Editors’ Note: Bingo Springo

We’re deep into Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, nearly choking on all the pollen in the air but happy to see familiar plants re-emerging and flowers unfolding. Since the last issue we had the distinct pleasure of appearing on Jeffrey Hart’s Building Sustainability podcast, where the conversation meandered to some curious places. After being asked “what does success for The Last Straw look like to us”, we found ourselves considering the end of the Journal even as its revival is just beginning. 

Our recent renewal of The Last Straw is not a true beginning, but much like Spring it is the start of a new season in a cycle of wilting, resting, blooming, and exuberant living. The magazine is currently budding with a new crew, but could there come a day when The Last Straw might cast seeds to the wind and gracefully make its exit? Perhaps a proliferation of hyper-local, bioregional magazines across the world (as dreamed of towards the end of Issue 71) would signal the change. If each bioregion or even every major watershed had its own dispatch about abundant living for generations of humans and the more-than-human world, would that be “mission accomplished” for The Last Straw? We share this vision with a sense of hope- we’d much prefer to uplift allies instead of establishing franchises. 

In the meantime we have a lot of stuff to do, and we’re just getting started! In between wading through belly-button-high grass along creeks and giving wooden posts a Yakisugi treatment with a torch, we’ve assembled another collection of cool projects and tidbits from here and there into Issue 72. These pieces approach the eternal question “what is natural building” from a number of angles.We’re living in a time where the “unnatural” seems to have infiltrated nearly every aspect of our daily lives, from the scripted dramas we watch on screens, to the clothes we wear, to the food we eat. There are even microplastics in our blood now. The closer we look, the less clear the dualistic distinction between natural and unnatural becomes. Like many dichotomies, such as Subject/Object, Mind/Body, Human/Animal, the concept sets up a false dilemma between irreconcilable opposites, a dreadful oversimplification of the world binding us in its polarity and limiting possibilities. We are often taught to define our positions by situating ourselves between binary opposites, but as these black and white talons loosen their grip, a more intricate picture comes into view- an ecology of complex and emergent relationships between real, material bodies. It comes with a decentering of humans and human concepts and reorientation to the living earth. During the 2021 Rocky Mountain Natural Building Conference engineer and author Bruce King reflected on the idea of natural building:

 Essentially natural building means: using what’s nearby and not processing it very much… We routinely, as that one guy put it, try to make molecules be things they don’t want to be with a lot of fossil fuel energy. That’s the whole petrochemical industry. And there’s all sorts of benefits to it, we’re all benefiting from it right now. So can we have the benefits without the drawbacks? And the answer essentially is yes.

If the term “natural building” is to be used, we appreciate this practical formulation. It situates us in our environments, asks us to carefully observe the existing states of materials and systems, and pushes us to make wise decisions about the energy we put into moving and changing things. In Issue 72 we check in with a number of builders exploring these issues head on. We hear from Miguel Elliot about his incredible work with Cob on Wood, using wooden pallets with ‘trash’ infill to build dignified structures in an unhoused community.  We also have a story from Myles Danforth on how the city of San Juan Comalapa has transformed its relationship with waste and turned a problem into a solution. We speak with the Kolûba collective about building in Turkey and the difference between modern alternative building and natural building of the past. And much more. These stories bring to mind a wren building its nest with twigs and moss and multicolored candy wrappers, reminding us to “use what’s nearby and not process it very much.”

With Love,
 The Last Straw Editorial Collective