[GSBN] building in Haiti - and now Christchurch, New Zealand

[Graeme North]

Hi Bruce - well done - amazing how an approach using local stuff works.

One mesh idea that seems to work well that I have just started using is Cintoflex D - a polypropylene mesh - very light and cheap but very strong and easy to use - easier than any bamboo lath or metal lath I have used so far.  Very tough walls can be made using bamboo uprights, with either a spit bamboo lath, or by tying on a mesh, and then installing light earth daub or plasters. 

Good keying between earth and lime seems to be essential,  esp if there is much risk of high levels of  moisture around - I have seen de-lamination between earth and lime if driving rain forces moisture in as far as the earth under-layers that can both soften and expand.

On a different note, we may need aspects of your design down here too now that we have our own earthquake disaster in Christchurch to deal with.  Its  a real horror story - it was a very shallow quake right under the city and local ground accelerations were up to a massive 1.88g under a city that was already recovering from the effects of a larger quake a little further away last September.  

 Any references to a strawbale emergency shelter design that really works may also be of great benefit too if anyone has one - 
most people have some temporary shelter, but winter is coming on, and it is harsh down there, and around 10,000 house are uninhabitable.   A lot of people are camping out in their yards with no power or water supplies.  Emergency services are coping really well it seems, even though 40% of city center buildings are too unsafe to enter. 

Cheers


Graeme
Graeme North Architects
49 Matthew Road
RD1
Warkworth
tel/fax +64 (0)9 4259305
 
graeme at ecodesign.co.nz
www.ecodesign.co.nz


On 1/03/2011, at 11:09 AM, Bruce King wrote:

> 
> Howdy, Baleheads --
> 
> Ecological Building Network (EBNet) has won an international competition for the best new housing ideas for Haiti, and we’ve just been asked to build our model in a very prominent location.  I am both proud and puzzled to say that our apparently unique winning idea is:  use Haitian materials and Haitian people to build a Haitian house. Everyone else in the exposition will be importing prefabricated contraptions, at least so far as I know. 
> 
> After a lot of meetings and discussion among a lot of knowledgeable folks -- including a bunch of you -- we arrived at an optimal  "natural" design we think best suited to the culture, economy and climate of Haiti.  The EBNet model home will use the most abundant and inexpensive local resources—concrete rubble, bamboo, and the huge local labor pool—to make seismically safe houses at or below the cost of conventional (and unsafe) masonry houses. 
>  
> With that all said, two questions:
> 
> 1) We expect to use a thick, fiber-rich earth plaster over bamboo (or possibly metal) mesh for a lot of the walls, but need to give it a very durable finish (see wall section in the onliine link).  "Durable" here means not only resistant to abrasion and driving rain, but also forced entry;  it has to be and feel secure against intruders.  I seem to recall some discussion on this list about lime and lime-cement plasters over earth, and Bill Steen reporting that he could never get that to really work -- too much delamination despite efforts to bond things.
> 
> Anybody have thoughts or suggestions?
> 
> 2) We have to raise $75,000 in a pretty short time, so any leads or suggestions are most welcome.  We seek both philanthropic support and commercial sponsorship at this prominent exposition.
> 
> Thanks, and cheers all around,
> 
> Bruce "Mr. Natural" King
> Director of EBNet
> Ecological Building Network
> the art and science of building well
> bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org 
> PO Box 6397
> San Rafael, CA 94903 USA
> (415) 987-7271
> follow us on Twitter: @EBNetwork
> 
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