Credit: Modcell

Avert the eyes.  Yes, they are at it again.  Brits hold no modicum of decency when it comes to their efforts at mating sustainable products with modern building methods.  Hemp and straw are so pure and modest, while industry is so brutish and base.  Will it ever work?

Modcell is attempting, in their Flying Factory, to create the illusive commercially viable, modular, super-insulated, high-performance, low energy ‘passive’ buildings built using renewable, locally sourced, carbon sequestering materials.  I know, I know.  Crazy.  When will these money hungry, earth-lovers give up?

Seriously, will anyone ever figure out how to combine truly sustainable materials with commercially viable and modern construction techniques?   Yes.  Modcell has (and I am sure some others have too).  But price is always the kicker.  Earthen materials usually involve higher man hours and thus higher cost (as I have discussed in this blog before).  Straw bale gets around this better than say, cob.

Prefab, modular walls cut down on construction time onsite, which is usually another drawback to earthen homes.  But with Modcell, an average wall panel weighs well over a ton, requiring special equipment to assemble.  (No problem for Modcell, because they make more money putting everything together with their Flying Factory equipment on site.)  So how much does it all cost?

According to a Footprint blog, as quoted by Jetson Green’s write-up of Modcell’s BaleHaus at Bath, a 926 sq. ft. house would cost $214,000.  Once you add the expense of the land this creates a price tag that hardly seems affordable.  I can’t quite figure out why Modcell’s cost ends up this high, but apparently it does.  Ultimately, I still have to ask, “Why would anyone pay to build a Modcell house when it costs more than conventional building?”

If I am a granola I can build my own house with straw and hemp and mud, and spend much less.  If I am a yuppie I can hire a “green” contractor to get the job done for me without spending a whole lot more money, and the end product will be more personalized and unique.  While I still hold out hope that the Granola Ethic can be commercialized for general consumption, we haven’t arrived yet.  I commend Modcell for the grand experiment they are embracing.  Maybe they will pave the path toward eventual success in creating a new species of home, one everybody on earth can embrace without dooming future generations.

The good news is that there are more and more people out there bringing the inside world into closer harmony with the outside world.  Ooam.  Ooam.  No, I don’t mean by focusing your chi or by feng shui or anything hocus pocus.  I simply mean it is time to start making homes out of our surroundings instead of trying to separate our homes from our surroundings.  It is so much more considerate and less huffy.

Hemp can provide an excellent start when it comes to building with more natural and less processed/refined materials.  Hemp is a natural and obvious contender for products such as siding, fiberboard, carpet, shingles, paint, curtains and as a component in cemeotious materials.  Think about theses products.  This is huge in the building world.  These are the sacred cows.  If we could use hemp to make concrete, roofing, walls, and flooring…

Well, the truth is that we can.  Hempcrete is already being used in multiple applications by mixing hemp, lime, sand, plaster, and cement.  I realize you still must use a certain amount of portland cement, but in much less quantities.  All of the above listed building materials are being made from hemp as we speak.  If only we could freakin’ grow the stuff on location or at least somewhere other than the occasional Native Reservation or Canada.

An acre of hemp can produce up to four times the amount of cellulose fiber pulp than an equal amount of trees.  That cellulose is the building block of modern construction.  If we could only start taking it from a more sustainable resource like hemp.

Too true Mr. Eldrenkamp, or can I call you Paul?  Well, Paul continues to talk about how “green building” is a red herring when it comes to making the sort of change we need to be sustainable — to continue living on the planet in such a way as our children and their children will also be able to live on the planet with great  and undue hardship and suffering.  Again, I totally agree.  But at the same time I live in Salt Lake City.  If I am to stop battling the outside world or biosphere I live in and relent a great deal to a life that is less of an affront to the natural world, I will freeze my ass off in the winter and roast in the summer.  Or I will move.

Here in lies the stinky diaper.  (Sorry, my kid just soiled his armor.)  We have spread out all over the earth, including into areas that can’t practically support us in a sustainable manner (i.e. Phoenix, New Orleans, New York and all the places that dawdle further North in latitude and that lie in deserts and, etc.).  This move has been made widely possible by modern buildings and the oil that backs them up.  Now we realize that our buildings are indeed an affront to nature and have spread like a virus all over the planet.  Hmmmm.

So how do we rethink our buildings in such a fundamental way as to be able to keep building them?  I am guessing most of us just won’t except the local equivalent of an igloo.  Or will we?  Fremont peoples dug underground dirt homes or Kiva like structures here in Utah a long time before it was Utah.  Some of these were pretty complex and pretty comfortable by today’s Granola standards.  Maybe it isn’t too much of a stretch to think about building structures from super adobes or sandbags and stone here in Utah.  Would we consider the communal orientation of these structures that so many ancients relied on?  Or will we just keep building “green” like city slicker teenagers being taken on their first snipe hunt by their rural wise cousins?

This one was build by Gary Zuker in the Texas hill country outside of Austin.

Here is a neat combination straw, cob, stone, wood, etc.  being built in NM by Clay and Straw.

And here is my favorite.  This one was built by Simon Dale in Wales.

There are endless possibilities.  If you have some great examples of creative use of materials in homebuilding let me see ‘em.

How can you get more sustainable than dirt?  Surely we could all build our houses from dirt and the earth wouldn’t mind.  Dirt is completely recyclable.  I will admit building with dirt has problems.  First off, it is labor intensive.  This makes building with dirt just as or more expensive than traditional stick building.  Unless you are a hippie living in the forest then it may not be practical to spend a year or two building your house by yourself so that it only cost you $10,000.

Second, building with dirt within city limits can be complicated.  Most states and cities have poor building codes when it comes to alternative materials.  This probably does not mean it is impossible for you to build with dirt in a city, but it does mean that it will be painful and slow.  Pioneers need to step out and make a way for the rest.  (I like what these guys are doing in California for starters.)

Even with these two limitations I think that earthen building has a future in Urban America.  Believe it or not, cities have been built on dirt.  The natural stuff is still down there if you are willing to dig it up.  America has need for employment right now, so why not earthen builders?  Not skilled labor, not high pay either.  And whatever happened to barn raising?  And planning departments?  Where there is a will, there is a way.  With some creativity to combine some of the best of modern construction, shipping containers and earth I think some bold individuals can lead Urban America to a better home of tomorrow.

First they are built from earthen materials, the outer walls being essentially rammed earth with wooden structures sometimes internally.  I am fascinated with earthen building materials because you just can’t get more sustainable.  Literally the whole world’s population could build their homes with dirt and the earth would be no worse for wear.

Secondly, they have stood the test of time.  Not only in the sense that the buildings have lasted for hundreds of years, but also people in China have continued to actively live in them and construct them up until the last 100 years.  Practically, they must have worked.  Not only did they succeed in providing defense from other warring clans, but there must have been more.

Lastly, the tulou were built to house entire clans.  Some of the ones still in use today house up to 600 people.  Yet in Western culture it is rare to even find a handful of extended family members under the same roof.  I myself live in an urban bungalow with my wife and child, but we have often sought ways to shake this formula up.  International students have lived under our roof, friends who needed a place to go, and students who I have worked with and shared life with.  But these arrangements have been temporary.  Should we be so ardent about our values for individualism and personal space?  Are these things the earned privilege of a wealthy and affluent culture?  Or are they blights on what would otherwise be a more meaningful and sustainable life?

What other residential models like the tulou are out there but withering in the brutal heat of modernity?  Can we take some lessons from the dying clan lifestyle of China?  Or at least build homes that we expect our children’s children to be able to come home to some day, if only for a visit.

EcoUrban Home for sale in St. Louis

But… there are still several hurdles that are plaguing the pursuit.  The most obvious to me is property prices.  EcoUrban is working in St. Louis.  With urban lots going for under $10,000, keeping the overall cost below $150,000 becomes possible.  But what if you don’t want to live in Detroit or Cleveland?

Second, there is labor.  I am encouraged to see more and more contractors and builders increasing their repertoire of green products and processes.  But still, paying for skills in more sustainable building practices can be cost prohibitive.  Some apparent “silver bullets” of sustainable building run into trouble with labor costs as well.  I am a personal fan of earthen building because the basic materials are dirt.  I have some basic building skills and a job that doesn’t pay much (so my labor is cheep).  But for most, it just isn’t affordable to pay people for hundreds of hours of labor to ram earth or lay adobes.

Third, there are materials.  It is still more costly to build smart than to build the “Home Depot Special”. (Home Depot is getting better about its products, and I am impressed that they are partnering with LEED to develop “Affordable LEED” housing.)  Of course some of this is simple supply and demand.  Until new products take over a significant market share they will be more expensive to produce and harder to find.  But even prefabricated modular style homes falter, in my opinion, when it comes to material cost.  In most cases it makes no sense to me to pay $50,000 to $100,000 for a modular shell that has to be transported to the sight, and then have to spend another $100,000 to various contractors to finish on location.  Often I feel like the true cost of the materials is still not being represented in the final price tag.  Yet, there are some people working to use actual sustainable materials and lower the prefab costs far enough to make modular a possibility.

Lastly, we have to overcome indifference toward the poor.  Mostly, the “green” building industy is focusing on making money.  I understand this, and at a certain level, endorse it.  But, if we are going to make a real move toward sustainability it can’t be just for the rich.

Personally, I think the answer to the $100 a sq. ft. dilemma lies deeper in the cultural values we use to define home and our deeply guarded individualism.  Maybe if we valued community and relationship in slightly different ways we could find answers to our housing woes without killing the planet.