Natural building villa – Eco Lodge

Expected finish: 2021       Architect: Pedro Pizarro      Construction: Eco Caminhos Team       

Size:  142 m2         Techniques: cob & wattle and daub        Location: Nova Friburgo, Brazil        

We are currently building the Eco Lodge. The Eco Lodge is a 142 m2  natural building villa. It has a kitchen, living room, terrace, green roof, garage, 3 bedrooms, and 3 bathrooms. It is designed for tourism. The house is even more integrated into the landscape than the Colmeia house. We wanted the green roof to literally merge into the grasslands around the house. Just like in our Colmeia project, we used cob as the main building technique simply because it, in our experience, makes for the most beautiful results. It allows us to build in any form. We’ve also chosen to use a lot of windows -the Eco Lodge will have even more windows than Colmeia! People want to soak in the beauty of nature from inside the house. It is also healthier and more sustainable and energy-efficient to use natural light instead of electricity for lighting up your house. The Eco Lodge is another example of how we can naturally build outstanding houses. We want to show that it is possible to substitute modern conventional houses with naturally built houses. We achieve the same levels of user comfort and also surpass conventional houses on various fronts.

Natural Building Presets

• Integration with the landscape
• Use natural materials and recycled materials
• Natural lighting in the house
• Living room and kitchen should have large windows to see the beautiful views
• Zero humidity
• Green roof
• good thermal insulation for the cold winter nights

Techniques 

• Dry Stacked Foundation: The stone wall foundation is built without using cement. Rather, we fit together stones precisely and without any type of mortar (example video).
• Cob (also known as cobb): a building material comprised of subsoil, straw, and sand
• Wattle and Daub: A composite building method used for making walls and buildings in which a woven lattice of  Bamboo strips called wattle is daubed with cob
• Green Roof:  green roofs are excellent for thermal insulation and, of course, look astonishing
• Natural Wastewater Treatment: We use a banana filter for black and grey wastewater filtering
• Solar Boiler: We use a solar boiler for providing hot water
• Double Glass: For western countries this is not very special but in Brazil it is much rarer
• Drainage: We have a drainage system under the stone wall foundation
• Floor Insulation: We use expanded clay to prevent humidity infiltration and to insulate the floor
• Positioning House Towards the Sun: For a healthy indoor climate, the direction your house faces is really important With our extremely humid summers and cool winters, positioning the house towards the sun (North) has proven essential

Volunteer

For people who want to learn natural building skills, we have different types of volunteer programs.