FROM COB TO PREFAB AND

BEYOND

What’s the Matter with Buildings?

According to the World Watch Institute, buildings account for one fourth of the world's wood harvest, two fifths of its material and energy usage, and one sixth of its fresh water usage.

Natural Building

Doing more with less is the key to working with, and not against, the

natural world that supports us.

NATURAL BUILDING:

Adobe

One half of the world’s population, approximately 3 billion people, lives or

works in buildings constructed of earth.

Adobe bricks near construction site

Adobe house under construction

Adobe construction

Typical damage to adobe construction

Seismic upgrading for adobe

Rebuilding Gaza with clay bricks – using unsafe techniques.

EcoBuild Network is working on approval of ASTM

Engineering is already clearly ready to make earth structures safe

www.ecobuildnetwork.org

Around the world…

Africa

Mexico

California

New Zealand

Persia

Bolivia

China

New Mexico

Greece

Rammed earth

In Canada…….

Poured earth wall in Petaluma

Cob

Poured earth

Just add water…….sand, clay and straw

Cob

Cob Buildings in Europe

Strawbale

Real Goods Solar Living Institute

Truth Windows

Stone

6th Century Ireland

Earthships

Bamboo

Bamboo

Panelized Home Construction

Structurally Insulated PanelsSIPS

SIPS

SIPS

Rethinking the Material World

“Beat, heat and treat is a good methodology, and it built the country,” says Brandon Tinianov, chief technology officer of Serious Materials.

“But we have to approach it a little differently because our eyes are now open.”

Dwell 2008

“So if you want to change something big, you have to change the

material first.” Material science is design at the

molecular level. How molecules are shaped, and how

those shapes link together, determines the physical properties.

Ordered molecules, like diamonds, are harder and stiffer, while messy molecules can be pulled apart.

Small changes, like turning iron into steel by adding carbon, have world-changing impact on

what can be imagined, planned and built.

Green plastics & Biomimicry

How does nature make things? Plants make things out of CO2 and then

assemble them into bark and leaves. Replacing complex liquid carbon (petroleum)

with strings of simple carbon oxides also requires less energy than standard polymer making.

It’s a low-temperature, low-pressure reaction. Charles Hamilton, Novomer Inc.

Innovations material science is currently developing...

Cost-competitive, low-energy ways of making cement, drywall, composites and other building materials

Eco Rock

Prefab “Green” Homes

West Coast Green's SG Blocks, Harbinger House

Made from cargo containers

i-house prefab

Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Domes

Paolo Soleri - Arcosanti

Eugene Tsui -

Jonathan Zimmerman - AIA

Z Domes

WE DID NOT INHERIT THE EARTH FROM OUR PARENTS. WE ARE

BORROWING IT FROM OUR CHILDREN.CHIEF SEATTLE