We have had an active year! Here are the highlights in review...
In January we convened over a hundred of the world's leading inventors, entrepreneurs, designers, and educators at Build Well 2010 to map out architecture after fossil fuels. Our lively conversations in Sausalito were heavily affected by the earthquake in Haiti that preceded Build Well by just a week. There was a deep feeling that the solutions to building problems in the USA are deeply tied to solutions for places like Haiti, because both must increasingly arise from the notion of localization: making use of the energy, water and materials that are near at hand.
Here's what a few people said about Build Well:
Build Well has amassed an untouchable roster of speakers and participants. It offers a truly fresh view of the future: one of humans as participants in the ecology of planetary well-being. - Pliny Fisk, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems
Powerful conference, amazing and awe-inspiring crowd. I sure hope we make the invite list next time around. - Michael Chandler, President, Chandler Design-Build
The symposium was really great; invaluable in bringing together all the important elements (and people) related to my work. What was more of a curiosity and exploration into green building has transformed to a conviction that this must be my primary focus, all due to the conference. - Mark Aschheim, Professor, University of Santa Clara
In February we completed a four-year project with the publication of ASTM E2392, Standard Guide for Design of Earthen Wall Building Systems. Always intended to serve the poorest fourth of humanity who live in earthen structures all over the world, that guide has also tied directly to Haiti where it is being used to guide safe reconstruction. That work in Haiti has already been publicized in Home Energy magazine, which article was reprinted in ASTM's own journal, Standardization News
This Fall, with major support from the Energy Foundation of San Francisco, we began another project within ASTM, Guide to Agricultural Resources in Construction.
Originally conceived as a standard for straw bale construction, we quickly expanded the scope of the project. Straw bale construction is widely popular all over the world, but is unlikely to be big enough to qualify as a game changer. However, a great many technologies are appearing for building with the straw and other fibers that the farmer throws away. EBNet is now crafting the guidelines that will foster a simple idea: that we can insulate our buildings (and save a great deal of energy) with things like straw, hemp, and bagasse, rather than the current array of insulations made largely with -- you guessed it -- Middle Eastern oil. Let's grow our insulation insted of buying it from Saudi Arabia.
We ring in 2011 the proud parents, along with our pals at Builders Without Borders, a brand new concrete rubble crusher, already at work in Port au Prince. With a simple machine like this, a new business and jobs are created, the landscape is cleared, and the waste of disaster is transformed into new homes and schools. Your donation can buy more of these. Help Haitains help themselves and spread the good idea around. Thank you!
