Settlement(s) after the Great Trek

[Norbert]

Settlements after the Great Trek

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I suggested the possibility of utilizing a modified Manor System for the future of the settlements. It was suggested that I talk to Ward, and he agrees. It would leesen the strain in the future of tending crops and animals, since it would shorten the distance going to work.

Here is what I have so far: 15 settlements of 38-39 members, giving the average settlement about 185-186 people (Adults and Children). They would also contain about 52-53 families (about 3.6 people per family). If there are 575 members (2782 people) making the Great Trek, it works out to about 4.84 Adults and Children per Member.

I am working on figuring out how much land to be available to each settlement, and how far apart this will place them from each other, and looking at the terrain of the area, we can probably have one near the coast, and one nearer the hills. The gentle slope of the area where Berkely actually is, is about 2-1/2 miles wide before getting into the steeper portion of the hills.

Thoughts?

I will wait for Sions Info before doing much more figuring.

[Psychomeltdown]

Will these settlements be going for self sufficiency or specialization? since i could see a settlement or two on the coast devoted to fishing and ship building (once we get it up to snuff). Along with my thoughts on a Ranch Style animal herding groups.

The Interior Livestock (pigs, chickens, rabbits, dairy cows, and now horses and oxen) can be divvied up among the settlements. Though this'll mean we'll have to expand the teaching for the caring of animals, a lot of people will have to be generalists though which IMO is kinda bad. We still need vets and I don't think we have any on Board.

If the region's pretty fertile, as it's been said to be, then we can probably keep the settlements pretty close to one another. We could set up semaphore towers in the centers of towns a bit far out.

We probably won't need forts or the like, mainly because the groups around the SFB are hunter gatherers and aren't numerous enough to form an army and try destroying us. The most we'll ever see is probably 20-30 warriors. Look out posts though, on the edges of the Community, combined with radios or semaphore towers.

[Othniel]

I'm betting these are dpendant settlements based on helping the community as a whole..

[Glen]

Not separate settlements, but spreading out the community over a wider area with distinct neighborhoods would probably be useful. These 'manors' wouldn't be more than a few miles from the center of the settlement, I'd suggest, and wouldn't be truly separate areas.

[Othniel]

Not separate settlements, but spreading out the community over a wider area with distinct neighborhoods would probably be useful. These 'manors' wouldn't be more than a few miles from the center of the settlement, I'd suggest, and wouldn't be truly separate areas.
Oh you mean the city lay out. I was already working on a grid system for the main city...

[Norbert]

Right now, what I have is all communities within about a 14 square mile area (3 miles from coast to hills, 5 miles long). Each 4 settlements would actually plant and graze 1.5 square miles each, and another 8 square miles that is slowely cleared, and clearings in it used for grazing livestock. I've been looking up some research I did on a virgin forest area, and using rough averages out of a potential 8960 acres (14 sq. miles) we would have about 1075 acres that will be unusable for crops and livestock, and about 6990 acres of woods. This leaves about 895 acres in major (40-200 acres) and minor (5-30 acres) clearings. I am thinking we will find a suitable clearing(s) for the main camp, and areas that we can immediatly begin to prepare for planting.

On average, the lumbering of virgin areas yielded about 60 trees 24-48" diameter. I am figuring that with the initial 25 cutters, we should be able to cut one acre per 12 hour day until the next group arrives. If the convoy 3 is arriving 10 days after the cutters start, we will only have 10 acres cleared, but 600 logs, and an abundance of firewood available.

I think we could be lucky, and be able to have 3-400 acres of crops in rather quickly, though we should shoot for about 1760 acres for the final total, and after that 800 acres planted in winter crops (planted before frost, to give a head start as soon as the ground is warm enough to germenate the seeds).

BTW, I figure we will need 25-30 acres for the settlement until areas are found to break up into smaller groups in. I think we should do a well and put up at least a hand pump for water.

[Norbert]

(Originally Posted by MBarry)
I'm envisioning a wooden pallisade, backed up with earthen berms and entrenchments, shaped in a triangle with the guns mounted at each corner. Inside a granary, well, barracks, parade ground, etc can be constructed.

(SionEwig)
Triangle bad idea. 4 or more sides, 5 to 8 works well. The problem with a triangle is that the corners are not supporting of each other. If it doesn't have to be done immediately, then rammed earth for much of the construction is great.


I was thinking originally a square, and just looked at the octogan for dhape of village layout. An Octogon with walls 200 feet long, could hold (closely, but I'd rather be cramped than unsafe) upto 32 families. It would have individual housing (4 homes with a shared wall) for all families, a community building for eating, smaller meetings, etc; a cook house, 4 storage buildings, 2 wells, 2 bath houses, 2 Latrines, and 2 wells.it would also have a square of 160'x280'. If any of you want to do the layout, let me know.
I am figuring a community building 40'x60', cook house 20'x30', storage buildings 20'x40', latrine and bath houses 20'x30', and the homes 30'x40'.

Possible breakdowns on numbers using 32 families would be: 12 communities with 32 families, 2 communities of 63 families, and 1 of 64 families (or, with 14 communities the last two would be about 95 families).

[Norbert]

How much wall can be built reasonably, using rammed earth: how many people, how much wall, etc, say taking two to three days each week to work on it.

And how close could/should buildings be placed to it?

[Othniel]

I was thinking originally a square, and just looked at the octogan for dhape of village layout. An Octogon with walls 200 feet long, could hold (closely, but I'd rather be cramped than unsafe) upto 32 families. It would have individual housing (4 homes with a shared wall) for all families, a community building for eating, smaller meetings, etc; a cook house, 4 storage buildings, 2 wells, 2 bath houses, 2 Latrines, and 2 wells.it would also have a square of 160'x280'. If any of you want to do the layout, let me know.
I am figuring a community building 40'x60', cook house 20'x30', storage buildings 20'x40', latrine and bath houses 20'x30', and the homes 30'x40'.

Possible breakdowns on numbers using 32 families would be: 12 communities with 32 families, 2 communities of 63 families, and 1 of 64 families (or, with 14 communities the last two would be about 95 families).
If we do it in other than a grid system I'm going to insist on Six sides.

[Norbert]

If we do it in other than a grid system I'm going to insist on Six sides.

Actually, a Hexagon on a grid is not hard.

Side Length= 18 units
Short Axis= 32 units
Long Axis= 38 units

[Norbert]

A Possible Village Layout, Based upon a Hexagon. Note that each Block of Houses is actually 4 Homes.
Homes=Green
Community Building=Orange
Cook House=Red
Latrine=Yellow
Bathhouse=Light Blue
Water Tower/Wind Mill=Dark Blue
Store Houses=Black
Small Building in Black in Lower Left Section is a Battery House and Wind Generator.

[Doctor What]

Nice design, Norbert.

How difficult will it be to tear down the walls and put up new houses and stuff when the population starts expanding?

Or should we keep each settlement at the ~36 family level and just build a new one?

[Norbert]

Nice design, Norbert.

How difficult will it be to tear down the walls and put up new houses and stuff when the population starts expanding?

Or should we keep each settlement at the ~36 family level and just build a new one?

Probably not to bad to expand. If we use rammed earth walls as suggested, it would be a matter of digging them up. I am starting to think that maybe 12 villages similar to this, and two with twice the capacity (about 71 each). I will have to look up the numbers to figure it out.

Been thinking, and it slipped my mind that I've been working numbers from members, not total families. I will do some more looking, though it should not be a problem. Just adjust the scale up 50%, and instead of four houses per block, it becomes six. A little more room, overall. That would make each wall section length 540 feet instead of 360 fett, and 54 families, which, come to think of it, is what I originally figured using a square layout.

[Othniel]

Eight houses per one side of a street...

[Othniel]

When can we afford to redo the houses to put in indoor plumbing?:)

[Norbert]

When can we afford to redo the houses to put in indoor plumbing?:)

When we can produce the stuff. I went with the common latrine much as a semi-permenant camp would have. BTW, the toilets are flush, not pits, with the waste going to a septic system outside the walls.

[Othniel]

Do we have a design on the houses yet?

If it is four houses sharing one corner of equal size,(4 of these per side of a street?) or are we going with a dormitary design? (and or motel..or hotel if you prefer, all should be single story for now))

Bulg or Hendyrk, how do you prefer the warehouses to be set up? Since its going to be throughout the community, I would like a streamline design on the interior set up. What kind of delivery system do you have in mind?

Laterines are flush, can live with!

We are going to have to divde the animals into three types, herd animals, work animals, and transportation animals. Therefore where are we placing the public corals, and the ranger corals?

Right, we also have been brought to the cottage industry...so what land will be put aside for gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and doctors to work on?

[Norbert]

Do we have a design on the houses yet?

If it is four houses sharing one corner of equal size,(4 of these per side of a street?) or are we going with a dormitary design? (and or motel..or hotel if you prefer, all should be single story for now))

Bulg or Hendyrk, how do you prefer the warehouses to be set up? Since its going to be throughout the community, I would like a streamline design on the interior set up. What kind of delivery system do you have in mind?

Laterines are flush, can live with!

We are going to have to divde the animals into three types, herd animals, work animals, and transportation animals. Therefore where are we placing the public corals, and the ranger corals?

Right, we also have been brought to the cottage industry...so what land will be put aside for gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and doctors to work on?

Right now, I am figuring a house of 30 foot wide by 40 foot long. Houses are 1 building wide on the diagram. Tenative layout is large room in the front, with the rear divided into three rooms. It would be like those motels of cabins which share a wall. And since we will at first be using solid wood construction, that gives a solid wood wall 6-9 inches thick. The herd animals and such I would like outside the walls in their own area, though small animals such as chickens could be inside.

[Othniel]

The herd animals and such I would like outside the walls in their own area, though small animals such as chickens could be inside.
I figured herd animals still got a sperate camp. However the non-herd animals? Food animals going inside the walls makes sense.

[Norbert]

I figured herd animals still got a sperate camp. However the non-herd animals? Food animals going inside the walls makes sense.

Maybe chickens and goats. But no way on pigs. They go outside and down wind (and we will still smell them miles away!).

[Psychomeltdown]

A Possible Village Layout, Based upon a Hexagon..
Would it be possible to put the block houses up against the walls? Or would that cause some defense problems? If it's too hard we can probably make two story houses? once we get enough lumber cut.

That would cut down on the space used and allow for more space for animals, industries, etc to be placed in the protective area of the forts.

[Norbert]

Would it be possible to put the block houses up against the walls? Or would that cause some defense problems? If it's too hard we can probably make two story houses? once we get enough lumber cut.

That would cut down on the space used and allow for more space for animals, industries, etc to be placed in the protective area of the forts.

It is possible, I put them away from the wall to allow for natural light into the rear areas of the houses along the wall. Two story houses are a possiblity, also. The construction of the lower level should be suficient to support an upper floor. The wind mills are 40 feet, and need 15 feet above the nearer buildings. I'd rather like to stay away from having more than one family in a home, but with two story homes, the dimensions could be changed. Let me look into it.

[Norbert]

A possible Layout of the House design, 2 floors. Dimensions are 20'x30' outside, and the long axis would be the shared wall.

(Came up bigger than I thought it would.:o )

Well I hope this works better.

[Norbert]

Increasing the houses to two stories reduces the 'foot print' for the actual housing significantly. They would have a little more floor space, and could get Upto 64 in a village. As I said before, there are actually more families needing homes than members. It would also increase the number of the storage buildings (20'x40') to 12, and allow for a barn/stable area, with another 40'x40' building. Also, there would be area left over for other buildings for the 'cottage plus' size industry, stores, etc. I like the layout aa bit better.

[SionEwig]

A possible Layout of the House design, 2 floors. Dimensions are 20'x30' outside, and the long axis would be the shared wall.

(Came up bigger than I thought it would.:o )

Well I hope this works better.

Good things, around 1100 square feet usable space, not bad, reasonable layout.

However, which way is the roof? Needs additional exits, fire safety. Where do you plan the fireplace (s), stoves, etc.?

[Forum Lurker]

The problem with two-story houses is that they're a lot more work. A one-story house can be made by digging a couple feet into the earth, then piling the dirt you just dug up into walls, then reinforcing it with brush and grasses. I've never heard of a rammed-earth or adobe building with two inhabitable stories, and I don't want to have to have a timber industry going before we have houses.

[Norbert]

Good things, around 1100 square feet usable space, not bad, reasonable layout.

However, which way is the roof? Needs additional exits, fire safety. Where do you plan the fireplace (s), stoves, etc.?

Good questions, and I am open to suggestions. With shared walls, I am not sure of the best way to do it. I can go 'back to the drawing board' though so to speak. The program I used does not have an option in it for fireplaces, it is strictly a trial version. Stoves, being so heavy, I think it is a better idea to have a community cooking area, at least until we can produce our own.

A small heating stove can range from as little as 28 lbs on up, but the smaller ones are designed for coal. A cook stove for wood or coal runs from 212 lbs up, depending on how big you want. If all sleeping quarters is on the upper level, the lower level can be redeigned to take into account a kitchen and multipurpose area, just eliminate the closet on the lower level, and add a door in the back. Gives another exit. Roof peak would run the short axis, kind of like some of the big older 'row' houses which shared common walls, but the attic was sometimes shared amoung several homes.

It can be redesigned, that is the easy part. After it is built is when it gets harder.

[Max Sinister]

Maybe chickens and goats. But no way on pigs. They go outside and down wind (and we will still smell them miles away!).

Goats also don't smell that nice.

[Othniel]

Maybe chickens and goats. But no way on pigs. They go outside and down wind (and we will still smell them miles away!).
Goats are a herd animal.

[Norbert]

The problem with two-story houses is that they're a lot more work. A one-story house can be made by digging a couple feet into the earth, then piling the dirt you just dug up into walls, then reinforcing it with brush and grasses. I've never heard of a rammed-earth or adobe building with two inhabitable stories, and I don't want to have to have a timber industry going before we have houses.

Any way you look at it, a lot of us are going to be living in tents for some time, however the houses are built. As to a temporary home, if people want to build a temporary structure until the more permenant home is built, that is up to them. As to lumber, we will be cutting a lot of trees for the fields, and settlement. Those trees have to be used within a short time, or else after a couple of weeks or so (depending on the conditions), they will be completely useless to build with. I feel it is better to use them. Even dividing people between cutting, clearing, planting, taking care of crops, taking care of animals, preparing the wood for building, and building, we should have enough labor to do all of it, if everyone works together. We won't have adequate area for fields unless we have a timber industry, and I would say it even if I was not in charge of the lumbering.

BTW, As to the homes, I propose the first ones go to those who have: A: small children; B: Older members. I may come higher on list B than some, but I will probably take one of the later homes built. My tent is 10'8"x20' with 6'8" sides. A lot better to live long term in than one of the 'pup-tents' most other people have.:D

[Gerard-ABC]

Norbert, and everyone,

Lots of great ideas there. I'll try to add my thoughts.....

We only want to build any particular house once, so it's probably better to do it right the first time. I'd also go for a 2 floor house.

Someone asked about having the wall of the house right next to the outside walls. I'd say no. Apart from the light, which was mentioned by Norbert, I'd also worry about damp, if anything is right next to earthwork or similar. Maybe also a fire risk, if a fence on the earthwork catches light, then it spreads to the house faster.

For defence, having a 2 or 3 foot wide gap between the house wall and the outside defences, could be useful. Same reason, I like the idea of having windows on all possible sides of a house, 3 sides for the end 2, and the centre 2 have them front / back. With a 2 floor house, we'd have good observation posts. Also useful for looking out and see what state the animals / crops are in.

There will be no shortage of wood, with all the trees that we'll need to cut down for grazing land / crops / roads / work areas. No point in leaving all to rot piled up on the ground.

My construction people have had a lot of practice cutting up trees to make wagons. Norbert's people have even more practice at logging.

Together, I can see us getting houses put up reasonably fast. Obviously, we not going to build as fast we'd like, but the task is not as bad as some people might think at first.

We will have some advantages, at first - any natives will most likely be scared from attacking us, just by the sheer numbers of us that they see.

As to the map of the hexagon-shaped village. I'd move the stores around, so that they're closer to the houses. It looks risky to me, having 7 of them so close together - fire / attack risk, and also a long way from the houses. Perhaps move them closer to the centre of the village ?

We WILL need more latrines / bathrooms - especially considering how many children / babies we have now, and are hopefully planned for the future. People will get tired of queuing up, and could create "problems" elsewhere.....

What about moving the middle of each set of houses to the 3 sides of the hexagon that have no houses ? This will spread them out, and let people in the middle houses look out at more than just the front / back of the other 2 houses on that side. Also means they can look out over the walls for defence / animal protection.

I've be tempted to keep a water tower / storage near the centre too, as it can be used as a lookout post. If /when there is a fire, then it's the same distance to any of the houses / buildings.

I'll look at the plan some more over the next couple of days.

The plan to house those with young children / babies first is one that I agree with.


Regards,
Gerard

[Norbert]

Given the building of the two floor houses, I think we can eliminate the middle row altogether, and move the innermost row back towards the wall. It would still leave 60 feet between the rows, and then another 20 feet to the wall. By building two floor houses, they can be 20' x30', which, even eliminating the center row, gives us 60 homes instead of 36, and close to the same floor space in each as the original plan. It would also keep the wall to be built at about 2160 feet, instead of increasing to 3240 feet if we increased the original houses to 54. The stores position can be moved, and we could add another bath house/latrine into the area they are now shown without to much trouble. That would make those facilities closer to everyone, and closer to the main community building. It would also be possible to add a third well, I planned on 200 extra feet of well pipe as it was, and that is figuring we may have to go 200 feet, which I really, really hope we do not.

[SionEwig]

This is going to sound crazy but here it goes.

I really appretiate all the work that you have done on both the village and house plan. However I have come to the conclusion that both are fundamentaly flawed. I think that the village plan is not going to work as such first due to varied terrain and conditions at the different village sites, second it is way too small, and third it is poorly suited for growth and change.

The varied terrain problem should be self explanatory. The second and third are closely related. One of the smallness issues is fire danger, if there is a dry year coupled with moderate winds, one good spark and the fire will be jumping from structure to structure. And that doesn't even think about deliberately set fires. There is little room for any new houses or structures. Rebuilding the walls to add room is not very efficient and then who would want to live outside.

Now, nothing personal to anyone, but I really don't want to live that close to everybody else. And while I have the option of moving out, then I would have wasted around 1300 lbs of stuff that I could have brought, cause once that stuff goes in, it really can't be moved easily. I just do not see these villages lasting very long since I really think that many people will want to move out and have a place of their own with a yard, etc., this design is counter productive to that desire since people will have so much invested in the village. You also have it planned for communal cooking/eating and no real provision for changing to family cooking/eating. It needs to be planned in now, even if we stay with the communal for a while, though even this size is beginning to get to be too big. Look back at my comments on community feeding that I made in Chat, post #814, it mostly applies here.

I think that what should be considered is that each village/sub-community have a strong, moderately sized defensible point that is fortified. In there you might want to put things like, armory, food storage, bath houses, power generation, the community hall, the school, and some barracks/group housing and other similar type of irreplacable things. If there was an attack, people take shelter there, But their individual housing is outside of the fortification walls, well outside cause we want clear fields of fire. Now, we can easily make each of the individual houses to be very strong points for defense also. The natives have nothing that's going through 8 inches of solid wood, which is the minimum of what I would recommend the house walls to be. Also, by putting each house on it's own plot of land, you drastically reduce the danger of fires spreading from one to the other.

[Norbert]

I will agree with you on this. The only reasons I really did much of this was A: I thought that was where some people wanted to go, and B: I had time to do it. If it means scrapping the plans, I have no problem with that, since it took up time in a day that would have been waiting to hear from Ward on his situation. As to spread out, yes, in fact the original idea was for individual homes seperated from each other. But with the constraints on space, and trying to fit people inside the walls, I had to alter that. Blockhouse type homes can be done easily, and can become strongpoints in a defence. Using a central fall back point, much like the feudal fortified manor, where people could retreat to is a good idea. I will stop with the drawing and trying to have everyone inside the walls, and work on how I would like my own house to be. Personally, I am tired of living in an apartment!:D

(And Norbert starts dancing and moving his elbows, singing 'Breathing room, got to get me some breathing room...')

[Psychomeltdown]

Blockhouse type homes can be done easily, and can become strongpoints in a defence. Using a central fall back point, much like the feudal fortified manor, where people could retreat to is a good idea. I will stop with the drawing and trying to have everyone inside the walls, and work on how I would like my own house to be. Personally, I am tired of living in an apartment!
guess i'm designing my future home to be a potential Keep, just in case the locals get a bit antsy..

[Norbert]

I have been doing some reading on the Spanish Frontier Missions, and noticed they were usually adobe (sun dryed brick). I was wondering about how the brick would hold up to weather conditions in the Bay area, and found that Mission San Jose, built in 1805 is still in use today. Mission San Jose is in what is now Fremont, very near where we are relocating to. Why not consider adobe for construction? It would be resistent to fire, sturdy, and not susceptable to the rot we will get with our first buildings (contact of the wood to moisture and insects). There would be advantages, as we would not have to build brick kilns to produce the brick. By the time we will be able to start much of the construction, it will be close to ideal conditions to sun dry brick.

Another advantage would be they would regulate the temperature inside, holding heat better in the cold months, and keeping cooler in the hot months.

Note: A little more looking shows that the life of an adobe brick to be about 30 years. About 25 years longer than I would give our first wooden structures.

[Ghost 88]

I have been doing some reading on the Spanish Frontier Missions, and noticed they were usually adobe (sun dryed brick). I was wondering about how the brick would hold up to weather conditions in the Bay area, and found that Mission San Jose, built in 1805 is still in use today. Mission San Jose is in what is now Fremont, very near where we are relocating to. Why not consider adobe for construction? It would be resistent to fire, sturdy, and not susceptable to the rot we will get with our first buildings (contact of the wood to moisture and insects). There would be advantages, as we would not have to build brick kilns to produce the brick. By the time we will be able to start much of the construction, it will be close to ideal conditions to sun dry brick.

Another advantage would be they would regulate the temperature inside, holding heat better in the cold months, and keeping cooler in the hot months.
Damn good idea. Matter of fact it's the kind of idea I would have come up with.:D Adobe requires lots of straw otherwise it is a great building substance.Also almost all the Missions in what is now the US were built of it and some adobe buildings are over 300 years old. Casa Grande in Az though in bad shape still has walls built 1000 yrs ago IIRC.

[Norbert]

Damn good idea. Matter of fact it's the kind of idea I would have come up with.:D Adobe requires lots of straw otherwise it is a great building substance.Also almost all the Missions in what is now the US were built of it and some adobe buildings are over 300 years old. Casa Grande in Az though in bad shape still has walls built 1000 yrs ago IIRC.

Mission San Jose is 200 years old, according to its history. And the article in Wikipedia stated that any organic material can be used, and sometimes shells were added to help bind it. If straw could be used, why not slender branches? They last longer than straw exposed to weather...

[Ghost 88]

Mission San Jose is 200 years old, according to its history. And the article in Wikipedia stated that any organic material can be used, and sometimes shells were added to help bind it. If straw could be used, why not slender branches? They last longer than straw exposed to weather...
Branches may work,simple mud will just fall apart.We use the straw to reinforce the mud. Mission San Jose maybe only 200 years old But parts of the Tubac presidio in s.Az are closer to three hundred. Also on the Peublo reservations in Az-NM are even older. Just trying to point out with regular mudwashing adobe last like the Enigizer Bunny on steriods.

[Norbert]

Adobe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Adobe is a building material composed of water, sandy clay and straw or other organic materials, which is shaped into bricks using wooden frames and dried in the sun, also known as Mudbrick . Adobe structures are extremely durable and account for the oldest extant buildings on the planet. Adobe buildings also offer significant
. advantages in hot, dry climates, as they remain cooler as it stores and releases heat very slowly.
The word "adobe" is Spanish and comes from the Arabic "at-tub", the brick, and from the Coptic "tObe". The word may be pronounced ah-doh-beh or uh-doh-bee. Buildings made of sun-dried earth are common in the Middle East, North Africa, and in Spain (usually in the Mudejar style). The method ofbrickmaking was imported to the Americas in the 16th century by Spaniards.
Composition of adobe
An adobe brick is made of soil mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or animal dung. The soil composition typically contains clay and sand. Straw is useful in binding the brick together and allowing the brick to dry evenly. Dung offers the same advantage and is also added to repel insects.
Adobe bricks
Bricks are made in an open frame, 25 cm (10 inches) by 36 cm (14 inches) is a reasonable size, but any convenient size is fme for your own use. After the mud is put into the frame the frame is removed. After a few hours the bricks are put on edge to finish drying. Bricks should be dried in the shade to avoid cracking.
Use the same mixture you use to make bricks for mortar when laying the bricks and for plaster on the interior and exterior walls. Some ancient cultures used concrete for the plaster to avoid rain damage. It is sometimes useful to include occasional pieces of wood as you lay a wall to give something to nail insulation onto, and stone can be used for additional strength.



(For those not familiar with it)