Greenhomebuilding.com
E-zine #4 July 7, 2002
Contents
*Site News
*General News
*Site of the Month
*Green 4th of July
*An
Earthbag/Papercrete/Steel Quonset Hybrid Building
*Book of the Month
*General and Unsubscribe Information
Greenhomebuilding.com
E-zine is a monthly opt-in email publication for people who are
interested in sustainable architecture and alternative or natural building. It
is written by Kelly Hart, the host of http://www.greenhomebuilding.com
..
Site News
Greenhomebuilding.com continues averaging
about 300 visitors each day. More people have been finding the "Ask the
Experts" page, and sending in their questions. One interesting query I received
recently was this: I am in the process of designing and
building a home on a tropical island (Saipan, 15.5N, 145.5E, US Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands, near Guam). I would like to use sustainable
architecture and building principles, and have done a fair amount of studying
architectural principles for hot humid climates coping with earthquakes,
typhoons, and 90" rain each year. I have so far come up with a courtyard plan,
"U" style house built off the ground. My question is this: how can I build using
sustainable architectural principles, when all of the building materials are
brought in, and cement is the only economical medium? Thanks, great internet
site, very helpful!
So I answered her with a couple of other
questions: 1) What are the temperature variations over a year? Do you baasically
just need protection from the weather, or do you also need to significantly
moderate your temperature? 2) You say that all building materials must be
brought in. What sort of soil do you have? Sand, clay, crushed shells, silt?
What sort of vegetation is available? Shrubs, trees, grasses, reeds, bamboo,
etc.?
I got a very detailed response to this: The
temperature variation here is quite small throughout the year, usually from 80
to 90 in the daytime, and 75 to 80 at night. What varies is the humidity, in the
monsoon it is very high. The prevailing winds are east-northeast, about 45% of
the time. We have time periods when we have the doldrums, usually twice a year,
March/April before the rains, and October before the winds turn around and come
from the west. I'd like to build using those figures to capture as much wind as
I can to flow through the house. As for local materials, they do mine the coral
aggregrate for roads and other projects, but no one localy makes lime out of the
coral. We have a lot of sand, but it is not used for construction due to erosion
concerns. There is bamboo grown here and there, mostly as an accidental plant
left in the yard that grew out of control, but nothing for commercial purposes,
and no companies import it that I have been able to find There are a lot of
ironwood trees here (aerially seeded after WWII, as the US bombed Saipan down to
bare rock), but I can find no one who processes them or grows them for the local
construction market. Clay is not a medium I have heard of being used, although
we have it here. Most imported wood has to be heavily treated to last more than
a few years. Saipan's bugs and termites are very healthy and hungry. As for
growing vegetation, everything grows very fast. In 4 months, my banana trees
went from invisible to 6 feet tall. Basically, Saipan is in the 1950's in terms
of conservation, renewable building, and climate responsive building design.
Most of the construction companies are run by Filipino's, and the Philippine
construction business is not noted for its conservation efforts or its knowledge
of "green building." They build everything with the cheapest cost and quickest
build time in the forefront of all planning. So, any help you could give would
be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.
My next response was this: It doesn't sound like the folks who
run the infrastructure there are very enlightened. I've put a little thought to
your question, and come up with this suggestion; it would potentially give you
shelter that could survive virtually any wind, rain or insects and would be on
the cooler side, with breezes when available. Also it would be very inexpensive
to create. What I suggest is something similar to what I have done, using
earthbags filled with the soil from your site to create a dome or domes, which
would then be plastered with a cement stucco. A vapor barrier could be placed
over the domes before they are plastered. Some portions of the dome could be
bermed with more soil to help moderate the temperatures. Wind catching towers
can be employed, similar to what is used in the middleast, to direct the wind
into the house. The earthbag page at www.greenhomebuilding.com has a lot of
information about this type of construction, including books and
videotapes.
Then she wrote: Thanks for the info about the building style.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to get a building permit for that type of
structure. The building permit people, AKA the neanderthals, don't believe that
earth-filled earthbags will be sufficient. They believe that not even if the
earth was highly sterilized, like potting soil, would it be any good, because
the humidity would cause mold and growth, and the rains would eventually enter
the structure and cause problems. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to
sterilize that much earth, and it wouldn't matter anyway. They are also
concerned with the loss of topsoil used in the earthbags, and despite my
suggestions to check out your website, my requests fell on deaf and dumb ears.
Back to the drawing board. Cheers!
So then I wrote her: I'm
sorry to hear that they are being so obstinate about this. You wouldn't
necessarily have to use top soil. It could be other sandy soil or gravel or
crushed shells... Also the soil could be mixed with portland cement, so that it
would become what they call soil cement, which would eliminate any problem with
moisture causing mold or growth or other such problems. Don't give up; I think
this type of building could solve a lot of problems around the world. It has
been permitted by code officials in the United States, and tested for earthquake
soundness, etc.
I haven't heard back from her since, but I hope she can
proceed with her project!
General
News
The creative community
has lost a friend and inspirational leader, Sambo Mockbee. Nowhere is this
loss felt greater than to the faculty, students, staff and community of the
Rural Studio. Since its inception the Rural Studio has produced cutting
edge architecture in rural west Alabama. Under Professor Mockbee’s
guidance and inspiration, the Rural Studio was founded on principles that will
endure over time. These principles have produced a sustainable
infrastructure, which will insure that the Rural Studio continues its important
educational/community service work. Architecture students and Outreach
students will continue to be led by a creative faculty in the production of
sustainable housing and community projects. Sambo’s greatest wish, and
perhaps his greatest achievement, was that the studio will continue beyond
him.
Site of the Month
This month's featured site is an exploration what the Rural
Studio has been up to for several years. There are many examples of projects
that incorporate such sustainable concepts as strawbale building, using recycled
materials, empoying rainwater catchment and gray water systems and providing
natural ventilation. Check out http://www.arch.auburn.edu/ruralstudio for
a stimulating tour of their innovative work.
Green 4th of
July
I decided to join our local parade
this year, as I have the last three years, driving my solar vehicle, the
Sunmobile. I am fairly well-known in our community, and the response to my
presence was very warm. Obviously people appreciate my demonstration of the
viability of non-polluting solar transportation. More information about the
Sunmobile and the SunVee can be found at www.sunvee.com .
An
Earthbag/Papercrete/Steel Quonset Hybrid Building
My latest building project will be a
garage/workshop on my property. I wanted it to blend in with the architecture of
our house, which is an earthbag/papercrete combination of domes, vault and
planes. It also needs to be inexpensive to build, conservative of energy input
for heating and cooling, and fairly quick to build. The idea I came up with was
to erect a steel quonset building, which is essentially a vault, coveri it with
earthbags filled with crushed volcanic rock (like our house) and then use a
final plaster of papercrete to protect the bags from the sunlight and abrasion.
I located a new 34' X 16' steel quonset building
that is sold disassembled for $1900 delivered. This is now waiting in our yard
for assembly. I realized that if I raised it up 4 extra feet, I could build
a loft in it, so that is what I am doing, using a double row of earthbags on
either side to support it. The bags of volcanic rock are recycled form the house
project that I helped demolish several months ago, so the whole thing should
be quite inexpensive. I'll be making the end walls out of more bags, wood framing,
openable windows and big garage doors. At the moment this is what the site looks
like:
Building with Earth: A Guide to
Flexible-Form Earthbag Construction, by Paulina Wojciekowska, 2001
(Chelsea Green). This is really the only book published at the moment that is
specifically about building with earthbags. Paulina is a Polish architect
trained in England, who studied with Nadir Khalili in California and became
enamored with natural and earthbag building. She has a firm understanding of the
architectural principles that relate to compressive structures, such as
arches, domes, vaults, apses, etc. Paulina helped me for a few days while I
was in the construction phase of my largest dome, and she has included a
lengthy section in her book about our house. Photos of our house are
sprinkled throughout the book, including on the cover.
General and Unsubsrcibe
information
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Kelly Hart
