Vertical Clay works with projects from their design conception through their construction. Our designs are guided by the setting of the project, the group that will be building, using and interacting with the project, and our own structural and aesthetic experience. We take particular interest in projects that show off the beauty and versatility of natural building in a public or urban setting. Our projects are built by crews ranging from owner-builders to classes to volunteer crews of widely ranging physical ability, age, and skill set.
Our collaborators have included nonprofits, governmental agencies, and private clients.
Our current projects include the Earthen Building Workshop series in downtown Berkeley, the Berkeley Tech high school project, the Lake County Parks project, and the ongoing work at our urban natural building retrofit, Villa Sobrante.
Massey Burke has been teaching and practicing natural building since 2003. She
has
designed and built structures in the Pacific Northwest, Washington DC,
and different parts of northern California. Her recent collaborations
include the Solar Living Institute, Builders Without Borders, Kleiwerks
International, UC Berkeley Extension, the Contra Costa county building
department, and the county of Lake. She is currently designing and
enacting a natural building retrofit in the East Bay.
Sasha Rabin has been building and teaching others to build with natural materials since co-founding Seven Generations Natural Builders (SGNB) in 2002. Sasha has a degree in Ecological Design from Evergreen State College and apprenticed at the Cob Cottage Company. She has taught natural building classes at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School, The Solar Living Institute, and starting this year she will teach at the Institute of Urban Homesteading. She is currently living, learning and working on a suburban permaculture and natural building home and demonstration site in El Sobrante, Ca.