[GSBN] Astonishing Soil (was re: Creative, open minded soil engineer in California)

Sun May 6 06:52:14 UTC 2018

Dear RWT—

Thanks for your creative suggestions and on-point observations. 

The perfect soil in question is under Santa Barbara’s downtown grid, zoned for multi-unit residential, and though we paid less for it than anyone else, still cost $118/ ft2 (not per ft2 of house, per ft2 of dirt). So—not likely to turn to farms anytime soon. 

BUT—we plan to turn to agroforestry. We estimate that we can produce 1500-2000 lbs/ yr of fruit on the lot…from dense perennial edible landscaping surrounding the five cob cottages. (It currently produces 500 lbs of citrus from two rock star trees; the fully planted landscape will have around forty trees of 20 or so varieties for staggered, all-year food production. 

The foundation waterproofing has a secondary function of pumping bulk oxygen into the soil profile all the way down to about 9’, enabling the trees on the site to grow without irrigation apart from stormwater augmented groundwater. The arborist on the project is the crazy genius who just finished the new apple campus; he and I figured this out together. I think it is entirely possible this site will have greater production capacity with the cottages on it than without, because of the way the foundations provide the oxygen needed for them to easily get water. 

Peace,

Art

I’ll post the next revision of the proposal, which describes how all this works together. Meanwhile here’s a screenshot of one page from an earlier draft:

> On May 3, 2018, at 9:28 PM, RWT <archilogic at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> 
> On Friday, April 27, 2018, 4:29:32 p.m.
>  Art Ludwig-Oasis Design <oasis at oasisdesign.net <mailto:oasis at oasisdesign.net>> wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > We?re looking to build without over excavating and compacting
> 
> > The quality of the soil is astonishing; it is perfect for growing things and 
> > we don?t want to  mess it up. 
> 
> I'm neither a soil engineer nor in California and I suspect that my mind is probably more constipated than it is open but my (knee) jerk reaction to this query was to say
> 
>  "Don't (build on that site)", 
> 
>  ... as the best way to not mess up the astonishing soil -- (speaking as one who built his home on the exposed Canadian Shield bedrock portion of the site and brought in hundreds of tri-axle loads of clay fill and organic matter to build up a soil overburden in which to plant large caliper rescued trees, shrubbery, flower & vegetable garden etc. , which perhaps goes a long way to explaining my lust for good dirt). 
> 
> But "not building" would likely not be an option in this case since someone probably paid a $bazillion$ for the property with an eye to building a home on it.
> 
> The second (elbow ?) reaction was to say
> 
>  "What about doing an earth sheltered or underground design ?" 
> 
>  ... which would seem to make a lot of sense in Khalifohnia where the landscape has been known to burst into flames and/or shake & jump around so much that above-grade buildings can fly apart and/or collapse.    
> 
> And I suspect that taking advantage of the infinite thermal mass of the earth wouldn't hurt to keep space cooling requirements to a minimum.
> 
> I also wondered  if the CA Building Code would allow for the structure to be built like a chicken coop , where the chickens' shelter sits on skis like a Qamutiq  (aka "dogsled" en anglais) and can be dragged to a new spot every now and then, leaving a patch of newly-fertilised soil behind.
> 
> But enough of this MooseHugger sticking his ignorant-about-building-in-California nose where it doesn't belong.
> 
> Thengya. Thengyallverramuch.
> Stronzo di Nord.
> 
> 
> 
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