"There is something charmingly naive about this belief in the power of art to overcome physical reality. It is, of course, wishful thinking. The people slumped in a Barcelona chair, or struggling to get out of an Eames lounge chair, do not feel comfortable, they are simply willing to put up with discomfort in the name of art — or prestige — which is not the same thing..."
-Witold Rybczynski,
Home: A Short History of an Idea.
Viking Penguin Inc., New York, 1986, pp 211-212."
-Witold Rybczynski,
Home: A Short History of an Idea.
Viking Penguin Inc., New York, 1986, pp 211-212."
Some Alternative Construction Practices
"First, do no harm."
Doctors have to swear to that. As it turns out, maybe architects and builders should do the same. In providing our creature comforts, the kindness of our building methods may be killing us.
There are dust mites lurking in our blended carpet fibres and bacteria flying through our heating ducts. Poison vapors are leaking from our plywood panelling and particleboard cabinets. Radon gas escapes from our bricks, and is sealed into our houses by toxic, weather-proofing foam and caulk. Halogen bulbs are giving us ultraviolet "sun" burn, and the electromagnetic radiation from the power lines is wreaking havoc with our very cells.
Now they tell us.
But, help is not only on the way, it's actually here, in two basic varieties. Higher technology alternatives come from corporations like General Electric and Rubbermaid, who are developing plastic panel systems, and even whole plastic houses incorporating plumbing, doors, windows and wiring.
US Steel has been heavily marketing steel studs for residential wall framing. Steel is getting less expensive compared to wood, and isn't susceptible to termites, fire or mice. The studs are pre-drilled for wiring and lightweight for easier transportation and erection.
Both plastic and steel production use recycled products, but both require large amounts of energy to produce, so while they don't necessarily pollute the home directly, there is an environmental cost.
Those who espouse lower-technologies prefer to think of themselves not as advocates, necessarily, of low technology, but rather of "appropriate technology." Lynn Bayless was President of the EOS Institute in Laguna, California, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to promoting ecologically balanced living, known also as "sustainable" living. She coyly refers to steel studs as "imitation lumber."
Architect Pliny Fisk III of the Center for Maximum Building Potential in Austin, Texas cites statistics which trace "two-thirds of medical complaints" to "indoor air quality in the home and in the workplace." As a solution Fisk, Bayless and others advocate the use, wherever possible, of building materials found naturally near a site. Examples of "indigenous materials" are: A log cabin in the woods; an adobe house in the arid plains; a straw house amidst farmland; or an igloo on the polar ice. A report by the Missoula, Montana Center for Resourceful Building Technology explains: "Most indigenous building materials are minimally processed and do not contain adhesives or the residue of chemicals used during processing. This allows for healthy indoor air quality and safer disposal at the end of a building's lifetime."
Besides being "an investment in your kids' health," Fisk argues that indigenous materials make more economic sense. He condemns conventional homes as "affordable at the front end" but a bad deal in the long run because of poor quality and short life expectancy.
He points to Europe. There, families occupy the same home for generations, allowing plenty of time to dig in and enjoy a paid-off mortgage. Since many of these homes are centuries old and were constructed before modern building products, centralized manufacturing or extensive transportation networks, they are often made exclusively of indigenous materials - local stone or wood, or even earth or straw.
Architect Nader Khalili was inspired by the architecture of his native Iran, where homes have been constructed the same way for over four thousand years. Khalili's ideal house is one made "from the earth under your feet, cooled by wind, heated by sun," which can be built with the homeowner's own hands, without a bank loan.
Khalili's mission is to improve on the ancient methods. To test his ideas, he boldly located his California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture in Hesperia, California, a desert community prone to windstorms, floods and temperature extremes not far from the threatening San Andreas fault.
Khalili spent years perfecting ceramic buildings - structures built from the ground they sit on, and fired with flame, or the sun, just like clay pots. He now builds with conventional burlap sandbags, filled with local dirt and piled one atop the other and held together with barbed wire. Khalili prefers a dome shape, saying "timeless forms work best with nature," Catering to western tastes, however, Khalili has developed a rectilinear plan for an inexpensive three bedroom "mainstream American house."
In Napa, California, David Easton's Terra Group has been building custom homes for clients seeking relief from toxic industrial products. Terra's thick walled buildings are of rammed earth, a labor intensive method of compacting layers of dirt up to wall height. Terra's marketing Director Bryan Miller says a newly patented "stabilized earth" method, with some cement added, is cost competitive with conventional construction, asserting "there is nothing alternative about it."
Like earthen construction, houses built of straw have historical roots, and they're more durable than you might expect from reading the child's story of the three little pigs. There's one in Alliance, Nebraska which has withstood more than huffing and puffing since its construction in 1903. David Eisenberg, a self-described "recovering contractor" who heads up Tucson, Arizona's Development Center for Appropriate Technology, favors straw bale as "owner-builder friendly." No skill is required beyond the ability to stack two foot by four foot, 16" tall bales of hay. Tied together with steel or even bamboo reinforcement and covered by stucco or adobe, straw bale walls can support the weight of a conventional wood roof or serve as superinsulated (R-45) infill between conventional wood roof supports.
Non-conventional construction methods are slowly entering the mainstream. Building codes governing straw bale construction have been drafted in Arizona and New Mexico. Government interest in Nader Khalili's sandbag system actually dates back to discussions with NASA about lunar base construction. The Department of Energy has funded The Center for Maximum Building Potential to study appropriate technology buildings, and has an public information telephone number. The number of developers, architects and builders with knowledge of sustainable building practices grows daily.
So, take a deep breath, sit back in your den and relax. If it isn't safe now, it will be soon.
Doctors have to swear to that. As it turns out, maybe architects and builders should do the same. In providing our creature comforts, the kindness of our building methods may be killing us.
There are dust mites lurking in our blended carpet fibres and bacteria flying through our heating ducts. Poison vapors are leaking from our plywood panelling and particleboard cabinets. Radon gas escapes from our bricks, and is sealed into our houses by toxic, weather-proofing foam and caulk. Halogen bulbs are giving us ultraviolet "sun" burn, and the electromagnetic radiation from the power lines is wreaking havoc with our very cells.
Now they tell us.
But, help is not only on the way, it's actually here, in two basic varieties. Higher technology alternatives come from corporations like General Electric and Rubbermaid, who are developing plastic panel systems, and even whole plastic houses incorporating plumbing, doors, windows and wiring.
US Steel has been heavily marketing steel studs for residential wall framing. Steel is getting less expensive compared to wood, and isn't susceptible to termites, fire or mice. The studs are pre-drilled for wiring and lightweight for easier transportation and erection.
Both plastic and steel production use recycled products, but both require large amounts of energy to produce, so while they don't necessarily pollute the home directly, there is an environmental cost.
Those who espouse lower-technologies prefer to think of themselves not as advocates, necessarily, of low technology, but rather of "appropriate technology." Lynn Bayless was President of the EOS Institute in Laguna, California, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to promoting ecologically balanced living, known also as "sustainable" living. She coyly refers to steel studs as "imitation lumber."
Architect Pliny Fisk III of the Center for Maximum Building Potential in Austin, Texas cites statistics which trace "two-thirds of medical complaints" to "indoor air quality in the home and in the workplace." As a solution Fisk, Bayless and others advocate the use, wherever possible, of building materials found naturally near a site. Examples of "indigenous materials" are: A log cabin in the woods; an adobe house in the arid plains; a straw house amidst farmland; or an igloo on the polar ice. A report by the Missoula, Montana Center for Resourceful Building Technology explains: "Most indigenous building materials are minimally processed and do not contain adhesives or the residue of chemicals used during processing. This allows for healthy indoor air quality and safer disposal at the end of a building's lifetime."
Besides being "an investment in your kids' health," Fisk argues that indigenous materials make more economic sense. He condemns conventional homes as "affordable at the front end" but a bad deal in the long run because of poor quality and short life expectancy.
He points to Europe. There, families occupy the same home for generations, allowing plenty of time to dig in and enjoy a paid-off mortgage. Since many of these homes are centuries old and were constructed before modern building products, centralized manufacturing or extensive transportation networks, they are often made exclusively of indigenous materials - local stone or wood, or even earth or straw.
Architect Nader Khalili was inspired by the architecture of his native Iran, where homes have been constructed the same way for over four thousand years. Khalili's ideal house is one made "from the earth under your feet, cooled by wind, heated by sun," which can be built with the homeowner's own hands, without a bank loan.
Khalili's mission is to improve on the ancient methods. To test his ideas, he boldly located his California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture in Hesperia, California, a desert community prone to windstorms, floods and temperature extremes not far from the threatening San Andreas fault.
Khalili spent years perfecting ceramic buildings - structures built from the ground they sit on, and fired with flame, or the sun, just like clay pots. He now builds with conventional burlap sandbags, filled with local dirt and piled one atop the other and held together with barbed wire. Khalili prefers a dome shape, saying "timeless forms work best with nature," Catering to western tastes, however, Khalili has developed a rectilinear plan for an inexpensive three bedroom "mainstream American house."
In Napa, California, David Easton's Terra Group has been building custom homes for clients seeking relief from toxic industrial products. Terra's thick walled buildings are of rammed earth, a labor intensive method of compacting layers of dirt up to wall height. Terra's marketing Director Bryan Miller says a newly patented "stabilized earth" method, with some cement added, is cost competitive with conventional construction, asserting "there is nothing alternative about it."
Like earthen construction, houses built of straw have historical roots, and they're more durable than you might expect from reading the child's story of the three little pigs. There's one in Alliance, Nebraska which has withstood more than huffing and puffing since its construction in 1903. David Eisenberg, a self-described "recovering contractor" who heads up Tucson, Arizona's Development Center for Appropriate Technology, favors straw bale as "owner-builder friendly." No skill is required beyond the ability to stack two foot by four foot, 16" tall bales of hay. Tied together with steel or even bamboo reinforcement and covered by stucco or adobe, straw bale walls can support the weight of a conventional wood roof or serve as superinsulated (R-45) infill between conventional wood roof supports.
Non-conventional construction methods are slowly entering the mainstream. Building codes governing straw bale construction have been drafted in Arizona and New Mexico. Government interest in Nader Khalili's sandbag system actually dates back to discussions with NASA about lunar base construction. The Department of Energy has funded The Center for Maximum Building Potential to study appropriate technology buildings, and has an public information telephone number. The number of developers, architects and builders with knowledge of sustainable building practices grows daily.
So, take a deep breath, sit back in your den and relax. If it isn't safe now, it will be soon.