Why work with standards? Isn’t that, um, boring?
Yes, but . . . industry standards often prove to be a big lever for causing the right (or the wrong) things to be done on a very broad scale. Witness the USA’s gas mileage standards for cars and trucks, or California’s Title 24 minimum energy performance standards for buildings. All too often, however, a standard proposed for the benefit of society will seem a threat to one or several entrenched interests, who typically offer skilled resistance using the tricks and strategies of the blood sport that is standards development. Public interest standards work is dreary, frustrating, and time-consuming, but nonetheless Ecological Building Network recognizes the importance of developing certain building standards when:
- They are of environmental and/or societal benefit, and
- There’s no one else around to take up the task.
With that in mind, EBNet recently completed a five year project to write and publish an internationally-recognized standard for earthen construction: ASTM E2392-10, Standard Guide for Design of Earthen Wall Building Systems. Authored by Bruce King, and based on the work of many colleagues around the world, that little document will save thousands of lives, and make truly green building easier for everyone.
Billions of people live in adobe homes, almost all of them because they can afford nothing else. And until now those people have been completely vulnerable to violent death and dislocation from earthquakes, because the knowledge of how to make those homes affordably safe has only recently been developed and articulated. Getting that knowledge out to the world where it can make a difference required writing, vetting, approving and publishing a globally-respected building standard that describes and guides good building practice. Now we have done just that.
Dissemination of this standard will literally bring greater safety to the poorest of the poor. But there’s much more. It will also pave the way for earthen construction at every level of society, where it is being rediscovered as a healthy, durable, comfortable, and lovely alternative to the industrialized buildings so many of us grew up with. Mud huts no more, earthen building has moved uptown.
The Straw Standards Project
In April of 2010 Ecological Building Network announced both the completion of the earthen standards project, and the launch of a new project, development of Standard Practice for the Use of Agricultural By-Products in Construction. Originally conceived to be a standard for straw bale construction, the concept quickly expanded both because straw bale construction (as wonderful as it is) will likely never scale up enough to have large scale impact, and because the promising family of building products now in development include a huge array of plant fibers, simple minerals, and vegetal oils used as insulation, structure, roofing, sheathing, and more. To pick just a few examples: the marketplace will soon see structural straw panels, straw insulation blocks, sprayed hemp insulation, and soy-based glues to replace petroleum-based glues.
We are pleased to announce seed funding from the Energy Foundation of San Francisco (because of the huge energy savings possible in bio-based insulation systems), and invite and welcome all support, new partners and contributions to this effort.
