Creative duo builds earth-friendly studio

About as creative as Greg Spatz’s novels and his music is his very own earth-friendly studio. It’s a less than 100 square-foot “pinch pot on its side” bungalow, as his wife, Caridwen Irvine-Spatz describes the creation she and Greg built in their South Hill back yard. Caridwen wanted to create a separate oasis where Greg could work, apart from the house and distractions of everyday life. So she indulged in her love of sustainable architecture and started passionately researching how this could be done with as little ecological impact as possible—a focus the creative duo strives to achieve in their everyday lives and creative endeavors. Spatz, director of Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University, an author, and a musician in the band Mighty Squirrel, recycles, and uses email and electronic media instead of paper whenever possible. He encourages his students and fellow instructors to do the same. These sustainable practices spread to Mighty Squirrel, a “World-time Music” quartet, which performs only acoustic pieces. And when it comes time to package the band’s new recording early this year, the band plans on using all-recycled material for the CD tray and cover. Irvine-Spatz, another member of Mighty Squirrel, has raised her two boys on organic food and tries to instill the importance of mindful living, from how they spend their time to the impact on everything around them. She cultivates an organic garden and strives to stay abreast of all the latest earth-friendly eco-innovations, from electric bicycle conversion kits to solar panels to gray-water recycling systems—the latter of which she hopes will be a next home project, now that new windows have been installed. A long-term goal of the family is to build a home from the ground up using mainly green building practices. However, with 20/20 hindsight, the couple is becoming aware of the need to add a little realism into the mix. “It’s very important to keep your projects do-able, and to evaluate the pros and cons of a green building practice before jumping in,” said Spatz. “For instance, we spent many back-breaking hours breaking up cement by hand, and in hindsight realized maybe we should’ve been more realistic because a jackhammer could’ve finished the job in maybe 20 minutes.” With four objectives in mind for the studio—it needed to be inexpensive, sound-insulated, something she could do herself when her husband wasn’t available, and less than 200 square feet to meet code—she found environmental designer, Don Stephens, and together they formulated a blueprint for her vision. After Irvine-Spatz researched the option of “Oregon Cob” building style, which uses a hand/foot-formed mix of clay, sand and straw, which is very durable, but lacks the insulation needed in our climate, Stephens suggested using rice-hulls (a generally under-appreciated by-product of rice milling) to fill polypropylene bags. Stacked on top of each other, these “bags” would serve as the studio’s load-bearing walls, yet still allow the curved wall design of the “Oregon Cob” structures Irvine-Spatz had admired. Used for insulation in California a century ago, rice hulls are a brilliant building material as they are insect-, fire- and mold-resistant, and don’t readily shift or decompose. But hulls have never been tested for their load-bearing ability — so the studio would serve as a “pilot project” in this capacity. With everyone on board, Stephens procured from California enough hulls for the entire structure for only $300, including shipping, and the project was under way. First, Irvine-Spatz dug 3-foot trenches, in which remesh, a heavy wire grid, was placed and supported with gravel. Then three layers of earth-filled bags were used to fill the trenches, before the hull-filled bags were stacked on top with recycled barbed wire securing the bags together. Section by section, remesh was added and cross-tied with wire to secure the outer and inner walls. To allow light into the studio, Irvine-Spatz concocted a sort of do-it-yourself “suntube” by placing a wine bottle into the mouth of a mason jar and wrapping the glass-in-jar combo in aluminum offset printing sheets. Thanks to Mizuna, which donated 300 wine bottles and Garland Printing, which donated hundreds of printing sheets, Irvine–Spatz was able to “sprinkle” enough of these throughout the layers of bags to create a beautiful “mosaic of light” within the small structure. The roof’s central support was constructed using a hollow, rectangular steel beam, inexpensively purchased from Pacific Steel & Recycling, which rested on a salvaged tree trunk Stephens found in Oregon. Wooden 16-inch I-beams then spread out from there to support the roof’s area. On top of this came two layers of plywood with tarpaper in between, a layer of Mel-Rol—an asphalt membrane used to support rooftop gardens—and finally a layer of old carpet to hold topsoil in which Irvine-Spatz would plant drought-resistant plants such as Mother -of-Thyme and Sedum. Then cold weather came and it was time to hang the old Chinese teak door they’d purchased from Main Street Antiques. A project in itself, they finally got it hung, and with a huge sense of accomplishment, were literally able to close the door on their work-in-progress, to wait for warmer temperatures and creative energies to be restored. That was the summer of 2004. Then came the summer of 2005 when they realized the rice-hull bags weren’t load-bearing. The walls had sagged over the winter, and the need to reevaluate their project was at hand. After jacking up the roof, and trying to cajole and kick the walls back into alignment didn’t work, the team decided that although their structure wouldn’t be as green as they’d hoped, having to switch to “hard shell” (concrete mixture) and insert columns for strength, the studio would still be incredibly insulated by the rice-hulls which carry “an “R” value (insulation rating) that’s off the map.” Then, after the hard shell was troweled on both sides of the walls, and it had fully dried, Irvine-Spatz went to work with lime plasters for the rest of the summer, throughout the fall and into winter, coating the interior walls to make the space lighter and more reflective of the ambient light. She also built a bookshelf for her husband, using cement, papier mâché, and glass shelves. Summer 2006 came and it was time to finish the interior. For the adobe floor, the couple really got into their work, as they could be found tromping around barefoot in their backyard, in a mix of shredded newspaper, red clay, flour and water. Then, fun aside, they covered a very large rock, serving as the floor’s foundation, in four layers, letting each layer dry before another was laid. Irvine-Spatz also finished the interior walls during this time, with a homemade clay-paint, white-wash. And the studio was done—or at least close. But plans for the little “pinch pot on its side” are still ongoing. As with many projects, the list keeps growing—there are plants to plant and solar and wind generators to be incorporated and glass mosaics to be designed for the outside walls. However, Spatz was finally able to move in, in early spring, 2007, where he soon began working on a novel, as well as a short story to be published this spring in The Kenyon Review. Like so many creative processes, the project, although grueling at times, has been ultimately extremely rewarding for the couple as they’ve built something respectful of humanity’s relationship with the Earth’s natural ecology—something they can leave behind and be proud of. “There’s a logic and justice and need for sustainable architecture,” Irvine-Spatz says. “I’ve seen the benefits of sustainable living first hand, by raising my boys this way…it’s accountability to our planet and it truly makes a difference.”