Home-Grown Low-Tech Structure Building

In our field workshops, the Parking Lot Exercise has become a fun and memorable way to get introduced to building low-tech structures. As shown in the pocket guide on pages 55–56, we encourage students to experiment with building low-tech structures in a parking lot, park, or even your driveway to get over apprehension about trying them for real.

Participants in the Spring 2021 Intro Class got creative and added their own twists!

👉 Jump to Inspiring Examples

Instructions

Normally we would do this together in a parking lot with provided materials and instructions to build your first Beaver Dam Analog (BDA) or Post-Assisted Log Structure (PALS). However, you’ll now build your own:

Watch a video of the parking lot building exercise
Read more detailed examples in the Parking Lot Exercise page

Detailed instructions are also on pages 25–48 of the pocket guide — the Parking Lot Exercise is described on page 55.

Your assignment is to build at least one BDA or PALS (or both!) and record your construction with a short video. Then submit your assignment as a URL to the course discussion. Your post should include:

A paragraph describing what you did (or a narrated video).
Clearly identify what represents the channel (e.g. edge of sidewalk), the floodplain, and flow direction.
Any questions you have for instructors.
At least one embedded Instagram post or tweet with hashtags #lowtechPBR and #parkinglotBDA. You can include multiple posts if you like. Use your phone’s camera — timelapse can be helpful!

Tip: to embed your Instagram or Twitter post, make the post first, copy its embed code, and paste it in HTML view of your discussion editor.

How?

You can follow the instructions using materials from your garage, the hardware store, or nearby woodlands. As an alternative (if pandemic restrictions or costs are challenging) you can use paper, cardboard, toothpicks, straws, or other items around the house to simulate posts, woody debris, and sediment for a scaled-down physical model.

The key is to think through how to build, and what matters when you eventually build a real structure in a stream.

Emily Fairfax’s video may inspire you for scaled-down versions: