New Projects
Allen Weinstein SWIFT Outdoor Classroom
This exciting new project is a collaborative effort of the At Home At School program of WSU Vancouver (AHAS), Project Green Build, and Columbia Springs.
The classroom will be built by disadvantaged youth as part of the AHAS program and will be used by more than 5,000 students visiting Columbia Springs to engage in hands-on learning.
The 809 square foot classroom is being built using cordwood construction.
Cordwood masonry is an ancient building technique by which walls are constructed of short logs -- called "log ends" -- laid up transversely in a wall (Roy, 2008), much the same a row of cordwood, or firewood, is stacked. The post and beam frame structure allows the roof to go on before any cordwood is done. The cordwood masonry, therefore, will be installed under the umbrella protection of the roof by students, allowing them to work with under protection from the sun and rain. The building will be designed to incorporate a lightweight living roof, planted with seedum and wildflowers grown by students prior to the building's completion. In the end, cordwood is esthetically pleasing, low in cost, environmentally sound, and so easy to build that a 4th grader could do it!
Youth have been engaged in every aspect of this project including site prep, foundation, and the framing.
We are looking forward to updating this page as this project progresses.