The future of green building depends on what comes out of our soil.
TreeHugger Melissa tells us that it is World Soil Day, and quotes the Soil Science Society of America:
But they miss an important function of soil: it is the foundation of the factories that are the future of green building, the plants that make the materials we should be using if we are going to
In our celebration of soil, here is a roundup of our posts on building out of natural materials that grow in our soil.
Why we should be building out of sunshine
That is what building out of wood and natural materials essentially is: Carbon, water and sunlight.
A quote from Bruce King’s new book, The New Carbon Architecture:
What happens when you design with Upfront Carbon Emissions in Mind?
You do a lot of things differently from the way we do them today, and rethink everything from Tulips to Teslas.You would replace concrete and steel with materials with far lower upfront carbon emissions wherever possible. That means using a lot more wood and not building so tall. Wood works best at medium densities; higher buildings tend to become hybrids with more concrete and steel.
Can Cross-Laminated Timber save the world?
Anthony Thistleton makes a persuasive case in a new book, 100 Projects UK CLT, He writes:
Is cork the perfect green building material?
It’s all natural, renewable, healthy and has zero embodied carbon. What’s not to love?
In so many ways this is really the perfect insulation, the perfect building material. It lasts forever; this pile of cork is recycled from a 50-year-old industrial cooler. It is totally natural and has an embodied carbon of almost zero. It is healthy, free of flame retardants. It is sound-absorbing, antibacterial and easy to install. We need to build and rebuild millions of housing units, but we need to do it in a way that doesn’t cause a big carbon burp from concrete and plastics. We need healthy materials that don’t cost the earth. That means using more wood and more natural materials like cork. It means being willing to pay a premium for materials with all these benefits.
Reduce embodied carbon with hemp insulation batts from NatureFibres
They should rename the town of Asbestos after this stuff.
The world is changing; we have to rapidly change the way we build and convert to regenerative materials that store carbon. Hemp insulation is one of those materials.
There is much more of course, from mushroom insulation to cellulose to straw bale. We have even shown bark shingles. They are all made from plants that grow in soil. It is truly our future, and that is worth thinking about on World Soil Day.
