John's Green Building Course

December 16^th, 2011

Rather than being a place to learn from, Navdanya has recently turned into a place where world travelers meet and teach each other what they know. And while I have learned quite a bit from the farm, I have learned more about subjects I wasn't expecting from my fellow travelers. Besides Chris and Marilyn, another lesson I wanted to mention was a recent presentation on green building from John who is most recently from Bali! His presentation was very inspiring to me and I thought it would be nice to share some of my notes. John gave a great overview on a few different building types: adobe, cob, straw bale, slip straw, and wattle & daub techniques.

The first question when building a house is to determine what you actually need the structure for. Sleeping, kitchen, bathing are all pretty common answers. Climate and especially the angles of sunlight should also come into play. The building techniques above all pertain the the walls of building a structure, but how to keep the walls dry also needs to be planned. As John called it each house needs to have hats and boots. It is especially important to keep the foundation dry with these techniques. A house should also provide shade during the hot months and allow sunlight in during the cold months to reduce the need for heating and cooling. The angle of the sun will determine the angle of the eves needed on the roof of the structure. John provided a few websites to determine the angle of the sun in your location: www.susdesign.com/sunangle, www.kleiwerks.com, and www.emeraldearth.org.

Many of the natural building techniques use straw and earth to build up the walls. To finish off these techniques John suggested using linseed oil, which is water resistant or a lime wash. Lime wash is derived from limestone, which is calcium oxide. The fascinating thing I learned about limestone is that its processing is carbon neutral. This is because when it is mixed with water it creates calcium hydroxide, which is toxic, but then re-extracts the CO2 it created during processing once it is finished. Lime wash is breathable, water-resistant, and when moisture is added to it, it will rebond where there are cracks.

While some knowledge of building is required to begin these projects many community members can join in getting their hands dirty in the mud and clay used in these techniques. John told us that the use of concrete (which is extremely resource intensive and extremely boring) is only second to water in terms of worldwide consumption. It is also important that when planning our structures we only build what is needed. Of course comfort and durability and safety are requirements, but why not have fun with unique structures we can build together? Today, many of our boxes on the hillside are overbuilt to hold only our stuff rather than act as a home where we can share family and community time together. In times of resource depletion it is important to take a step back and realize what we actually need when determining what resources we are going to use up.