We recently built a few chairs to increase the seating area for workshops and meetings here at the institute and it was an easy choice to use the bench design of Aldo Leopold, a pioneering ecologist and local folk hero here in Wisconsin. These triangular benches are seen all over the area, from back yards … More Leopold Bench or Chair Plans
Here is a simple construction project to build a stand to hold beehives. It is another in the Low Tech Design series. You can find the library of Low Tech Designs under the “Publications” tab. … More Low Tech Design — Beehive Stand
We’ll be building three types of beehives this year for the institute’s bee yard. We’ll be chronicling the builds here on the blog and posting full plans and updates throughout their uselife. The goal is to compare overwintering and other observations on their use. We will also build extra beehives for sale if you are in the Madison, Wisconsin, area. Please get in touch if you are interested in purchasing a hive. … More Beehives Three Ways: Long Lanstroth, Layens, and Trågkupa (for sale, too!)
I’ve built a simple worm bin out of wood and wanted to post the designs. You can find them below as images or here as a pdf. I used wood because so many people have already published good tutorials on plastic worm bins. Furthermore, I didn’t want to use a fossil-fuel-derived product. This is a … More Low Tech Designs – Wooden Worm Bin 1.0
Yesterday we published plans for our first simple coop design. You can get the PDF of the plans on that post or in the “Low Tech Designs” page under the “Publications” tab, above. Here I’d like to share my thoughts and photos of my build of the simple coop prototype. This has slight modifications from … More DIY Project — Simple Coop
This post introduces the “Low Tech Design” series. In short, this will be blueprints and instructions for building low tech products yourself. They are designed to be built by normal people with regular tools and skills. Obviously humanity is diverse and we can’t account for the variety of skill sets out there, but if you … More Low Tech Design — Simple Coop