https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-3gqwv-1597d1f

Larry Roybal is a master adobe builder who has built and renovated more than 20 adobe homes in Silver City/Grant County since the early 1970s, when he moved down here from Northern New Mexico. Originally from Corrales, he built his first home there out of “terrones,” a sort of “living adobe brick” used by the Isleta Indians. Join us as Larry regales us with dozens of capitivating stories, like building an adobe in front of the HUD building in Washington DC, visiting the Ignacio de Roybal House, an adobe that was built in 1705 by his ancestor, building the pagoda in Silver City’s Gough Park, and looking back on the turbulent history of New Mexico through the unique lens of an artist with both Spanish and Indigenous ancestry.

SPECIAL BONUS: Don’t miss this online photo album featuring four of the houses that Larry Roybal built and one that he renovated.

Nora Ureste is a Building Biologist who, together with her husband, Chris, is creating a small retreat center outside of Austin, Texas that can host people who are chemically and environmentally sensitive. The project, called Flourish Here, is working towards completing the first of 6 hempcrete homes and will feature a 5 bedroom retreat house, a comprehensive water catchment system and wellness amenities that include a tadelakt sauna. I visited her project in December 2023 on the Rolemodel Roadtrip and am looking forward to following along in the development process.

Listen to the episode here.

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/the-lower-sioux-in-minnesota-need-homes-so-theyre-building-them-from-hemp

https://buildingbiologyinstitute.org/

Healthy Buildings For Sustainable Living

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-idzwu-1535465

 

Listen in as Holly hits the road on a road trip to visit three of the organizations that are inspiring us to believe that our dream is not just possible, but already succeeding in different places around the country. In this episode, she visits an agrihood, a hempcrete retreat center in development and a community land trust in the borderlands.

See you at the Commons at 5pm! There will be pizza! 🍕 😋

Hey Crooked Foresters,

Have a listen to the newest podcast where I got to interview Leah Olson, the Community Outreach Coordinator for Community Rebuilds in Moab, Utah. Community Rebuilds is a visionary affordable housing program that pairs natural building with a community land trust and finishes 12 to 16 houses a year using volunteers, interns and home-owners to keep workforce housing affordable in a crazy market. Their inclusionary education model was just celebrated by Patagonia, and as Leah will tell you, it’s the people that make the magic in this amazing role-model program.

Community Rebuilds is Getting Things Done!

See how they pulled off creating the first affordable home to meet the Living Building Challenge by focusing on carbon-negative, locally sourced materials, passive solar design, water catchment and an almost zero-waste build site. Learn more about their process in this 24 minute video:

Hey guys! We had planned to spark up the horno to make pizza for today’s meet-up but the intense heat index makes that plan seem insane. We had hoped the rains would start by now. In fact, as it looks, the skies might finally open up TODAY, so this plan is now weather dependent, since we meet outside. We’ll see you there if it’s not pouring at 5pm! At the Commons on 501 E 13th St, Silver City, NM 88061.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-xfb58-144ea22

Join us for an hour of conversation about the origin story of Crooked Forest Institute, beginning the health saga of getting sick in America, a hero’s journey and then the crystal clarity that the world would be better with one hundred more tiny adobes.

Hey all!

Just a reminder to join us tomorrow for the first Monthly Natural Building Meet-up at 5pm at the Commons Center for Food Security and Sustainability, located at 501 E 13th St, Silver City, NM 88061.

Weather permitting, we’ll meet outside in the garden. Bring snacks and drinks if you want them. We’re just getting together to talk about earth building! What have you built? What do you love? What did you learn? What’s your dream house? We’ll also keep an ear to the ground on local projects in case anyone wants to get their hands muddy. And we’d love to put together a walking-tour-map of historical adobes to see in Silver City.

Don’t worry if you can’t make this one. We’ll do it each month on the second Wednesday at 5pm. See you there!

Hi all! Just a quick note to invite you to join us at the Tranquill Buzz in Silver City on Friday June 9th, from 2pm to 4pm. We’ll be hosting an interactive discussion about Affordable Housing and how we think adobe construction can be a good choice if we focus on small-footprint, high-efficiency design. Join Us!

Also, tune in to GMCR.org today at 10am (or anytime online here.) to hear Kristen Lundgren interview Holly Noonan on her radio show Interconnect about the origins of the Crooked Forest project and why it is gaining momentum.

Then again, Candice Burke will interview Holly for her radio show Community Spotlight with Candice Burke which will air at 10:30 on Thursday, June 15th. Again, you can listen to it online anytime.

Join us!

Hi All!
We are participating in our local Community Foundation’s annual fundraiser called Give Grandly. We’re excited! We’ll have a table at the live event at the Maker’s Market off Bullard Street in Downtown Silver City. Stop by if you’re local! Saturday May 6th from 9am to 2pm.

And Visit our Give Grandly Page to make a donation, if you can. The first $500 unlocks a matching grant!

Our mission is big. We are aiming for the most efficiently built, affordable adobe home possible. The motivation comes from a deep well of understanding the suffering of environmental refugees. We’ve been there. We won’t stop working until this vision becomes a reality.

Step One: Open a Compressed Earth Block Factory in Grant County, NM

Step Two: Build out our education campus and create a vocational program.

Step Three: Our Graduates build out many Affordable Housing neighborhoods on a Community Land Trust.

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Kelly Hart just posted on his Natural Building Blog about us! (We didn’t build the house in the photo, fyi.)

Thanks so much for being a part of our team!

Holly