Hi there.

Since you’ve found your way to my very own Chris Magwood web site, I thought I might give you a quick intro to me. If we’ve already met and you already have rigidly formed opinions about who I am, just move right on to the other pages…

If you’re still here and reading this, here’s a quickie bio. I’m one of the lucky ones whose life passion and employment happen to intersect. I’m crazy about making sane buildings in this world, buildings that do more good than harm, buildings that are beautiful and inspiring and affordable and healthy and don’t pollute and are made from neat local materials and are put up in a community spirit. And for a job, I get to make buildings that match those descriptions as the lead instructor for Fleming College’s Sustainable Building Design and Construction program (see Projects pages to check them out). You can find a description of the program on the SBDC page of this site.

How did I get to be so lucky? Well, it all started with building a house with my family back in 1996… Having found a copy of The Straw Bale House book, we were inspired to try it out. The result was a cool, lumpy, quirky and amazing off grid bale home in Cooper, Ontario. That home was an incredible test bed and learning place for ideas, materials and systems, as well as a beautiful place to live. As one of the first bale homes in Ontario, lots of interested would-be bale home owners got in touch…

All this interest in bale buildings led my friend Peter Mack (and shortly, Tina Therrien) to found Camel’s Back Construction. We spent eight-ish years together, burning up the Ontario countryside making bale homes for brave and pioneering folks. The learning curve was steep, the fun and challenge infectious and the entry into the wider world of sustainable building life altering.

Along the way, I started attending bale and natural building conferences around the world, co-authored a few books, edited the incredible Last Straw Journal and completely buried myself in the sustainable building world, where I remain deliriously embedded as I write…

I also happen to be the father of the best teenager in the whole wide world, the incomparable Emma Jane Bowen.

And I’ve also eaten my way through a decent portion of the world’s finest (and also less-than-finest) cheeses. My name is Chris Magwood, and I am a cheese addict.