[Greenbuilding] Solutions to the ecological problem

[natural building]

On 25-Jan-11, at 7:34 AM, elitalking wrote:

> My comment:
> Permanance is an illusion.  The problem with our buildings is that  
> we ignore that fact such that when the building is too funky to deal  
> with, the remains are a burden to the environment and the  
> community.  There is a case to be made for planning buildings that  
> allow for preserving the embodied energy of the materials for  
> reconstruction in new shelters appropriate for the time when the  
> building is no longer appropriate.

While I totally agree with the need to design and construct our  
buildings with reusable / recyclable materials as much as possible  
(and this draws into question the use of things like spray foam  
insulation which make the substrate almost completely un-reusable) I  
also believe that we can construct building with materials that can  
bio-degrade effectively and entirely when they can no longer be re- 
used / recycled.

Natural, unprocessed materials are an obvious choice, but this is  
where Science can play a part by developing efficient materials which  
ALSO do no harm to the environment when they are finally disposed of  
(such as the innovative mushroom insulation that was recently  
mentioned on this site).

Actually, I would go even further and suggest that these modern  
materials should be designed to nourish the earth when they are  
eventually disposed of.

Regards,
Steve Satow

www.naturalbuildingsite.net
naturalbuilding at shaw.ca


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