From New Mexico Magazine, October 2003

Kingston couple spins straw into environmental gold
By Tim King

If the ancients who built New Mexico's pueblos and cliff dwellings were around today, they would likely be making presentations at this fall's Natural Building Colloquium at the Black Range Lodge near Kingston.
"New Mexico has an incredible tradition of natural building dating back to the pueblo dwellers and the Anasazi," says Catherine Wanek who, along with her husband, Pete Fust, has organized a series of Natural Building Colloquiums at the lodge since the mid-'90s. "We can learn a lot from them. The cliff dwellings were designed with passive solar and natural cooling in mind. The earthen walls and roofs of Taos Pueblo are made from locally available materials and are over 1,000 years old."
While the ancients won't be teaching in Kingston this fall, there is an international movement aroot that is attempting to recapture their wisdom and apply it to today's building needs. And the Black Range Lodge is very much at the heart of it. From Vancouver, British Columbia, to Dusseldorf, Germany, builders interested in strawbale construction, earthen plaster, dry stone foundations, earthbag footings, timber framing and bottle walls often find themselves looking to the Black Range, in southwestern New Mexico, for ideas.
Many or those innovative builders will be at New Mexico's strawbale and natural building think tank for this year's Natural Building Colloquium, Oct. 5-11. Wanek has also completed The New Strawbale Home, a book featuring photographs and floor plans for 40 U.S. and Canadian homes.
For more information about the Black Range Lodge and natural building, visit their web site at www.strawbalecentral.com or www.blackrangelodge.com, call (505)895-5652 or write them at 119 Main St., Kingston, NM 88042.

Caption :
Pete Fust of the Black Range Lodge, leads a wall-raising work-shop on a strawbale home in the Gila. Building strawbale to code in New Mexico requires a post-and-beam framework, with bales as infill insulation.