[GSBN] Barbara Jones video from EcoBuild Conference in Europe

[Jakub Wihan]

It is good hearing from you, Mark.

I know you are a fan. I know several blokes who are big fans of   
Barbara as well. We started to call ourselves "amazingmales". Welcome  
to the club!

I guess the specific methods that can be or shouldn't be used in  
different conditions come to a decision of a Building Inspector in  
England. Those are usually open people eager to learn. Their  
background comes from Building Regulation Documents, which is bunch of  
very basic recommendations on how buildings should be made in order  
not to cause a harm to anyone (paraphrasing David's words). Sometimes  
Building Inspector needs an opinion of a Structural Engineer, so we  
get a triangular discussion going on, the important thing is that the  
final decision on a method used is sustainable as well as functional  
and prioritizes use of sustainable materials. This should be a concern  
of all the parties involved anyway.

We have been working together with Building Inspectors and Structural  
Engineers at amazonails to solve details of buildings in all sorts of  
conditions. For example the Affordable Social Housing in Waddington  
had been built partially on a landfill. The building required 2m deep  
trench underneath some of the southern wall, because of it. This  
needed to be filled out with gravel.

I don't think that Barbara is talking about specific methods that  
would be appropriate in certain circumstances. The message that I get  
from her speech is the encouragement of taking responsibility for the  
environment we are helping to create, having fun while doing it  
simply, using basic local resources and materials that are  
sustainable. She shows that it could be done in a large scale,  
everywhere, by anybody - even by a building industry.

With warm wishes,

Kuba



>>> (There are methods discussed that are inappropriate in other  
>>> climates and under other conditions, which would need to be  
>>> pointed out. But on the whole, this is great.)


On 5 Mar 2011, at 21:43, Mark Piepkorn wrote:

> Hi Jakub, good to hear from you.
>
> Mostly I meant climates and conditions taken together. She spells  
> out exactly the kind of soil conditions they'll build on, a choice  
> people often don't have, especially in urban infill situations (the  
> next frontier for natural building).
>
> When you couple a high-moisture environment with poorly draining  
> soils in a climate with prolonged winter freezing, frost heave can  
> move a building more than just a little. However, the difficulty  
> isn't so much in the building moving, but rather in just part of the  
> building moving. One heaved corner can result in cracked and  
> delaminating plasters and potential structural damage. That won't  
> win fans over to our side.
>
> We definitely should learn from what's worked in the past. The  
> tricky part sometimes is remembering that what hasn't worked in the  
> past is generally no longer around to learn from. For instance, the  
> number of original SB buildings in the Nebraska sandhills that  
> quietly failed and disappeared from memory before Judy and Matts  
> first started researching them isn't known.
>
> I'd like to make it very specifically clear that I'm a huge fan of  
> Barbara's.
>
>
> Mark
>
>
> On 3/5/2011 2:08 PM, Jakub Wihan wrote:
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> thank you for the post!
>>
>> It is so good to see and hear Barbara. I think the methods she is  
>> mentioning are well suitable for other climates. What do you mean  
>> exactly? Shallow foundations without cement? Maren and Rikky are  
>> building this way in Spain, I believe. I'm helping to build the  
>> buildings the way I learned at amazonails in the Czech Republic,  
>> Austria, Siberia. Do you think that Siberian traditional log houses  
>> had deep foundations? They didn't. Building moved a little time to  
>> time that is true, but much less than Darcy Donovan's strawbale  
>> shelter on a shake table.
>>
>> Building professionals are usually too scared to do things some  
>> other way they are used to. That is why Barbara is so unique in her  
>> approach that comes from thorough understanding of her trade which  
>> is stripped from everything unnecessary and also in bringing her  
>> common sense to arguing that makes some people rethink the basics,  
>> some people humble and some people angry.
>>
>> Kuba
>>
>>
>> On 5 Mar 2011, at 18:31, Mark Piepkorn wrote:
>>
>>> (There are methods discussed that are inappropriate in other  
>>> climates and under other conditions, which would need to be  
>>> pointed out. But on the whole, this is great.)
>>>
>>> On 3/5/2011 12:27 PM, Mark Piepkorn wrote:
>>>> http://vimeo.com/20618415
>>>>
>>>> It's an excellent intro to SB for building industry peers in  
>>>> Europe, but this would be a terrific thing to show clients and  
>>>> the general public anywhere in the world. She covers important  
>>>> territory that generally gets too little coverage.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Mark
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> GSBN mailing list
>>> GSBN at greenbuilder.com
>>> http://greenbuilder.com/mailman/listinfo/GSBN
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> GSBN mailing list
>> GSBN at greenbuilder.com
>> http://greenbuilder.com/mailman/listinfo/GSBN
>>
>>
>