Yurt Class

This weekend I had the pleasure of co-leading a yurt building class with Bruce Sargent at Yestermorrow Design/Build School. Our mission was to build a lightweight yurt in two days.

With an enthusiastic group of 12 students we met Friday evening for introductions, a slide show from me about our yurt building experience and a film via Bruce that shows how the Mongolians build their yurt with little more then an ax.

Saturday we got to work and were able to build the lattice wall parts by lunchtime. In the afternoon we shaped the rafters, built the ring into which the rafters meet, and the doorway.

Today we built the supports for the ring and assembled the yurt structure. Once it was standing we regrouped and formed the fabric roof and walls. With only minor hiccups we had everything together and standing by 4:30.

Bruce was a pleasure to work with and the students were all really keen on the project. It occurred to me a couple of times that "Hey, this is a bunch of fun, AND I'm getting paid to be here". Bruce has an interest in traditional style yurts whereas my focus is a little more on a contemporary version built for Vermont winters, but no matter what, the elements of a yurt are the same and we successfully covered the process in a jam-packed couple of days.

Something tells me this is going to happen again in the not-so-distant future.