Eco-Builder, trainer and TV presenter Harrison Gardner talks about the move towards mutual aid in home building and the Common Cabin Project for social enterprises. Listen back above.
The age-old practice of meitheal is seeing a resurgence around the country, partly as a result of the current housing crisis. With the financial burden of buying and renting, some people are looking to build their own home and turning to friends and neighbours to help get the job done.
At the centre of this movement is Harrison Gardner; eco-builder, trainer and presenter of RTÉ's Build Your Own Home. Harrison spoke to Áine Kerr about a scheme to help social enterprises build a 'common cabin’, renovating his own 200-year old cottage and filming the second series of Build Your Own Home.
Harrison is one of the founders of the non-profit Common Knowledge, which offers training in building skills, renovation and project management. Common Knowledge also offers free resources and building toolkits, with full lists of materials and plans to build small structures from a 'tiny home' or Tigín to cabins for the use of community groups.
Harrison took time off his busy schedule filming the second season of Build Your Own Home (coming to our screens in early 2025) to talk to Áine Kerr about a new competition. Social enterprises can apply for one of six places receive a starter kit for a ‘common cabin’, worth €3,000 and a week-long course at Common Ground’s build school in the Burren. Harrison explains what a common cabin is:
"They are day-use buildings. They’re not for sleeping in. It’s for that extra space that you need to go and do your art, somewhere to build things, your hobbies, that kind of stuff. And it came along with the 40-square metre extension that people are allowed to add to their house."
The prototype for the common cabin in their Co. Clare premises cost around €16,000 to build, Harrison says. Interested community groups will get the starter kit and the week-long course, then it’s up to them to call on their members to row in and help with the construction and raising further funds to finish the project according to their requirements.
A common cabin is a fully modular structure and can be moved or taken down easily, Harrison says. The project is designed with sustainability in mind:
"We’ve thought of the end of life of that building – that it can be taken apart very easily, without damaging any of the materials, even the foundations come right up, without any trace that the building was ever there."
For everyone else, the common cabin plans are free to access online, as is the award-winning design for a Tigín, or small living space.
Harrison says that building your own home isn’t for everyone, but it may offer a way out for some caught in the trap of saving in a rising market:
"For a lot of people right now, it’s the only option of how they’re going to get into a home. For people who’ve been saving for 10 years to buy a home, what they can afford, now, compared to what they thought they were aiming towards is often a house that needs a lot of work, a lot of renovation."
Harrison tells the story of Dee, who was quoted €550,000 for the cost of a self-build home. She took a building course at Common Ground, and took nine months off work to project-manage the build, which was a huge commitment. But it brought the building costs down dramatically, Harrison says:
"She project-managed the whole thing herself for €220,000. She saved 20 years of a mortgage by investing five days in learning."
Once they meet like minded home-builders, people naturally fall into working together, Harrison says; trading skills and helping each other out.
"It’s incredible seeing these groups, these meitheals come together. When you throw 30 people into a field in West Clare at Common Knowledge and you have them talking about building every day, arguing about building every night, dreaming together, changing each other’s ideas, inspiring each other – they naturally form these groups."
Common Ground also offer a networking app called The Commonage, for people involved in self-builds to find each other and source some willing workers to trade skills and labour. Harrison says it works out well for everyone:
"They get to help someone build their house, they get to practice, they get to learn things; they get to see how other people are doing things so they can see how they could do it themselves."
Harrison and Common Ground are on a mission to revive rare skills like lime-rendering and dry stone wall building, as well as the more up-to-date techniques of construction and insulation:
"We need these really basic skills and our grandparents had them. It was so normal to do this work before ourselves, and we need to tap back into that."
Just as important as acquiring these skills, is sharing them with the wider community, Harrison says:
"We just want to be part of shift to it becoming more normal to share skills together."
Harrison talks more about his personal experience renovating a 200-year old cottage in the full interview, listen back above.
There's more information available here on the Common Cabin Project.
