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[…] « Towards 1000 Global Villages – Factor e Live Distillations – Part 1 […]
Hello:
I was introduced to your project by Ben DeVries. I met Ben at a conference in San Francisco. I am thrilled to see a group like yours trying to build global villages May I request you to visit my web site http://www.technologyforthepoor.com to view some of the technologies that I promote. For example, instead of making bricks you can use the raammed earth technique. I built at a prison in New Mexico (Los Lunas) a studio apartment using rammed earth technique. As you know the adobe construction is the choice the Spaniards and Indians. At first they were skeptical about rammed earth but when they saw how much less time and labor it requires compared to adobe construction they were convinced. I also built a house in India with loose rice straw. You can view it on my web site.
I have also developed a Dual Purpose Bicycle which can be used for both transportation. You can also see this device on my web site as well as on http://www.youtube.com by typing in the search box Dual Purpose Bicycle. This entry won me the finalists status
I also feel that due to lack of land for the city poor and for soil and water conservation, we sould look at growing at least vegetables in containers. Once again some of the urban gardens I established can be seen on my web site.
I would like to be a part of your movement.
Hello Job – good work, and please tell me more about Rammed Earth. We chose the CEB in particular because Rammed Earth requires much more infrastructure and labor compared to CEB. For one, you have heavy forms. Two, you need to tamp. Both are tasks of heavy labor – and the CEB technique eliminates both of these labor steps. Is it true that the CEB is much more effective, or are we wrong in our thinkning here? So far, the CEB has proven to us – from our prototype workshop building – to be exceptionally robust and quick as a building method – assuming that effective soil loading is achieved with a large hopper.
Hey Marcin,
What you guys are working on is certainly one of the most exciting projects and works that i have come across. I will do whatever i can to help support your great work. Also agree with job’s comment on landlessness, it is a huge problem for people in gaining self reliance. Obviously the urban poor have fewer choices in building and growing techniques, creative water filtration growing combo systems are amongst the best small space container growing systems ive come across. They provide water filtration, high output fruit and veggie growing in small spaces, and fish or shrimp production, just a side note.
I would also be happy to support you in your movement however i can, good luck in the adventure hope to see you guys soon.
-Aaron
http://www.growingpower.org/
http://www.oceanarks.org/index.php
two groups doing cool stuff with water filtration and produce growing.
Also one more question, any thoughts Marcin on monolithic domes as possible housing options, certainly more labor intensive then CEB or rammed earth i would imagine but it does produce an extremely solid and energy efficient building.
—-
Aaron – read the comments at Lifetime Design Buildings at 43 Cents Per Square Foot.
An interesting route to monolithic domes could be a large pile of dirt dug up with LifeTrac, the open source tractor – which serves as a form on which the ferrocement can be laid. This avoids the large inflatable bubble typically used in these adventures. This would work well for small studios/living quarters. It would be better yet if the cement was baked from onsite limestone. As far as rebar, we hope to be casting and rolling it from scrap steel by year end.
Last year, we proved that we could do Factor 10 engineering – cost reduction by a factor of 10. This year, we aim to prove that ‘recasting civilization at the cost of scrap metal‘ is a viable option. This may assist in recovery from Great Depression II. -Marcin
Marcin:
Thank you very much for your comments. Rammed earth is definitely labor intensive but it requires no energy from fossil fuels nor does it generate any pollution. Some of the prisoners at Los Lunas Correcional Center in New Mexico challenged me to prove that they can build a wall with adobe (mud bricks) quickly than rammed earth technique. So I asked to groups to build one wall with adobe and another with rammed earth technique. The group that chose rammme earth completed their wall in less than half of the time that it took to build the adobe wall. It convinced them that rammed earth is quicker than adobe construction. You can go to google and get some information about rammed earth construction. People with no access to machinery to make CEB can utlize this technique.
I would also like to get your comments on the rice straw building that I built in India. After seeing this construction technique that you can see on my web site http://www.technologyforthepoor.com , please let me know your comments on this technique. You can use all these techniques in your model farm,
We must also look at the urban agriculture using feed sacks, used tires and other containers that can be recovered from our waste stream for urban gardens.
I would like your members to post their comments on these simple and low cost techniques.
I appreciate your comments. If you are in the US, I would like to meet you in person and discuss these technologies.
Housing can be built in a variety of ways. Straw may be great for arid zones. I’m not sure it has a proven track record in moist conditions.
We did a small vestibule addition from straw, plastered over with straw-clay-agricultural lime mortar – and quite similar to your work. It’s dirt cheap. It is quite labor intensive to do proper sealing – and as of today – we still don’t have a well-sealed structure. Now that we have the CEB press – we don’t intend to return to straw construction.
If stabilized properly for insects and rodents, the straw can be a great natural insulator – in straw-filled double CEB walls. We may try this – an analogous process to ‘blown cellulose insulation’ using local materials. We are looking for some effective route to insulation. Compressed biomass-earth blocks are are present choice – given that this could be done rapidly with our machine.
We are in the Kansas City area, come down to visit. As far as helping – are you in a position to find someone who can support the 1000 Squared campaign in any of your networks?
I’m really glad you guys are working towards a sustainable future, but it seems to rely heavily on technology. It’s just my opinion but all of these machines and tools may make the task they’re designed for easier, having to go to the trouble of learning about them, building them, and then maintaining them almost makes them equivalent to what one could do with simpler tools.
I hate to sound as if I’m dismissing your work because I think it’s really cool. I just get the feeling your making these things to see if you can and aren’t asking if you should.
For instance, the rototiller you have listed. Tilling is ok for initially loosening the soil, but it kills soil life, reduces humus and organic matter, and generally isn’t necessary if once you initially loosen the soil you avoid compacting it again. Simpler tools like a broadfork can be used to loosen the soil, and although it may take some time it’s much less destructive to the soil and would only have to be done once if maintained and designed properly.
Anyway, I don’t want to discourage you because you’re clearly incredibly bright people and you’re hearts are in the right place as well. I wish you the best of luck.
-James
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Count me in.
A little network promotion, here. For those interested in cityscape approaches to comprehensive planning that incorporate the open source perspective bookmark our http://fresnointegral.com . We use a lot of the models from http://integralcity.com .
This work is important. If anyone wants to know why, please feel free to ask me. I am always available for a relevant discussion.
Alex, please give the us an overview of what makes the Fresno Integral an important program. What is the essence of the approach, and how does it deliver results?
The program appears to focus on an essential endpoint that we discuss at Factor e Farm – ‘becoming integrated humans’. Our approach to this is learning all the skills to be extremely productive as humans.
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Would like to contribute 10.00 a month using checks or money orders..I do not like using credit cards Is there a way for me to do this..
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I awoke on a Sunday morning and turned on the radio to listen to NPR before crawling out of bed.
The program introduced Marcin and the Global Village Construction Set and Open Source Ecology.
I literally leaped from bed. I realized that I had finally found an organization that shares my
enthusiasm and passion to innovate grassroots machinery on existing technology with resources
readily available to any person, anywhere. I knew I wanted to be part of this project. I read and
watched everything, everywhere I could on OSE and GVCS and I became even more devoted to this organization.
I joined the 1000 True Fans program knowing that although I live in the desert of Arizona my monthly
contributions to OSE will ensure that the Global Village Construction Set will succeed and with all of
our input will ensure that for people like myself who have become enslaved to the rat race of paying the mortgage, making the utility payments and paying for groceries can soon have benefit from the GVCS to
start our own small hamlets to create our own housing, build our own machinery, generate our own power and grow our own produce and sustenance and start living to better mankind. Thank you for your work and I am proud to say that I am a True Fan of Open Source Ecology.