Snowboarding
Sustainable Living: Marie-France Roy's Cob House
Hidden in a very secret, magical location on Vancouver Island, MFR discusses her eco-friendly home.
Marie-France Roy's Cob House
© Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool
As a professional snowboarder, Marie-France Roy experiences first-hand the impact of climate change on our planet. Her fantastic new film - The Little Things - documents snowboarders who are inspirational for their sustainable ways of living and thinking, and features the creation of her fascinating home.
It's rare now to meet a homeowner who built their house, and rarer still for the building to be built out of cob. We sat down with her to talk about the inspiration behind her one of a kind home.
Marie-France Roy's Cob House.
© Darin Towers
What about the house makes it unique?
So many aspects of it make it unique. We built it ourselves with the help of my super talented brother Alex and lots of friends too. We tried using local natural materials such as clay, sand and straw for the walls made of "cob". We also used recycled materials as much as possible like reclaimed wood, windows, insulation, broken up sidewalk pieces stacked together for foundation, lots of empty glass and plastic bottles were used in the walls as fillers as well. Some stuff we had to get new but it's incredible how much waste we were able to reuse and reduce.
Using the natural elements like building in function of the sun's orientation throughout the seasons is also a good way to increase the comfort of your home while reducing your heating needs at the same time. It was a lot of work for sure but it was so worth it and feels so rewarding to build your own home. You appreciate it a lot more and it allows you to customize the space to your specific needs and taste too. You can see more of the whole process in our film, The Little Things.
MFR Hands
© Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool
Environmental sustainability is a huge driving force in your life, and the message of The Little Things movie. How does the house reflect this ethos?
Since my own lifestyle can generate a massive footprint from traveling and snowboarding for a living, I wanted to find other ways to create change in my life where I could make a positive difference. So after some research, I thought it would be cool to create a home in a more conscious way and try to reduce the impact of building as much as possible.
Marie-France Roy's Cob House.
© Darin Towers
When did you come up with the idea of building a house like this, and why?
Cob houses are nothing new. This is the way that a lot of civilizations used to build their homes hundreds of years ago and still today. You can see them in Mexico, New Zealand, Autralia, Europe and all over the world really. Some of them are a few hundreds years old and still standing! But I initially saw a book that my friend showed me of people who started using the old techniques to build these beautiful small houses and I found it fascinating. I then took a one week course with the Mudgirls, a group of women who teach about sustainable building on Vancouver Island. It didn't even take one day that I fell in love and knew I wanted to build my own to live in.
Marie-France Roy at her home on Vancouver Island.
© Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool
How long do you spend there a year?
I always spend my winters in Whistler since it's my home base for snowboarding but I go back to the Island for the summer and fall. The best of both worlds!
Marie-France Roy diving on Vancouver Island, BC.
© Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool
The house is situated in a place which displays Canada's nature incredibly well, what's close to your home? Were those photos of you diving taken close to your house?
Yes those pics are from around there. The place is incredible. The diving photos are from this beautiful river we go swim at each summer, one of the most magical places I have ever seen. There is so much to do and see around the Island. The rainforest, the mountains, the wildlife and the incredibly beautiful ocean landscapes are so breathtaking. I feel so blessed to live in such a pristine environment and spending time in a healthy natural setting like that feels so healing and energizing.
Marie-France Roy loads up for a day of surfing.
© Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool
How does living in a house like this change your day to day life, as compared to living in Whistler or Quebec where you're from?
The house isn't fully done yet so I will be officially living there full time from next summer. But already from spending so much time in there I can say that it is awesome to be so surrounded by nature in a small cozy nest where you feel like you're not taking over the habitat so much. All I see from the windows is green trees everywhere! I feel like a kid who got it's dream tree house! I also see and hear so many birds, there are wild berries and mushrooms right by the house, it's awesome.
Building something like this is a lot cheaper than a big standard house so there isn't a huge stressful mortgage that comes with it. It's a beautiful thing because that allows more room for free time and less stress from having to work so hard to pay for your home.
Marie-France Roy's Cob House.
© Darin Towers
Would you say your home has changed the way you snowboard?
Ha! Maybe! It sure reminds me of what truly makes me happy in life. And it's all very simple! Being outside, being passionate, active and living in harmony with nature is where it's at for me. From spending so much time working and building this house, it also really made me realize how precious and important energy is too, in all aspects of life. It takes so much energy to build a house, to make all the materials and tools we use or even just to make a snowboard!
If we look around us at all the big human developments we've made over the past century, I truly think that humans are extremely brilliant and can accomplish incredible things. But it's not hard to see that it all requires a lot of energy and some of those developments came with major consequences on the natural world on which we all depend to survive. We are all still learning, but if we can work together in a more conscious way and invest towards renewable and greener sources of energy instead of ancient and harmful ones, we can then keep evolving without destroying so much of the natural world to do so.
Energy is very precious and we will always need lots of it. It is the key word of our future I think. The way we use it as a tool, the way we use it to interact with each other, the way we invest it for the future generations of all living species on Earth too.
