Life in Walter Segal's self-build 'anarchist' estate

Pebble dash is an old technique that was "rediscovered" by the Arts and Crafts Movement and repopularised.

You can find it on some Cotswold manor houses. It's a bit disconcerting.

http://www.pebbledashing.com/why-use-pebbledashing.php

http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pebbledash/pebb...

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/21/pebbleda...

I have looked at this quite closely. It looks very similar at first sight, but the process is quite different from conventional Canadian timber framing, in that it has a radical focus on simplicity and self building.

On a practical level, this translates into things like much more modest foundations (poles instead of slab), a 60 cm grid system that is perpetuated throughout the house, plasterboard panels that get loosely fit instead of screwed on, an extremely simple but sturdy stair design, and more.

A more contemporary descendant seems to be http://irishvernacular.com .

I worked for just over a year as a builders labourer in NZ. One evening, as prep for the next days work I singlehandedly sorted out all the pre-built roof trusses, and lifted them up on top of the wall frames we'd stood up that day. It wasn't very difficult, and certainly didn't require a crane.

I'm not an expert, but here is my speculation. Historically, in many parts of Europe, wooden housing was cheap housing. In many places, only they rich could afford stone houses.

Several cities, seeing wood as a fire risk, even until this day have rules that forbid new wooden construction.

Then there's also the fact that streets are organised in a totally different way in many European cities. US visitors sometimes tell me they feel a bit claustrophobic in the streets of my native city. They _are_ quite a bit narrower than the average US street, and they're all townhouses built right next to one another.

Oh, and older generations seem to spontanuously associate wooden barracks with soldiers, prisoners of war and cheap post war emergency housing.

The tide is turning though, with wood and even straw building gaining in popularity year by year in many of the EU countries that I regularly visit...

Wasn't the island almost completely deforested? People have mentioned that here before. I wonder if it's connected.

When my house was built (probably 1920-ish) labour must have been very cheap, because the construction method is very labour-intensive. The whole house is built of brick, with double walls even for interior walls, complex 4-breasted chimney (brick also), windows with inlaid brick patterns, and so on. Since hundreds of thousands of these kind of houses were built around that time[1], there must have been armies of people involved.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/10/metroland-100-...

Interesting. When I first heard about modern people living in wooden houses I thought 'are they crazy? Why would someone be invest their life savings in buying a wooden house? Surely they cannot last very long'. I think it is because the climate is very different.

I live in northern England at about 1000' (fairly high by english standards). It rains a lot, and the rain tends to be more horizontal than vertical. Outside, untreated wood rots fast from the damp. Treated wood (e.g. windowframes) need repainting every 2nd year, and even so parts of them rot and need replacing every 25 years or so.

The houses near here are mostly 200-400 years old and built of local gritstone from quarries that are a few hundred yards away. The walls are as good as when they are built (the exteriors need re-pointing every ~40 years or so). The roofs (grey(stone) slate) need re-doing maybe every ~40 years when the timbers sag.

The buildings I have made (house extension, outbuildings) will still be standing 400 years from now.

The comments about shortage of timber might also have some validity - there were/are hardwoods here, but not much - unlike in the US or New Zealand, where you had large forests on your doorsteps.

Several types of anarchists believe in private property.