Building As Simple as Possible: A talk with Darrel Deboer

​Like the live-edge wooden bookshelves in our bookstore? They were made from a single Monterey cypress—the same species you often see photographed along the Monterey coast. Come meet the architect and builder behind them.

​Darrel is an Architect who likes to also build the ideas. Named one of the top ten green architects by Natural Home magazine, Darrel designs buildings using straw, earth, salvaged wood and bamboo, then makes many of the doors, cabinets, lights and furniture—as well as the Monterey cypress bookshelves you see in our bookstore.

​Darrel wants rich places made of materials accessible to us all. We throw away beautiful trees because it's said to not be cost-effective to save and use them. The moisture-holding properties of clay have prevented adjacent wood from rotting for hundreds of years. What might our world look like if we revise our habits of using toxic, earth-warming and endangered resources?

​Our bookstore is just one small example—but there's much more to explore in this talk.

​Talk will be in English.