Embracing Natural Building: A Path to Healthier Homes and Stronger Communities with Sigi Koko

In this episode of the Less House More Moola Podcast, Sigi Koko shares her journey into natural building, emphasizing the importance of using local materials and creating energy-efficient homes. The conversation explores the shift in public knowledge about natural building, the challenges faced by those wanting to pursue this path, and the cost implications of natural versus conventional building methods. Sigi discusses who can benefit from natural building, how to start with existing structures, and the empowering aspect of community involvement in construction. The episode concludes with a reflection on the significance of natural building in the context of climate change and the need for sustainable living.

Sigi Koko's Links

www.buildnaturally.com

https://www.instagram.com/buildnaturally/

https://www.facebook.com/buildnaturally/

Book a Call with Laura

Go to thetinyhouseadviser.com

Transcript

Less House More Moola Podcast (01:13)
Well, Sigi Koko thank you so much for jumping on to record with me on Less House More Moola Podcast. Thank you for taking the time.

Sigi Koko (01:25)
It's absolutely my pleasure. I'm so happy to be here.

Less House More Moola Podcast (01:28)
Yeah, you are a woman chasing a certain passion of mine around natural building. ⁓ love to study this stuff. I first started with permaculture and now kind of in the Adobe space here in New Mexico. And so I am just so excited that you've been doing this for so long and teaching so many other people and even reframing the narrative around it.

Sigi Koko (01:55)
that's the goal. Yeah. Is to make it as accessible as possible and ultimately make people like me irrelevant because we've made the information so ubiquitous. yeah.

Less House More Moola Podcast (02:07)
Well, please go ahead and introduce yourself and share a little bit of the story of how you came to natural building.

Sigi Koko (02:16)
Okay, so I'm Sigi Koko. I'm an architectural designer and I design exclusively natural buildings. And what that means to me is using the materials that you have available locally in abundance that you can harvest without harm and using those materials to create healthy, energy efficient buildings.

which is how we used to build, right? This was, you know, this was normal. This used to be normal. ⁓ And so how I came about it was actually in architecture school. ⁓ I had a professor who taught a course on ⁓

Indigenous architecture around the world. And she would teach it by putting up a photo of a building. It could be a residence, it could be a temple, but it could be a grain storage facility. could be, you know, a building, right? It could be a chicken coop. Whatever it was, she would put up the building. She would say what the use was, what the climate was, what the materials that were available were, and why was it built the way it was because of all of those factors. And I was just blown away.

You know, they're simple, but beautiful buildings. And I was like, ⁓ this is how we should still be building. Right. And she's coming at it from a historical perspective, but to me, I was like, well, why, why are we throwing that out the window? Let's bring that back. So that was kind of how I got into natural buildings, just sort of incorporating that concept. ⁓ back into how we design buildings today to be in the ideal world.

me, you should be able to look at a building and tell that it's a hot climate. Tell that there's water scarcity. Tell that it's a cold climate, right? You should be able to read that in the architecture. And we've left that go and we rely on systems instead. And that means energy instead. So anyway, yeah. And I come from a background of really practical women, so I...

I also just to me that's way more practical. yeah, that's just how I got there.

Less House More Moola Podcast (04:36)
it really ties into a book I'm reading right now about regenerative business. That's actually the name of the book. And it's really talking about working with nature instead of against nature. In this context in the book, it's in business, but in building, we have been, like so many other areas of our life, working against nature with our buildings.

I noticed this so much now that I have, learned a bit here and there and designed our tiny home, which I'm standing in. And even in those early days, before even my permaculture class, right, I was thinking about the solar aspect ⁓ of the house, right. And I've learned so much since then. And now it's so interesting when I drive from New Mexico to Colorado, I can see the divide in New Mexico, the

the legacy, the heritage here is to build with solar aspect often. And then as soon as you get up into Colorado where the, you know, the history patterns are different, you see that the windows are facing north instead of south and everything is built completely, totally ignoring this big ball of warmth that's passing through the sky in the wintertime.

And I just think it's so interesting how we just sort of forgot. Like we forgot how to build with nature. And so now here you are trying to teach people how to build with nature again. So as you've been doing this for all these years, what changes have you seen? What shifts have been taking place with your, you know, the people that you're helping or maybe the technologies or what have you?

Sigi Koko (06:26)
Yeah, I would say...

I would say actually the biggest shift is the baseline knowledge that more people have now than when I began. When I began, I would have to start with explaining, okay, this is what a straw bale is. This is what clay is. I would have to have a conversation with every single building official. So I would make a meeting at every new county that I would work in, make a meeting, have everybody come. And I would explain to them natural building for an hour.

I don't have to do that at all anymore. And just the baseline knowledge that people step into, I feel like there's at least exposure. It used to be the only natural building, at least in the US, that most people were familiar with would be Adobe, which you have in abundance in New Mexico. And beyond Adobe,

There's no, whoop, blinders. ⁓ And so knowing that there's such a thing as hempcrete and straw bale and living roofs and clay plasters and lime plasters, right, sort of that lexicon of materials that are in most natural buildings, the knowledge base is more broad. And that's with professionals and with homeowners. And that then means

You're not trying to talk someone into it. You're just, which to me, that's

That's a big ask. You're taking someone who's curious and answering their questions that might give them reservation, right? So maybe, for example, they are intrigued by the notion of a straw bale, but they have heard that you can only do straw bale if you're in Arizona or New Mexico or somewhere dry, right? And so then they have a question. Well, can I do it if I live in Pennsylvania? Well, yes, you can. And here's how and here's why. And so then it's a dialogue about curiosity and

answering questions that give people then the tools to say yes, as opposed to just fundamental. If you only have a few minutes of someone's time and you're explaining what it is instead of why it's viable, it's a different conversation. Right. And so to me, that gives me, it gives me hope that we're close to a tipping point where you can get mass acceptance. If that makes sense.

Less House More Moola Podcast (08:56)
I'm so glad for you that you got to move past education and on to implementation. ⁓ When do you think that shift happened? Like was it you were in this for 10 years and you were still educating, educating, educating, and now you're implementing? Or kind of when do you think that that tipping point happened?

Sigi Koko (09:17)
⁓ I wouldn't say it was necessarily a tipping point, but a graduation. ⁓ and to be clear, I still, I still educate because I'm an educator at heart. ⁓ but where you're fundamentally explaining what something is instead of why it works. Right. So that to me, that's the shift is, is, ⁓ answering people's nitty gritty questions instead of, can I even do it?

Do know what I mean? So, or that it's even a possibility, right? So when I started, I started in 1998 and at the beginning, if I did a presentation, for example, on straw bale, I would start with a photograph of a straw bale because maybe not everybody knows what a straw bale is. And then I would show a house like this is the straw bale is installed in the house, right? And now I start with.

Strawbill is a great insulator. Like I start right with the facts. I don't have to go through the basics anymore because if I did that, everybody would be bored and leave because they already have been exposed to it. So to me, that's the shift. It's like where in that, in that continuum of knowledge about any given natural building material, we're not starting at the beginning anymore. We're starting somewhere in the middle and then moving toward higher knowledge instead of baseline. And to me, that shift means

we can get back to common knowledge, common practice, you know, like just it pre-World War II, it was common for people to make their own paint and not buy their own paint. And now the notion of making your own paint, we think it's so normal and that's in less than a hundred years, right? We went from everyone knew how to make paint to no one knows that you could have made your own paint, right? And so,

And that's true in every aspect of natural building, right? And so to me, if we're starting in the middle of that, of that line of knowledge, then we're closer to the point where we have more people with common knowledge, which means more people answering other people's questions, more people saying yes, more people knowing that that choice exists and asking for it.

Right. Does that make sense? Like.

I feel like...

There's a frustration with the conventional housing stock, for example, that it's not healthy, it's not constructed well as a generality, just a huge generality. But people don't feel like there's another option. And so if we get to a point where more people realize that there's another option, whether it's to renovate or build from scratch, then they know to ask for it.

And to me that shift, when that shift happens, everything will be natural building again, or in most things.

Less House More Moola Podcast (12:25)
Yeah, and I am so excited that this is happening, that people are coming to you with some base knowledge. That means that there is more available out there, you know, maybe the internet or whatever, you know, that there's more knowledge out there that people are able to find. And so when they come to you, they, you know, just need that next step. And that's super hopeful. And yet on the other hand, I'm guessing that a lot of people, you know,

run into problems because the conventional construction world is just so strong and ubiquitous and so easy to get into. And so do you find that folks that do want to go in a natural building route have to be a little bit more persistent or, ⁓ you know, take a little bit more of a patience approach or?

you know, not taking no for an answer. It's the same in my world. In the tiny house world, you have to kind of be a little bit grittier in order to get it done. So would you say that's true?

Sigi Koko (13:30)
Yeah, yeah, I would say that's true because what we haven't filled in yet are the gaps in implementers. So the people who are actually knowledgeable and skilled in implementing natural buildings. So if you're going to be a homeowner builder, then you just need to teach yourself. But that is not most people's ability, whether it's...

financial or time or physicality, right? So it's a big ask to build your own home, right? And so if you want to build a home, but you want to hire someone to do it, if you go to a conventional builder, it...

unless they are really educated, very curious and like to do new things, what you might get back is, ⁓ you can't do that. And they're going to support all of the why can't you, because they want to stay in their comfort zone. You know, it's, how we're made as humans, right? And, and they and fair enough, if they know that their conventional way will get a certain outcome that they can stand behind.

but they don't know natural building and how to stand behind that, then it's a very big ask to ask the builder to say yes, right? But as we increase...

the implementers, the financing, the education with insurance companies, education with permit officials, as that, and real estate agents who might be reselling a natural home, right? If we increase that knowledge, then we close all the loops, and then it becomes easy, and you don't have to be as gritty. But yeah, I would say at this point, it's still, you're on a path of...

either needing to find someone on your team, like that's what I do for clients, is I'm on their team and I fight the fight so they don't need to be gritty, right? I'm persistent for them. And I've made the argument so many times that I know how to speak to the permanent official or speak to the builder so that they're comfortable in saying yes, if that makes sense. And yeah, but to ask one homeowner,

on their own, building their own home, then yes, grittier and patience, patience, patience. Yeah.

Less House More Moola Podcast (15:52)
And here's a question that I'm sure listeners are popping up because it's popping up in my head. What about cost?

Sigi Koko (15:59)
Yeah, it's the most fundamental question and the hardest one to answer. So as the sort of one sentence answer is, if you built the exact same structure, so if you had a 1000 square foot house, you built it with conventional materials, built the exact same interior house, but you built it with natural materials.

the cost would be the same. The difference is the natural building takes more people hours and has lower material cost. So you're paying more for labor, less for materials. Which also there's this sort of on a fundamental level, you're directly paying people as opposed to paying Home Depot and expecting them to pay their people well, right? So there's this like direct transfer of

⁓ of support for people's skill set financially. ⁓ the difference is natural. So conventional construction requires skill set every step of the way. That requires experience, like years of experience every step of the way to do it well.

And natural building, can learn almost every element of, know, whether it's straw bale or hempcrete or plastering or living roofs or clay wall systems, whether it's Randolph or Adobe or ⁓ all of those, each one of those, anyone can learn in a...

I mean, usually you feel like you can do it in an afternoon. You can do it really well after two days. So that's a really short learning curve, right? And if you have a really short learning curve, then you can do work parties. You can do homeowner builder, right? Assuming you have the time and physically fit.

But that gives you then an opportunity to meaningfully replace skilled framers and ⁓ conventional drywall installers and, you know, the sort of the things that require a skill set in conventional construction. You can do it yourself. And so then you can actually start saving money for the exact same home. But if you pay someone to do it, it would be the same.

but you'll have a higher labor cost and a lower material cost.

Less House More Moola Podcast (18:37)
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I love the fact that you point out that, you know, at least the walls and the floors and maybe the roof, right, is something that you can participate in and that you can build community around. I'm sure that that too is both a benefit and a challenge when it comes to modern people. Like, who are you going to invite to your work party? ⁓

Sigi Koko (19:02)
Yeah, yeah.

Less House More Moola Podcast (19:03)
Awesome.

kind of simplify it. Who is natural building for? So who do you like in the wide range of people that run around these days that are looking for a home or constructing a home? Who is a good fit for this?

Sigi Koko (19:22)
I mean, anyone. I've never, I mean, who would it, I would almost ask who would it not be for? Do you know what I mean? And I can't think of who it wouldn't be for. It's the thing, like I'm sitting a room with clay plaster on the walls. And like, if I tip you a little bit, you know, this little curvy piece is all.

⁓ It's waddle and daub, which is the oldest of all the natural building methods. It's vines that were killing trees in our forest that we removed from the trees to save the trees. And then we wove the vines around some vertical poles and then covered it in clay that we dug out of the yard. And then we plastered the whole thing. So it's literally from

from right outside, put in the wall and it covers, so it covers some air conditioning supply line, right? So that's natural building and that's an existing house. ⁓ And it's beautiful when it's done and it feels good. ⁓ the clay, when you have clay finishes, the clay...

regulates humidity, it regulates temperature, and it absorbs and locks in airborne toxins. So chemical toxins like VOCs. And whether you know that or not, when you step into the space, you can feel it, even if you're not a woo-woo person at all, if you're, you know,

you know, just a normal human walking around the world. When you step into a space that has natural plasters on the walls, just that, just that you can feel the space is different. And when you touch the wall, it's, it's tactile in a different way. Like I don't look at a drywall wall and want to pet it. And the clay walls, like you want to pet them. They feel good. You know, they're ambiently warm. It's not flat latex paint.

If you want a variation in the look, have to kind of do a faux finish. It's just plastered and because it's plastered and the trowel going over the plaster changes how much pigment draws forward. Even a perfectly flat wall has visual variation in it. And so I think just even on that level, just thinking about clay plaster finishes.

which could be in any home at all. ⁓

I have yet to meet a person who has walked into a space that has clay plaster finishes and doesn't just go, you know, or sigh, you'll hear people just sigh. And they're not, you're not thinking about it. I hear it because I listen for it every time. ⁓ I mean, I've had the extreme where someone walked in to a room that had a clay floor, clay plastered walls, passive solar.

So it had like the sunlight coming in from the south windows and started weeping because what is possible just shifted, right? That question of what is possible just shifted. So to me, it's for everyone. And I would say the challenge would be someone who doesn't want to do it themselves.

at all, like they have no desire to participate, which fair enough, I don't say that judgmentally. ⁓ Then that person either needs to find someone with the skill set for whatever they want to do, whether it's strawbill or plaster finishes, or they may have to pay someone extra. So it may cost more to pay someone to get educated on their own.

Does that make sense? So I would say that would be the most challenging group of people is people who don't want to do themselves, but also have a really low budget. Then something's got to give. Do you know what mean?

Less House More Moola Podcast (23:50)
So earlier you mentioned existing buildings and I think that when it comes to anything new, I talk about oftentimes how like the hardest part is getting started or you don't ever like anything when you've never done it before, right? We only like things once we have some level of familiarity. And even though I'm like super into this stuff, like every, you know, new thing is it takes some, some doing to get yourself started. Like,

just in the last couple of weeks, I've been laying brick for a rocket mass heater. This is my first time laying brick, by the way, very hard to find brick these days. Anyway, so like at the beginning, it was like really hard to like, you know, get the motivation to get started. And then after two days, right, I'm like, this is, you know, this is no big deal. I know now know how to butter the ends of a brick or whatever.

So, especially starting with existing structures, like what is like the most basic, you mentioned the plaster walls, right? What is the thing that we can bring into existing structures to help us get confident and familiar with this concept or adding some natural building elements?

Sigi Koko (25:07)
that's a great question. ⁓ Yeah, and the starting new thing, right? You always have to kind of take a leap of faith, right? ⁓ So I would say one of my, one of my mantras is ⁓ when you're learning something new to start with, I call it a pot holder project. ⁓ And I call it a pot holder project because when I was like seven or eight years old, I wanted to learn how to knit.

And so I found this sweater that I was gonna knit and I showed to my mom and I was like, I need this much yarn. I'm gonna knit this sweater. And she goes, I will teach you how to knit, but start with a pot holder. And I was like, I don't want a pot holder. I want a sweater. I'm gonna start with a sweater. And bless my mom. She said yes anyway. She's like, okay, you're gonna start with a sweater. And.

It was a sweater that you knit from one arm across to the other arm. And so where I started, that arm you can barely get your hand through, it's really tight. And by the time I got to the other arm, it's really, it's like a, it's like a flare sleeve. Same number of stitches, right? It just, didn't work at all. My mom saved the sweater because she's hilarious. But if I had started with the potholder, the sweater would have been perfect. Right? And so

You know, and she was like, okay, well, if you're going to learn this the hard way, I'm all at you, which bless her. did. ⁓ but if you're doing it on your house and that learning curve is scary at all.

then you really do want to start with the pot holder because if like start with something that if it failed

it's not going to bum you out. So if I didn't know how to plaster and I plastered these walls and they look terrible and I knew the solution was I had to take it back off again, I would cry like it would just, it would break me and I would probably never plaster again. But if you build a little mailbox or build a chicken coop or plaster a wall in a garage that who cares if it looks crappy, you know, like start with something that you give yourself permission to have a learning curve, you know,

permission to get from the tight sleeve to the bell, you know? ⁓ So that's the first thing to me that addresses this sort of that fear of starting. So start on something that ⁓ you don't have an emotional attachment to the outcome. And then I would say, absolutely, positively, anyone could put natural paints and natural plasters in any space they are in. Far none.

⁓ Natural paints are really, really fun. So there's clay-based paints, there's milk-based paints, there's ⁓ linseed oil-based paints, there's ⁓ egg-based paints. ⁓ So there's all these different lime, there's all these different natural binders in nature, and you can use them to make paints, just add your own pigments. They're appropriate for different kinds of finishes. ⁓

Kids can do it. I did a conference once where I was outside and I just brought a whole bunch of eggs and the kids would come and just make little egg tempura paint and then paint on paper and stuff. And it was very popular with the children, right? But it's that easy. Like a three year old kid can make paint, you know? So that's one that you could put anywhere, anytime. And it can be as simple or as fancy as you want it to be. there's...

clay paints that you can apply and then polish and they look really smooth and shiny. Or there's milk paints and egg paints that you apply with a brush. You know, all natural, breathable. ⁓ So I would say that's probably the simplest entree. ⁓ And also the simplest to do a test with because you could always just paint on paper.

or sheet of cardboard and then put it in your recycle, you know. ⁓ And then plasters I think would be then the next level. And so you could replaster if you have drywall walls and you don't like having the drywall. ⁓ The big example to me is clay plasters in a bathroom. you, so like, if you have a drywall with latex paint and you take a really hot, humid shower,

And if it's chilly at all, the humidity from the shower actually condenses on the latex, on the surface of the latex. And then you might get mold and mildew in that top corner where the wall meets the ceiling, for example. You might even get it under ceiling paint in the drywall ceiling. And that's just because the water

condenses on the latex because the latex is an absorbent. So if it's cool and not absorbent, it's going to condense on there, just like the mirror. When you get out of the shower and you can't see in the mirror because it's all foggy, that's condensation from the... If that same bathroom, you put a quarter inch of plaster, clay plaster on all the walls that aren't inside the shower, take the same shower, humidity in the space,

the clay absorbs the humidity. So it doesn't condense anywhere as a liquid, it's just absorbed and then it releases for the rest of the day. So absorbs when you take the shower releases. And then when you get out of the shower, you would notice it by looking in the mirror and being able to see yourself because there's no condensation on the mirror and you wouldn't have any mold or mildew, right? And so that might be

unless you have a fully tiled bathroom. If you have drywall in your bathroom, that might be a great starter project because it's little, it's doable. I mean, maybe a pot holder first, garage wall first, and then the second wall bathroom, right? And then you get a benefit right out of the gate from introducing a natural material into your space.

Less House More Moola Podcast (31:41)
this is a revelation to me. I have never really thought about, you know, I understand that earthen walls, are, breathable in the way that homes today have been built very much to be airtight, right? There's, all these contractors out there who are testing.

to make sure that your home is super airtight because you're wasting heat or air conditioning if they're not airtight, which goes back to the instead of working with nature, working against nature. want our homes to be these little, cubes, these little bubbles where everything is controlled and artificial. And yet if you work with nature, then you're going to have a more breathable space.

And it's just very interesting because I've never really thought about how the surface of your wall could help regulate humidity and help with, that challenge of mold and mildew. So that is fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. Are there other ideas that you have about existing buildings?

Sigi Koko (32:49)
⁓ it, I mean, it depends sort of how radical of a renovation. ⁓ we are currently, we have embarked on a pretty radical natural building renovation and we've done things like, ⁓

We brought in some log beams to support a floor that was under framed and so it was very bouncy. And so we put some log beams like from our forest, brought them in, jacked them up and now the floor is not bouncy. So there's things like that you could do. ⁓ There's various.

insulations. So if you're going to improve insulation in your home or replace insulation that's toxic in your home, there's ⁓ there's both manufactured and from nature insulations that you can do. So the sort of DIY ones would be hempcrete, which is a hemp herd with a little bit of ⁓ lime coated on it. So a lime plaster. ⁓ Well, it's actually just lime putty. ⁓ And it coats the hemp herd

sort of like granola and yogurt. And then when you squish it into a wall, the lime glues all the herds together, but it keeps air pockets inside. And so it becomes an insulating material that also mice can't come through and moisture can, humidity can travel through but liquid water can't. ⁓ When you plaster the sides, also prevents

⁓ airflow differences so you don't get that the energy issue of airflow through the wall. So hempcrete is one, straw bales are another. ⁓ There's light clay straw, but that's kind of complicated, but it's similar idea to the hempcrete, but it's straw with clay coating and then tamped into a wall. ⁓ And then there's manufactured products like there's hemp bat insulation, there's ⁓ wood wool bat

insulation, which is from ⁓ the refuse from mills. And they take that the sawdust and they make other insulation materials out of it. ⁓ So there's healthy natural or sheep's wool, right? Sheep's wool is pretty fundamental. ⁓ So there's different insulation materials you could do. There's ⁓

You can do clay plastering inside. can do clay or lime plastering on the exterior. With a renovation, the first question is, what are you trying to achieve? And then what is the most natural solution to that? And part of that answer will always be what is going to be my involvement. So ⁓ do I have the time and energy to participate or am I hiring someone? And you might answer the question differently depending on which of those.

which which direction you're going. Another one would be just ⁓ living roofs, which is basically if you have a shallow porch roof or a shallow roof in general, we have a shallow roof that goes around three sides of our house. ⁓ You can plant that so put plants on the roof, which seems like a crazy thing to do. But you're choosing plants that can handle a dry situation without

They were, they're relying just on rainwater basically. So they don't have groundwater and they have ways of storing rainwater for the periods of time when it's not raining. And that helps the plants when they're fully covering your roof, they help keep the space below cool because the cl- the plants are trying not to boil in the sun and they do that by evaporating moisture and that evaporation cools down your whole roof surface all summer long.

And then in winter, it's not doing that because they're not trying to stay alive from the sun. So they're kind of dormant. And so in winter, it just gives you a buffer. So it helps improve whatever insulation you have below. It helps it ⁓ not have as radical a temperature change between inside and out. And so that's one that's also, especially if you're in an urban situation, most roofs in an urban situation are flat. So if you have a row home in Philadelphia, you could.

a living roof on that, you So there's a gamma and it depends how radical of a renovation are you doing. Are you just changing finishes or are you changing structure or are you reinstallating the walls? Are you gutting it? Right? And depending on how radical you're being will open up different doors of what you could do. That kind of sky's the limit.

Less House More Moola Podcast (37:47)
That's got to be so fun and inspiring for folks that are like, you know, buying maybe a property that needs a lot of TLC and getting to start with, hey, as we do this, what are the natural building techniques and materials that we can implement in this space? Again, I wish I'd had, you know, this conversation with you like 10 years ago. ⁓ So let's talk about the.

the sweat equity piece just, you know, to touch back to financial since I always tried to come back to that. Do you see when folks get involved in their own renovations or their own buildings of their being able to create some value there from participating and having accessibility to participate in a way that maybe they wouldn't if they were building, say, you know, a stick built conventional house?

Sigi Koko (38:38)
Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. And that might be the most empowering aspect of shifting the mindset to natural building over conventional construction. So if you think, ⁓ okay, I'm gonna build a home or renovate a home and I wanna do some sweat equity, for most people it means I'm gonna paint the walls at the end. Okay, but like of your budget.

paying someone to paint the walls. was a tiny chunk of the whole budget, right? And so, yeah, great. You painted your walls. I'm not saying don't, but think of that compared to, ⁓ okay, I'm renovating my own house. I'm gonna gut the walls and then I'm gonna put ⁓ hempcrete insulation in and I'm gonna have 10 friends come over. We're gonna knock it out in two days. You know, I'm gonna feed them.

⁓ and we're going to put hempcrete insulation in. then when that cures, I'm going to clay plaster it. And maybe I have a couple more friends come and help do that. Or you host a teaching educational workshop, which is then the other thing I do, right. With clients that I've designed your home. I offer to come and host workshops. And then I'm overseeing everyone and teaching them how to do it right from the get-go. And you could have 30 people and boom. Once you have, and then it's a. ⁓

It's like you take something that was just a job, just a task, and you make it fun. And two things happen. One is when we're having joy, when we're learning something and we're having joy, like it's fun, it feels like play, you actually learn it faster, like fewer repetitions before you know how to do it confidently.

than if it feels like a job. Do you know what I mean? And the second is a little more intangible, but I had a client describe it as when she would walk through her completed home, she felt like she had these happy ghosts. am I enunciating that well enough? Ghosts, know, Halloween. ⁓

all around her house because she would remember, those sisters were putting the straw bales in by the stairs. And every time she goes up the stairs, she hears them laughing with each other because they were having so much fun. Right. And so it becomes this there's, yeah, you get your house built or insulated or plastered or whatever the task was. And you create a sense of community and connection.

And that wasn't necessarily the goal, but it's absolutely an outcome. So you got a lot done quickly. You save money. You create community and everyone walks away empowered. And I can't think of how that would happen in conventional construction. You know, so I don't know to me, it's, I couldn't give that part up having watched it.

watched it over and over with different homeowners having that experience of... I have people who come back to a workshop and they've been to a workshop at some client's house and they'll let me know, yeah, I'm still in contact with so-and-so and I just checked in with her and she's doing really well and you know, like they stay friends, you know? So like it's literally a building of community, you know? I don't know. I just, to me that's...

It's intangible and it's extra and it wasn't necessarily the goal but ⁓ it's just yeah I love that.

Less House More Moola Podcast (42:29)
it plants those seeds that you were talking about where people suddenly it opens a window in their mind and they see things that are possible that they never even and it sparks that curiosity so that maybe then they you know go do a little research I've definitely

notice over time that you have to be exposed to something and maybe more than once before it lights up in your brain as hey, this is possible for me, right? It's that like that expression, you can't be what you can't see or whatever. And

People need these ideas and these exposures in order to like look around their own life and say, Hey, maybe I could do something like that. Maybe I could do something different that is more natural and that would feel good. Or maybe I could participate in some of the, you know, building or renovation of my own home. And it just, it opens up people's possibilities. And it's such a gift to do that for folks.

Sigi Koko (43:27)
Yeah, yeah, I agree on all fronts. Yeah. And like you were saying with your bricks, right? It's like, okay, if you had had a way to do that with someone somewhere else first, then it wouldn't be as scary when you started, right? The first two days where you're having that learning curve, you would have had it already with support instead of everyone trying to do it on their own, learn it on their own, have that fear moment on their own, you know? So, yeah.

Less House More Moola Podcast (43:55)
Yeah,

I can definitely see why you do the work you do. So you mentioned some of the things that attendees get to do at your workshops, are all of your workshops like that where you host a workshop at someone's project?

Sigi Koko (44:11)
⁓ no. So we, actually purchased a farm about 10 years ago with exclusively the goal that I could teach anything anytime. And so we host workshops here at our farm in Pennsylvania, ⁓ every single year, usually about, I'd say eight to 10 workshops maybe at our farm. And then I offer with the clients that I've designed their home, I offer to use their home also as a classroom. So yeah, both venues happen.

Less House More Moola Podcast (44:40)
So let's zoom out a little bit and just think about this moment in history. Why do you think that where we are in our world today makes this idea of natural building so important?

Sigi Koko (44:53)
Mmm.

I mean, the easy, quick, obvious answer is climate change, right? And ⁓ how climate change is pushing certain extreme weather, especially extreme heat. ⁓

and creating then almost like survival mentality for people or increasing costs for keeping warm and all of those things. And ⁓ natural buildings, if the goal is to use smart materials that are super insulating, super ⁓ passive solar, ⁓ super cooling in certain situations, you can create natural cooling. ⁓ If we are rethinking how we build,

then we kind of get to start at a new baseline of, okay, maybe we're not only going to question the materials, but how we use them to create energy efficient spaces ⁓ that are comfortable and non-toxic because of how they're built, because of the choices you made with the materials, right? Instead of the system, if you're relying on an energy system, you're relying on

the power grid or someone coming to fill your oil tank or whatever it is, right? So creating more self-sufficiency ⁓ and less need for external heating and cooling to be comfortable. So I would say that's the big one. I feel like we also just without getting

to political or anything, but I feel like we're also at a point, especially in this country, but I feel like it's happening all over the world where we were feeling so separate from each other. And so again, not the goal, but the intangible byproduct of natural building is creating community and connection.

to me that's a really powerful win at this time when it's easy to feel separate and different and other. So I don't know but I feel like there's an opportunity to heal both of those ⁓ challenges.

Less House More Moola Podcast (47:13)
Yeah, which is so beautiful because our housing is such a fundamental part of our just most basic needs of shelter. ⁓ it has been so housing has been turned into such a commodity and such. ⁓

you know, such a disposable thing in our world where everyone views their house as an investment and they view it as an investment within, you know, the housing market and their home equity. And they don't necessarily think about it in terms of the quality of their life.

and the way that it adds value to their life beyond just the fact that they might sell it one day and make some money on it, or they might be able to use it to buy their next biggest house or next bigger house. And I was just recently kind of refreshing my memory of the 10 forms of capital that's discussed in the permaculture principles and your built capital, like homes and buildings and, you know, maybe equipment or what have you.

has its own form of value in your life. And so if we think about our home as part of our wealth complex, so of our total wealth picture and the way that we create it and the way that it can pay dividends to us in terms of, hey, I don't need as much heat resources from the grid or from the oil company because I'm creating my own heat because of the solar aspect of the home or the

the thermal mass of the home as in Adobe construction, then it's paying me throughout my life. And if I ever, you know, someone else ever buys it, right, it's creating, you know, some built wealth, some built capital for them too. And I wonder if you kind of think about it in those terms, you know, when you're helping people design their home.

about how that it plays into their entire, you know, their entire abundance picture of their life.

Sigi Koko (49:23)
Mm.

I mean, that's a really good point. I have to admit, I haven't thought about it that way, but I love that point and fully agree and embrace your point. Yeah, I agree with you 100%, but I can't admit that I've been thinking about it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (49:42)
Yeah,

well, it's kind of an obscure, you know, concept, you know, but I just I read.

Sigi Koko (49:49)
It's not that

obscure though. mean, if you build an energy efficient home, can get a higher, ⁓ you will qualify for a higher mortgage because they know your bills are going to be less. So they know your ability to pay per month on that mortgage is higher. Right. So it's, it's, it's not out there at all. Like that's it's yeah. I think that's pretty spot on and should be part of everyone's thought process. So yeah, I love it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (50:16)
Yeah.

So Sigi, where can folks find your work, find out about your workshops, get in touch with you, all those things.

Sigi Koko (50:24)
Super. So I have a website and that is ⁓ buildnaturally.com. And then there's links to social media there, but I'm on every platform. I think I'm at buildnaturally. So Facebook, Instagram, I don't really use Twitter, ⁓ but Facebook, Instagram, threads is the primary places that I post social media.

Less House More Moola Podcast (50:52)
Thank you so much for having this really great conversation about natural building, the work you do, and how people can just get started in a very potholdery kind of way and think about their home projects as they're renovating or making changes and for sure building new homes, all of which can be done with.

more natural materials and creating extra value by not being so reliant and all of that. think that was super helpful.

Sigi Koko (51:26)
⁓ super. It was really nice to talk with you. I love your style and your perspective. So thanks for that.

Less House More Moola Podcast (51:33)
Yeah, thank you.