Blog categorized as Archive

My Dad was born, raised, had children, and will probably die in the same house. So you can image that with all that living a traditional farmhouse needs some upgrading. I struggle with the idea of tearing it down, but I know there is a lot of effort that will need to go into a major renovation. I'm ...

This week my region hosted the International Plowing Match in Roseville, a small rural intersection town I often cycle through during the summer. This year the Mennonite Disaster Relief organization hosted a barn raising demonstration for which I volunteered for many months ago. As the day drew ne...

When would a farmer ever think to turn his barn inside out?  Sometimes it takes an outsider to rethink, reinvent, and make something beautiful.  That is exactly what SPF architects have done. This horse barn has been turned inside out.  The architect used the hay bales themselves to ...

If you been in farming for a long time or exposed to the farm life you are aware of the economic struggle that the farmer encounters daily. In fact, the economics of the food dollar don&#39t look good for farming. From 1910 to 1990 the percentage of the food dollar has been consistently de...

The world is becoming very multi-cultural and globally connected. The scale of communities is drastically changing. How can rural maintain a distinct culture and connected community.  If we look back at the farming community it has traditionally be centered around a few key pieces of infrastr...

In November, I attended a discussion on Sustainable Food Systems the Arts and Cookery Bank(a great venue and enterprise) in West Lorne. Hosted by Roxana Roshon and Tom Schell and the London Training Centre working on an amazing research project on Food Systems. They are taking an cross-system (...

I met a wonderful lady this week in a pursuit to win an equestrian design project. She is from Albany, New York and she had a great saying about suburban development. as we drove though many suburbs along Highway 410 she stated "look as all the house seeds growing." and I might add... 't...

This beautiful project looks expensive and complicated, but it's so not. This wood storage barn takes the need to store pallets and uses them at the exterior wall of the shed. A steel frame provides insert pockets for each pallet to create a wall of storage. Designed by Gray Organschi Arc...