The purpose of this guide is to enable anyone interested in self-construction to prepare for a future project: as an organizer, participant, beneficiary, neighbour, or decision-maker, in full awareness that material and humans play here in constant interaction. For this in each part, we will find a list of tools to best support these factors in the daily workshops. This guide was the specific task of the HE2B team (Haute Ecole Bruxelles Brabant) and its CÉRISÈS laboratory within the LearnBi0n partnership.

Design and Build with Ø km (local and recycled materials), a 4 week building workshop in Milan, Italy. During this workshop we built with recycled materials and low tech building methods to suit the needs of the Casa Chiaravalle community.

During this workshop we built a small rammed earth library to suit the needs of the local community in Valverde de Burguillos, a small village located in Extremadura, Spain

Design and Build with Canes, a 4 week building workshop in Colleserola Natural Park , Spain. During this workshop we built an external covered space of 30 sqm to be used for cultural meetings and for theoretic classes during CanyaViva’s courses cane construction.

Design and Build with Cordwood, a 4 week building workshop in Östertälje, Sweden. During this workshop we built a cordwood building to suit the needs of the newly established social enterprise Eko-Odlarna. They cultivate organic produce on a small plot of land on the outskirts of Östertälje.

Design and Build with Wattle-and-Daub and Light Earth, a four weeks workshop in Casaprota, a town of 740 inhabitants in the inner Sabina region, Italy. During the workshop we colonized an abandoned concrete-skeleton using natural building techniques and aiming at revitalising it as a venue for community gatherings and small events.

Design and Build with Compressed Earth Blocks, a 4 week building course, in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal. During the workshop we built a prototype for artists in residence at Oficinas da Cerâmica e da Terra, a research department from Oficinas do Convento ONG.

The techniques that will be the main vehicle for this workshop will be defined along with the design to be co-created by all the participants in the beginning of the week.

We will concentrate on some of the techniques shared abroad during the LearnBIØN program, so skills can be more easily shared with ones getting in contact with them for the first time and improved by the ones who have experienced them.

After workshop BI0N#5, we finished the construction: a rammed earth parapet was built, the wooden structure of the roof was set and the different layers of the green roof were installed. In the interior, a lime concrete slab was done on a rocks bed. The shelves were realized with ceramic tiles (made in a local small factory) and a lime plaster was done to protect each one of the niches.

The forth week, has been dedicated to close the opening with old windows that were ready to be demolished. We decided to recycle more than 60 square meters of windows to give the good transparency to the building and we worked on the visual connection through the inside and the outside.

To use national pinewood turned out to be more of a challenge than we first thought, as its quality is much lower than the expected and not at all in line with its price. Of course, the design of the doors, following the geometry of the inner arches and therefore with a quarter circle part, was already a big challenge for newbies!

The third week starts with a little changing of the participants, and few more mosquitos. The bottle walls had to be completed and each bottle had to be properly clean. It was a meditative job, which gave the expected result of a shining light through the glasses. The experience with the mortar mixture of the previous week was needed to use the good quality of mixture during the plastering. We used more than 5 tons of mixture for the wall and the plastering.

The second week stars with a little change of the participants, and a shining sun. We created the new wooden structure and the net support, we learn how to use some specific instrument of the site to mix the mortar and we started to prepare to wall to welcome the over 3.000 recycled bottles.

The first week starts with fresh and soft rain, giving the possibility to work without the hot weather conditions of this season. This lucky humidity, gave the best condition to use the local soil to fill the bags. The beginning of the workshop was a bit heavy and physical job, but we had a lot of talking breaks to go deeper in the earthbags technique to explore all the possible potential of this simple and efficient way of building.

We started already the first building phase with the earthbags technique. This was a great start to build the ludic center of CASA CHIARAVALLE. Great Team work!

Last July, during workshop #2 of the LearnBIØN-program, AK0 together with local associations and the municipality of Casaprota have equipped a training location for sustainable architecture within an abandoned building in central Italy.

As an integration to the library project developed by the local association Dehesa Tierra, AK0 was invited to work on the experimentation, which led to the construction of a small piece of fix furniture. The Rome based association partnered with Rossella Siani, adjunct professor in Parametric Design from the University of Naples, for this experience.

Second and last week of our ”design&build rammed earth workshop” have passed. During the week end we had the opportunity to know better the environment of the village with two excursions: first we were invited to a traditional walk in the country-side with Valverde’s inhabitants. During this pagan feast, they usually do a procession with horses, tractors and other vehicles, and make several breaks to have some wine and tapas. It was a great experience although we had to come back quickly to the village because of the rain..

Organized by ARCò, from June 4th until June 29th 2018, Design and Build with Økm (Local and Recycled Materials) in a real context, prototyping a 1:1 object for the development of new activities of the local community

Finally here we are.. the workshop #6 Design and Build with 0km (local and recycled materials) of the LearnBi0n network has its own location, Casa Chiaravalle in Milan.

The first inspection was carried out and we are ready to transform this garden into a physical space for comparison about sustainability and to create a space for new functions for the development of the local community that will host us.