[GSBN] health (ill) effects of earthen floors

[Laura Bartels]

Dear All,
This makes me think of the work of ARCHIVE and the health/architecture connection that they are exploring. This connection of health and architecture I find fascinating, obvious, and not often addressed holistically while also being largely unrecognized and unfunded as far as I am aware. I recently shared this with the EPA workgroup on tribal green building codes I am a part of. 

This article focuses on the work of a Jamaican architect who founded the non-profit ARCHIVE and their international work in this area. 
http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/archive-says-home-is-where-the-health-is-29857/

Best,
Laura


“Housing doesn’t fall under the health portfolio by any means,” says Ryan Cherlin, a USAID spokesman. “While there are undoubtedly correlations between poor housing and ill health, our health programs focus on specific diseases and health services. Allocating global health funds for housing purposes would violate current legislation.”
With the exception of a homeless program in the Pacific Northwest, shelter isn’t included in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s programming either, despite the philanthropy’s huge investment in vaccines, reproductive and global health. Nor is it part of programming at the Wellcome Trust, another large funder of studies into the origins and treatment of diseases in developing countries.

At University College London’s Healthy Infra-structure Research Center, where Williams is a visiting scholar in civil, environmental and geomatic engineering, scientists are indeed taking housing apart through research. With more than $1.5 million in grant funding, UCL recently launched the center on the premise that infectious disease is connected to architecture. A structure can house pathogens (for example, the bacteria legionellamultiplying in ventilation systems), and conversely, it can be designed to kill or otherwise get rid of them (via disinfection systems). Infrastructure can help disease spread; the transmission of SARS in Hong Kong was partly blamed on the failure of drainage systems in buildings there, says the center’s director, Ka-Man Lai. Finally, design can control infection indirectly by, say, placing a tap in a location most likely to make people pause to wash their hands.

In 2009, then-acting U.S. Surgeon General Steven Galson issued a “call to action” for more research into the health outcomes from specific housing designs, noting that many of the leading causes of preventable deaths and disease, such as falls, fires, burns, drowning, asthma and lead poisoning, occur in the home. The Department of Housing and Urban Developmentissued a complementary report, asserting that a more holistic approach to construction that addressed causes of ill health — mold, pests, poor structural safety and lead paint, for example — would be the most cost-effective way to address health risks such as asthma, allergies, poisoning and accidents. “A comprehensive, coordinated approach to healthy homes,” Galson wrote, “will result in the greatest public health impact.”


Laura Bartels
GreenWeaver Inc.
520 S. Third St., Suite 5 
Carbondale, CO 81623
970-379-6779
www.greenweaverinc.com





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On Jan 5, 2012, at 12:53 PM, David Arkin, AIA wrote:

> Jorge:
> 
> Beautiful presentation of a beautiful home ... nice work!
> 
> Your inexpensive yet durable and effective solutions could literally be both a budget and a life saver for many (not to mention a good option for many others, and a climate saver as well ... at lease the article acknowledged the greenhouse gas impacts of concrete and asphalt, albeit at the very end).  
> 
> Thanks for the Hope!
> 
> David
> 
> On Jan 5, 2012, at 9:36 AM, Van Krieken wrote:
> 
>> I also prefer to use ciment/lime for the floors... and the result can be really very unexpensive and beautiful. I do the finishing with white ciment and mineral pigments and a 2 or 3 layers of acrilic waterbased vernis (could not found nothing better yet), to really protect the floor from wines, oils, etc...
>> 
>> The material's price:  about 2 euros/m2 (!!)
>> 
>> Here is an exemple: http://www.strawhouses.carbonmade.com/
>> 
>> Hope for 2012
>> 
>> Jorge Van Krieken
>> Portugal
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
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> 
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