Ger Building Skills Course
If you have wanted an extra space in your home, are looking for an interesting office space, need a guest bedroom but cant afford a bricks and mortar extension, maybe you hold workshops or pop up events… A Ger is what you need dear friend, and I can show you a way to get there...
As a child, I loved making dens. Blankets and upside down chairs, bits of string tied off onto door handles and radiators, golf umbrellas, and clothes pegs. These were the tools of my trade as I built my own imaginary world of castles and houses and magical vehicles.
The satisfaction of building a space that was separate, cosy, and mine was empowering and magical. I still get that same buzz and excitement when I bring all the component parts together for a yurt or Ger.
I now firmly believe that everyone should have the skills and the rights to build a small humble dwelling and to be able to (sensibly) live in it comfortably on their own land or with permission from land owners. Planning and logistics aside (for sure they can be complicated), the main hurdle for most is the skills and knowledge needed to create such a dwelling.
My feeling is that a Ger (often confused with a Yurt but very closely related) is the easiest and best solution to most budding den makers quandry. Yes benders are easier, and yes tipis hold a much grander space, but nothing else beats the swift put-up-and-take-down-ability of a Ger/Yurt, its ability to pack into the back of an average family car, and match its sturdiness and spaciousness.
It is a fabulous design that has evolved over thousands of years upon the great plains of Mongolia and Central Asia, places where wood and timber nearly doesn't exist or is sought at a premium. No forests to fell huge trunks to mill into planks and beams and trusses; at most a spindly, skinny old branch or two. What these structures manage in economy and efficiency of wood is pure genius with the characteristic lattice frame which can extend from being a 3m section of wall and collapse into a manageable 50cm wide panel that can fit under your arm.
So after many years of researching, and experimenting, badgering of people who know stuff, trial and error (beginning ten years ago with the yurt-house I and my family live in today), I have developed my own systems and techniques for making these grand and beautiful structures... and now I feel ready to share those with others.
This is a practical, skills based course where you will learn the techniques needed to make a straight wood Ger. You will get some decent mileage in using your newly acquired skills and knowledge, working together as a group to communally build a structure. I will provide lots of handy information that took me years to find out including what materials to order and how much, dimensions and the skills required to calculate some of the important bits – basically a blue print for you to go home and create your own.
You will make a lattice wall section, component parts of a ring or wheel, measure, cut and sew various parts of the canvas, measure and shape the roof poles, be part of making the door and door frame.
All this with the hope of sharing the joy and wonder of tuning a little patch of outside - into a cosy piece of inside.
