[GSBN] building in Haiti

[john rehorn]

Good point, Derek.  Thick clay or lime would be as good a 'vandal wall' as one inch of cementatious.

John Rehorn
On Feb 28, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Derek Roff wrote:

> Congratulations, Bruce, and to the other members of your team,
> 
> I'm concerned about meeting your definition of "durable".  Using a standard claw hammer and a pair of wire cutters, in about fifteen minutes, anybody can remove person-passing rectangle of plaster from a wall covered with standard-thickness Portland cement stucco over heavy stucco wire.  If standard Portland cement stucco doesn't meet the definition of "durable", I don't think other plaster options will either.
> 
> PS.  I love to hear more about the competition that you won.
> 
> Derelict
> 
> Derek Roff
> Language Learning Center
> Ortega Hall 129, MSC03-2100
> University of New Mexico
> Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
> 505/277-7368, fax 505/277-3885
> Internet: derek at unm.edu
> 
> 
> 
> --On Monday, February 28, 2011 2:09 PM -0800 Bruce King <bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org> 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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