October 10, 2007 at 3:42 pm (Architect, Design, Ecology, General, Strawbale building)
Tags: Architect, Bokrijk, Economics, Straw bales, Strawbale building, Tradition
At a party of friends of ours, we met R, a friend of friends. You know, one of these people you meet once in a while. A small detail about this person, R is an architect.
Of course we’re not the kind of people that will start talking about our own building project. Our friends did that for us. ‘These are the people that will be building that ecological strawbale building’, they said enthusiastically. The reaction of our friend the architect was a real bummer: ‘I wouldn’t want to do that,’ he said. When we asked him if he knew about the principles of strawbale building he referred to Bokrijk, a famous historical site in Belgium. What can we say?
This guy took care of the retrofitting of our friends home. He did a fine job, that’s true. But when our friends asked about some ecological solutions like a solar hot water system, he simply didn’t plan it, presuming people are not willing to pay for such things. They had to tell him twice the really wanted it. I think that’s weird. Isn’t the architect supposed to work for his client?
One of his (and other architects) ideas is that modern materials and solutions were not invented just like that. They must for sure be better that old materials and technical solutions. So why use a method from a hundred years ago?
Maybe because that evolution in building materials hasn’t always been inspired by improving the quality, but improving the economical feasability. Mass products are easier to produce and sell. Take ordinary bricks. Ages ago they were simply dried in the sun. But that takes time and a dry climate. So why not bake them? It’s faster and you can do that all the time.
The end result is a brick that loses some of the good qualities of sundried bricks. Baked bricks cannot keep as much warmth as sundried ones. And they don’t regulate humidity nowhere near as efficiently.
Well, architects, they’re a curious breed. As another friend of ours, an architectural photographer, once said: all these modern houses look exactly the same because most often the architect arrives with a truckload of design furniture to make the house look good. They simply toss the existing furniture aside for the photoshoot. No wonder that all these buildings look alike.
But we’ll do things differently. That’s a promise.
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May 27, 2007 at 12:58 pm (Design, Earthships, Ecology, General)
Tags: Building, Earthships, Ecological, Environment, Regulations, Sustainable, Waste
Love at first sight? The waaw feeling? Take a look at the ‘Earthship’…
A sustainable and environmental friendly house, that takes care of it’s inhabitants independently. A selfsufficient home that is in no way connected to the grid (watersupply, electricity, sewage,..).
Photovoltaic solarpanels, windturbines and catching and reusing rainwater make the earthship entirely selfsustainable. By applying materials like used tires, glass bottles, aluminum cans and scraps of wood, this building technique minimizes waste issues.
Another great benefit of the earthship is that you can grow vegetables, fruits and herbs in the built in greenhouse. With the beautiful curves and shapes of the buidling, it is really love at first sight.
One BIG problem: nobody ever got a permit for this sort of building in Belgium. And as regulations are getting tighter, we see the chances of that happening diminishing. A friend of ours working for the building regulation thinks we don’t have much chance of getting a permit in Belgium. That’s too bad.
But we keep a bit of hope. In a few countries in Europe people are building earthships. Oscar and Lisa have a project in Spain, a demonstration earthship has been built in Brighton (England) and Fife (Scotland). There is an earthship being built in Ger (France). And a few people in the Netherlands are working on it. So the earthship concept seems to be spreading from America where it all started to Europe. So maybe, one day in Belgium too?
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May 27, 2007 at 12:52 pm (Design, General, Land, Plans, Strawbale building)
Tags: Budget, Building, City, Country living, Dreams, Environment
For a number of years we’ve been talking about moving. That always happens in the summer. During the winter season we like living in the city. You know, shops around the corner, the zoo nearby, shoppingstreets in the neighbourhood, that kind of thing. But in the summer we get that itch. And with the children it has become worse.
I want, well, i would like a house in the country. Complete with a vegetable garden, chickens, an orchard, a yurt or gipsywagon, a swimming pond and a fire place. Not bad those wishes of ours.
After a while searching for such a house, we’ve come to the conclusion that it is impossible to find it. Or rahter, not with the budget we have. To cut a long story short, we’ve discovered that most houses are too ugly, too small, too expensive or need far too much work.
So, what remains? Building!
But we don’t like regular stuff, yeah? 
As far as Arq – environmentalist to the bone – is concerned, building is not done. Except when building a really ecologically sound dwelling. So that’s what we’re aiming for!
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