of Michigan Energy Office, and joined by funding and design and construction support from the River Raisin Institute and other individuals, with great engagement of the Kensington Metropark & Farm staff.
Kid’s Cottage: a Hybrid Natural building at Kensington Metropark!
Text from the "Cob Web" Journal Article, Winter 2006-7 Article by Deanne Bednar
This year I received a grant from the State of Michigan Energy Office to do a “start-to-finish” Kid’s Cottage. The project has evolved from a small playhouse located at the Strawbale Studio property, to a 15’X 25’natural building “learning classroom” which will be the center of a new area for children at the Kensington Farm. This wonderful farm is located in the oldest and biggest Metropark in the Detroit area.
Collaborating on this natural building adventure are the River Raisin Institute* (with very generous funding, and the work of Mike Neumann, Executive Director; and Bob Prud’houmme, Board Member of RRI & architect); the Kensington Park & Farm Staff; Lance Bowen of New Harvest Homes, plus a sawyer and timber framer. Also collaborating are students at Michigan State University who, as part of the Great Lakes Green Initiative, graciously created a fantastic web presence documenting the construction process… complete with oral interviews, photos, and blog! Visit www.glgi.org.
Our Process
First our team researched places in the Detroit area which would be public and meaningful sites for the Kid’s Cottage Project. One of the choices was the Kensington Metropark. I connected with a friend who works at the Kensington Farm, Carol Fink, who encouraged me to bring the idea to the Kensington staff. and our team approached the Kensington Farm staff and were met with great enthusiasm! We were pleased to choose the Kensington Farm as our site due to their great responsiveness ~~ including a willingness to help out with materials, develop programming which promotes natural building, and a create a surrounding environment that will be a learning center for children to learn about natural and sustainable living. Oh, and the Farm has 250,000 visitors per year!
As of September 2006, the building is nearly complete and features natural, local materials, solar design, and a radiant floor system, and an inclusive learning/building process. It is a hybrid structure with a Strawbale north wall, with Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) forming the east and west walls. The beautiful hip roof post and beam framing is made from dead trees from the park, mainly ash trees killed by the Ash Borer which has invaded our area. A local Sawyer came to the park and cut the square timbers, and a timber framer, Doug McInnis brought the energies together to get the frame done. He calls it “appropriate technology”, as the square posts and beams are primarily joined with metal brackets which made the process easier, quicker, and are perhaps more user-friendly for the novice. The shallow frost-protected foundation was chosen as a good way to have a floor that would tolerate very high traffic and provide insulated mass heating while reducing the amount of cement used in conventional foundations. It uses pex tubing connected to a 6” wire grid. Under this is a thin” bubble wrap” reflective blanket for insulation and a moisture barrior. There is 2” blue foam wraps the perimeter foundation which is the width of the bales on edge, and down 24” below grade.
Mike brought back prickly pear cactus from Texas, which we fermented and experimented with a bit. (What a trip). The stones came from the farm, and the Phragmite reed grass will be locally and regionally harvested this winter and attached to the roof in spring of 2007.
The CEB’s were made on-site with a Cinva Ram that was commissioned to be constructed locally. The CEB’s were stabilized with 3.5% cement, and the earth plaster with 5% lime, again, to provide finishes that would be more likely to withstand a high use situation. We laid up a double wall with a 4 inch cavity filled with light clay (coated lightly with slip and allowed to dry before putting it in the wall and tamping it down.
The subsoil used for the earthen plasters and CEB’s came from a local gravel yard. The strawbales fit between the posts and are covered in a 4 step earthen plaster stabilized with 5% lime ( slip coat, scratch coat, brown coat and finish coat). The plaster wraps the building and includes the CEB producing a continuous finish.
The people and nature have been the best parts for me. It has been a great joy to share this process with so many generous, enthusiastic people, and to work in this lovely field, by the river and the garden, downhill from the farm with its friendly animals and staff! The Farm staff dependably brought us wood, brought us rocks, 2” limbs for the thatching battons, bales of hay, and a water tank, lent us tools, and helped us work. What a great gang.
Volunteers have woven in and out of this 3 month process, from local folks who come several days a week, to Interns from all over – Virginia, France, New York, Massachusetts who have helped for days, weeks or months, overlapping in an enchanting pattern, camping on the land by the river, swimming after work, having bon fires at night, then biking or taking the bus into the inner city of Detroit to help do earthen plaster renovations on old lathe walls, and explore the sustainable edges of the city culture.
Supportive folks sent email posts to their constituencies, thus increasing the number of folks that hear about and come by to help for a day or two. Each has fascinating stories, and a rich pattern of sustainability emerges as we share our journeys with each other. The huge community garden next to the Kid’s Cottage, produces vegetables that are donated to local food shelters. It is gardened by folks who need to put in some hours for the local District Court. As an alternative to their garden work. teams from the “Garden Crew” have come to help out with CEB construction. Visitors to the Farm drop by with frequency, usually with a few young children they have brought to see the farm animals. They come down the hill to walk the “corn maze” and often drop by to investigate and tour our building-under-construction. Some local folks who hope or plan to do natural building have been coming week after week to join in, and others drop by for a day or so to experience the process and lend a hand. Visitors to the farm come down to check out our project, most often with a few small children who they have brought to the farm. There is a corn maze that surrounds the back side of the Kid’s Cottage, so there is a lot of activity over our way.
For me the primary challenges related to working with an architectural design that was approved at various level ( the farm, the park, the city – although not actually going through code approval which we were actually hoping for) and thus becoming a static design that didn’t allow for as much responsiveness and evolving creativity as I am used to. There were also a number of differences in opinion as to what building strategies would work best, as is often the case in any project I suppose. I wanted insulation in the Compressed Earth Block wall and when light clay was chosen as that insulation, I wasn’t sure whether the CEB wall was actually going to be breathable enough, or whether the light clay would provide enough insulative value to be worth the extra effort of constructing a double CEB wall. I am also uncertain as to the use of light clay ( or perhaps just straight straw – we are deciding today) in the 4 " cavity of the south facing fieldstone knee wall. All in all, we who have come from differing backgrounds have learned much from each other and are, together making a wonderful building.
Outreach ~ and the future…..
In addition to the glgi.org website there have been numerous newspaper articles and video that has followed and supported our process. The Kid’s Cottage Project has inspired and evoked responses from so many … and the sense of ownership is very broad. An educational display on the building will describe the process, materials and design principles for all visitors to see, and next spring youth groups will start meeting in this structure. Throughout the next years, the space around the building will be developed, by the park and the farm staff, into a sweet place for children to enjoy learning about traditional farm skills and natural, sustainable living. There is also some talk about other natural buildings being constructed at other Metroparks in the area! This is an idea that might catch on!
My next project (2007) is to “have another go at” a truly small start-to-finish Kid’s Cottage (playhouse scale) that will be built by a variety of folks, including children. Perhaps there are folks out there who would like to communicate about, collaborate on, or help fund the development of this prototype workshop concept and project.
Deanne Bednar
The Strawbale Studio Natural Building Program
www.freewebs.com ecoartdb@aol.com (248) 628-1887
Kensington Metropark “Kid’s Cottage”
www.glgi.org
Partners on this project include:
The River Raisin Institute
Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority
Robert B Prud'homme Design LLC
New Harvest Homes, Inc.
The Strawbale Studio Natural Building Program
Great Lakes Green Initiative
(2nd Version. Check to see which is final)Kid’s Cottage: a Hybrid Natural building at Kensington Metropark!
This year I received a small grant from the State of Michigan Energy Office to do a start-to-finish” Kid’s Cottage. The project has evolved from a playhouse located at the Strawbale Studio property, to a natural building learning classroom which will be the center of a new area for children at the Kensington Farm. This wonderful farm is located on the north end of the oldest and biggest Metropark in the Detroit area.
This collaborative building adventure also includes The River Raisin Institute*, the Kensington Park and Farm Staff, a Sawyer and Timber framer, and the students from Michigan State University, who, as part of the Great Lake Green Initiative graciously created a web presence documenting the our construction process … complete with oral interviews, photos, and blog! Visit www.glgi.org!
(*an ecological organization that is part of the Monroe (Michigan) IHM Mother House which has undergone a creative Green Renovation including geothermal, reuse of materials and all sorts of green materials and designing).
Our Process
I connected with a friend who works at the Kensington Farm, Carol Fink, who encouraged me to bring the idea to the Kensington staff. Joined by two folks (and very supportive funding) from the River Raisin Institute*, (Mike Neumann, Executive Director, and Bob Prud’houmme, Board of Directors & architect), we approached the Kensington Farm staff and were met with great enthusiasm! Our team had researched places in the Detroit area which would be public and meaningful sites for the Kid’s Cottage Project. The Kensington Farm location was chosen due to their great responsiveness ~~ including a willingness to help out with materials, develop programming which promotes natural building, and a create a surrounding environment that will be a learning center for children to learn about natural and sustainable living. Oh, and the Farm has 250,000 visitors per year!
As of September 2006, the building is nearly complete. It is a hybrid structure with a Strawbale north wall, Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) east and west walls. Our goal was to create a gathering space for elementary children that feature natural, local materials, solar design, and a radiant floor system, and to include many people in the learning/building process. The beautiful hip roof post and beam framing is made from dead trees from the park, mainly ash trees killed by the Ash Borer which has invaded our area. A local Sawyer came to the park and cut the square timbers, and a timber framer, Doug McInnis brought the energies together to get the frame done. He calls it “appropriate technology”, as the square posts and beams are primarily joined with metal brackets which made the process easier, quicker, and likely more user friendly for the novice. The shallow frost-protected foundation was chosen as a good way to have a floor that would tolerate very high traffic and provide insulated mass heating while reducing the amount of cement used in conventional foundations. The subsoil used for the earthen plasters and CEB’s came from a local gravel yard.
Mike brought back prickly pear cactus, which we fermented and experimented with a bit. (What a trip). The stones came from the farm, and the Phragmite reed grass will be locally and regionally harvested this winter and attached to the roof in spring of 2007.
The CEB’s were made on-site with a Cinva Ram that was commissioned to be constructed locally. The CEB’s were stabilized with 3.5% cement, and the earth plaster with 5% lime, again, to provide finishes that would be more likely to withstand a high use situation. We laid up a double wall with a 4 inch cavity filled with light clay (coated lightly with slip and allowed to dry before putting it in the wall and tamping it down.
The best parts for me have been the people and nature. It has been a great joy to share this process with so many generous enthusiastic people, and work in this lovely field, by the river and the garden, downhill from the farm with its friendly animals and staff! The Farm staff dependably brought us wood, brought us rocks, brought us 2” limbs for the thatching battons, brought us bales of hay, and a water tank, lent us tools, and helped us work. What a great gang.
Volunteers have woven in and out of this 3 month process, from local folks who come several days a week, to Interns from all over – Virginia, France, New York, Massachusetts who have helped for days, weeks or months, overlapping in an enchanting pattern, camping on the land by the river, swimming after work, having bon fires at night, then biking or taking the bus into the inner city of Detroit to help do earthen plaster renovations on old lathe walls, and explore the sustainable edges of the culture.
Supportive folks sent email posts to their constituencies, thus increasing the number of folks that hear about and come by to help for a day or two. Each has fascinating stories, and a rich pattern of sustainability emerges as we share our journeys with each other. The huge community garden next to the Kid’s Cottage, produces vegetables that are donated to local food shelters. It is gardened by folks who need to put in some hours for the local District Court. As an alternative to their garden work. teams from the “Garden Crew” have come to help out with CEB construction. Visitors to the Farm drop by with frequency, usually with a few young children they have brought to see the farm animals. They come down the hill to walk the “corn maze” and often drop by to investigate and tour our building-under-construction. And so it goes.
Some local folks who hope or plan to do natural building have been coming week after week to join in, and others drop by for a day or so to experience the process and lend a hand. Visitors to the farm come down to check out our project, most often with a few small children who they have brought to the farm. There is a corn maze that surrounds the back side of the Kid’s Cottage, so there is a lot of activity over our way.
For me the primary challenges related to working with a design process that was architect-designed and approved at various levels (although it was not required in the end to pass code, even though we were actually wishing for code approval). I felt the building design and process to be relatively ridged and static compared to my experience on the Strawbale Studio (the ultimate organic process). There were a number of differences in opinion as to what strategies would work, as is often the case in any project I would suppose. I wanted insulation in the Compressed Earth Block wall and when light clay was chosen, I wasn’t sure whether the wall was breathable enough, or whether is was enough insulative value to be worth the extra effort of a double wall. I am also uncertain as to the use of light clay in the 4 " cavity of the south facing fieldstone knee wall. All in all, we who have come from differing backgrounds have learned much from each other.
Outreach ~ and the future…..
In addition to our wonderful website there have been numerous newspaper articles and video that has followed and supported our process. The Kid’s Cottage Project has inspired and evoked responses from so many … and the sense of ownership is very broad.
An educational display on the building will describe the process, materials and design principles for all visitors to see, and next spring youth groups will start meeting in this structure. Throughout the next years, the space around the building will be developed by the park and the farm, into a sweet place for children to enjoy learning about traditional farm skills and natural, sustainable living. There is some talk about other natural buildings being constructed at other Metroparks in the area. It is a good vision.
My next project is to have another go at a truly small start-to-finish Kid’s Cottage that will be built by a variety of folks, including children. Perhaps there are folks out there who would like to communicate about this sort of process.
Deanne Bednar
The Strawbale Studio Natural Building Program
www.freewebs.com ecoartdb@aol.com (248) 628-1887
Kensington Metropark “Kid’s Cottage”
www.glgi.org
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