Ever see an Amish barn-raising? It’s a human ant farm of activity wherein a collective of people meet for a limited time to rapidly erect a pre-planned building. Open Source Ecology (OSE) and Open Building Institute (OBI) have joined forces in a project that enables aspiring homeowners to do the same, anywhere.

Their project integrates open source hardware with ecofriendly modular design. A library of designs and rapid-build procedures allows users to build a 700 square foot “Expandable Starter Home” that costs about a tenth of what a typical new home would set you back. The basic design is energy-efficient and off-grid.

It’s loaded with ecological features, including an option for an aquaponic greenhouse which can produce all the fish and vegetables that a family needs. Build it all from raw materials in five days. And that “starter” building can easily be expanded based on user requirements. 

The Open Building Institute aims to make affordable housing widely available while fostering collaborative and ecological best practices. They offer a free catalog of building modules, including walls, windows, doors, roof, and utilities that can be combined to create studios, homes, multi-family houses, greenhouses, barns, workshops, schools, and offices.

OBI was co-founded by Catarina Mota and Marcin Jakubowski. She holds a Ph. D. in communication sciences and her research work focuses on the social impact of open and collaborative practices developing technologies. She is a founding member the Open Source Hardware Association and a TED fellow.  He holds a Ph. D. in fusion physics, and has been called an Innovation Stuntman, a Disruptive Hero, and a 2013 White House Champion of Change. He is also a TED fellow. 

Jakubowski (MJ) sat down for a question and answer session with writer Cat Johnson (CJ). Excerpts from that interview – shared with Green Prophet by Jakubowski – follow:

CJ: How did the Open Building Institute (OBI) come about? What need does it fill that is not available elsewhere?

MJ: My wife and I married in 2013 and moved from Brooklyn to the middle of nowhere – Missouri. She realized that our house we was simply too small. We called contractors, but found that what we wanted didn’t exist. We needed a comfortable house that didn’t cost a million dollars, that could be built quickly from local materials, and that could be expanded as we grow.

There was only one option: build it ourselves. So we did. We examined best practices then took our open source high power brick press and, through trial and error, developed a formula for rapid builds. With rapid builds, a big group of people builds a large number of modules in parallel and then assembles them rapidly into a building. We realized that, using these techniques, we could build an 800 square foot structure from scratch in just five days. So we decided to take it to the next level.

For a few years now we’ve been developing an open source toolkit that can make building a house easier, faster, and cheaper. We started a library of modules that can be put together like building blocks. We’re developing instructionals, including software and other tools to enable anyone to design and build using this system. Moreover, we’re creating a training program for our system so you can hire an OBI builder anywhere in the world.

We decided to build a solar-powered, replicable Materials Production Facility so you can use local materials wherever you are. Focusing on integrated, regenerative design, we are pursuing Living Building Challenge certification, which is the highest standard for regenerative construction. We are also developing a social model of production, where apprentices-in-training build the houses during immersion training workshops. Our combination of rapid build time, low-cost, regenerative features, user-generated design, and feasibility of both social production or commercial build models are not found in any other house offering. Our value proposition revolves around democratizing construction.

Why does open, low-cost, modular building make sense?

Because you can design and modify it yourself for your specific needs—or you can use existing designs. Open design means full access to use, distribute, modify, or sell the product, free of charge. Low cost makes sense, and modular housing can be built in an incremental fashion. Our standard model costs under $25,000 for materials for a 700 square foot, expandable Starter Home. But you can build a structure of any size.

The point of modular design is that you have access to design assets that have already been engineered in detail by others so you are able to create house designs that are fanciful, but also buildable. If you contribute your designs back to the common pool under a share-alike license (a requirement of using the OBI library) then access to quality designs increases with time. The whole ecosystem grows in value and service to humanity.

What type of designs are found in the library and why is the collaborative and distributed approach important?

The library now has around 20 structure and utility modules that we have built and tested over the last three years. The library includes materials, build processes, structural and utility modules, and entire house designs. June 29 marked the official launch of OBI. We will start accepting contributions to the library from the public as soon as we reach our funding goal. As people contribute and the library grows, the more valuable the system becomes.

Open source means that everyone is free to use, modify and redistribute the designs. How do you see the open source movement intersecting with the affordable, ecological housing movement?

Open source also means that you can learn more about building and get actively involved, as opposed to leaving it to others and accepting their choices without fully understanding them. This is important, since involved, knowledgeable, proactive citizens are the only thing that can change the world.

Open source means that innovation is unleashed. We are pursuing the extreme limit of both ecology and cost, as exemplified in our goal of attaining Living Building Challenge compliance while remaining affordable.  

There’s a focus on empowering non-professional builders with modules that can be easily and quickly built. Why is this important? Who do you see utilizing the library and Institute?

Empowering non-professionals to build increases access to housing as more people become able to build and to do so at lower cost. This is especially relevant with the tide of urbanization. It’s estimated that by 2030, out of the five billion people living in cities, two billion will be below the poverty line. This can be solved by incremental housing…only if we channel people’s own building capacity. We envision that DIY builders and startup entrepreneurs will be our early adopters and that some of our designs will be adopted by mainstream builders once the open source cost-to-performance advantage becomes clear.

Who contributed designs and are the designs tested or approved?

The current designs have been produced by Catarina Mota, project founder (shown with Jakubowski, below). We aim to have modules, materials, and house designs fully certified, with calculations and engineering approvals – including code compliance.

We will offer support in navigating building codes, and we will crowdsource location-based information on standards and requirements for locations around the world. We will encourage voluntary contributions of not only on module designs, but also on materials testing, product certification, code compliance, and engineering calculations. We will document testing protocols so that our products have an extra layer of transparency.

If everything goes well, what would you most like to see?

The average American pays $1.2 MIL over their lifetime just to secure their home. And 1.6 BIL people live without adequate housing. Housing is a basic need. We envision a world where everyone has access to housing without getting into debt; a future where regenerative housing helps to heal the environment by providing surplus food, energy, and fuel to its inhabitants; a world where housing contributes to the natural ecology of a place.

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The project launched this year, after a Kickstarter campaign successfully raised $115,860 with 1,902 backers. OBI plans to roll out a turnkey construction service in 2017. The project also aims to achieve Living Building Challenge certification next year, which is the highest standard for eco-construction.

The Open Building Institute is the culmination of several years of experiments building ecological, affordable housing at the couple’s farm in Missouri, USA. Their toolkit is open source and available free of charge—forever, with no exceptions—and includes a library of modular designs, instructionals, software, and open source machines (for construction and production of building materials). Users can also contribute designs to the project through the OBI Design Challenge.

Learn more at the OBI website (link here) where you can contribute ideas, and cash, to support the project. Open Source Ecology is developing the Global Village Construction Set which are 50 industrial machines for building civilization from scratch.

Watch Jakubowski’s 2011 Ted Talk on “Open Source Blueprints for Civilization”, link here. Then watch OBI change the world. Or better yet, help them do it.

Images from OBI

The post Build an ecological homestead for 1/10th the cost of a trad home! appeared first on Green Prophet.

Tucking into sushi at one of Amman’s rooftop restaurants; the sinking sun painting distant hills pinkish gold. The adhan – Islamic call to prayer – wafting on gentle breezes, and then came the barking, baleful and persistent, from a large dog chained to a pipe on a roof across the street. The black roof surface looked molten, and there was no water bowl or shade for the pup. It broke my heart and ruined my meal.

Soonafter, I read a story about architects designing bespoke housing for animals.

Their considered response to creature comfort is a prudent use of talent when global building remains largely stalled. It also demonstrates architecture’s finest qualities: sensitivity to inhabitants, to local environment, and to larger cultural context.

“As architects we try to think of things a little differently, for example, elevate the pigsty to another level,” said Keith Moskow, one of the architects behind Rolling Pig Pen. “Whether for a person or a pig, we are always asking how we can make an experience better,” his partner, Robert Linn, told Architectural Record.

Architecture is problem solving. Layer a design program with multiple requirements and generally produce more interesting solutions. These projects address shelter with a functionality, historical sensitivity and sustainability that matches (and exceeds) many projects for people. Designer Stephen Taylor said, “Every building is always part of something bigger.”

The Hive City competition challenged University of Buffalo architecture students to design a relocation solution for a honeybee colony discovered in a cluster of grain elevators. Elevator B, the winning solution (the bees were part of the selection committee), is a 22-foot high structure that evokes silos. Its perforated stainless steel cladding allows summer shading and winter solar gain. (Images above and below).

Beekeepers can lower and raise a glass-bottomed hive via pulley to check bee health in a non-intrusive way. This feature permits visiting schoolchildren to safely observe insect activity: the hive is used to raise awareness of colony-collapse disorder – the global decline in honeybee populations.

The bees were successfully relocated into the tower last June, and have been rapidly building new honeycomb.

An upsurge in urban farming prompted a boomlet in backyard chicken coops. Why not build a better hutch with sustainable features like solar-powered LEDs and green roofs?

“It is important to create beautiful spaces where people and animals can coexist in urban settings,” said designer Frederik Roijé, “so we don’t lose the connection to where poultry and eggs come from.”

His Breed Retreat, pictured above, is a luxury condo for urban birds. The pine structure consists of five boxes in a stepped formation, its massing responds to chicken natural “pecking order” wherein dominant birds occupy the highest roost levels.  Roof-mounted solar panels power interior lighting, tricking hens into thinking it’s always summertime, encouraging winter egg production.

Nogg (above) is an egg-shaped coop created by furniture designer and engineer Matthew Hayward, with partner Nadia Turan. A glass skylight opens for ventilation; the drawbridge can be raised and fox-proof latches secured to ensure a safe roost for up to four hens.

Made of sustainably sourced and pleasantly scented cedar, the wood’s antibacterial properties eliminates some of the odorous mess typically associated with chickens.

Rolling Pig Pen was born from Studio North, a six-day design-build program held on a Vermont farm, led by Boston architects Moskow Linn.  “The idea was to build an enclosure that could easily be moved, allowing pigs to both cultivate and fertilize a field,” said Moskow, “The pig’s life is better for the short time that it is.”

The structure is made of standard pine framing, and features a trough and additional feed storage, with a translucent fiberglass canopy to protect pigs from weather. The unit is mounted atop heavy-duty axles and wheels for easy transport.

London-based Stephen Taylor Architects created a cowshed as part of a revitalization of an historical English farm. They took an off-the-shelf steel-frame shed, clad it with an open-slat wood rainscreen, and added a colonnade of poured-in-place concrete made from stony clay dug from the site. The material references the estate’s other buildings made from locally sourced stone.

“On one level it’s just a cowshed. But every building has an obligation to its setting—it should not be unto itself,” said Taylor.

Good design frequently proves less expensive in the long-term, and solves problems beyond the initial design challenge.  Here in Jordan, where working animals compete with their human owners for scant resources, it is unlikely that owners will invest in designed farm structures for their beasts.

But is it too much to ask that they be given a bit of shade and a drink?

Images (in order of appearance) from © Hive City Design Team; Studio Frederik Roijé; Nogg;Moskow Linn; Stephen Taylor Architects; 

The post George Orwell Never Imagined These Deluxe Farms for Bees and Animals appeared first on Green Prophet.

A building in the Lower Galilee which showcases traditional architectural Arab styles with ecological benefits demonstrates that modern concerns can be resolved with ancient techniques

One of the most important things we need to do to tackle climate change is reduce the amount of energy we use. One way to do this is ensure buildings are better regulated so we don’t have to spend lots of money and energy either heating or cooling our homes and offices. However, this doesn’t mean we have to jump on the latest energy-efficiency technologies.

As an award-winning traditional Arabic building in the Lower Galilee shows (which we featured in our 2009 video), ancient building techniques can work just as well. Designed by Abed el-Rahman Yasin, a student of Hassan Fathy, the green building which is located in Sakhnin features 20 different energy saving features ranging from patios to cool the air, water features and mashrabiyas.

The building which was constructed using local materials is now used as an educational centre for green building technologies.

The building uses particularly efficient thermal insulation and low energy consumption. Indeed, soon after completion the building was awarded first prize in a competition on energy conservation in buildings by the Union of the Mediterranean. It also received a $130,000 grant to invest in a wind turbine and solar panels.

The use of traditional building designs had dwindled in recent times but there is an effort by some to ensure that useful techniques are not lost.

“The Arab sector today is less prone to use the traditional methods used by our fathers, but our objective is to restore those methods,” said Hussein Tarabeih (who we’ve featured in our video here), of the Town Association of Beit Natufa.

“Our fathers were right,” continues Tarbiye. “Just look at the old mosques and palaces without electricity. They are still very tempered.”

Some of the central features of Arab architecture include patios and water features which are really useful in regulating heat and cooling the building during long, hot, summer days.

Cooling towers which consist of tall windows in chimneys are also important and help circulate air a little bit like air conditioners do. And domes function in a similar way by allowing hot air to rise and keeping base temperatures lower.

::Ynet News

For more on traditional green buildings see:

The Mashrabiya House Beats the Heat with Traditional Arabic Technique

The Epitome of Sustainable Architecture: 700 Year-Old Iranian Cave Homes

Ancient Nabatean Wisdom to Push Back Desertification Today

The post Arab Building Showcases Traditional Green Architecture appeared first on Green Prophet.

Through his free movie First Earth David Sheen is passing on the positive transformation that occurred in his life after learning about ecological architecture.  

When David Sheen first decided to make a film that depicts the history, necessity, and straight-up sensibility of ecological architecture, he had no idea what a massive task he had set for himself. It took four years to scout out both ancient and contemporary natural homes on four continents and hundreds of hours of footage to create First Earth – Uncompromising Ecological Architecture.

Remarkably, the Canadian-born Israeli designer and reporter has never sought fame or fortune. Instead, he hopes to pass on to everyone, regardless of their demographic, the positive transformation that learning about healthy homes has created in his life. First Earth has been translated into 12 different languages and costs absolutely nothing to watch. This is not a trick – we promise.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFTwnTbLPBU[/youtube]

Pursuing a more meaningful life

Sheen explained in a Skype interview with Green Prophet that he moved to Tel Aviv from Canada in 1999 and worked as a Graphic Designer. In time the conventional consumer lifestyle in Tel Aviv lost its meaning and he sought out a new place to pursue a healthier, more natural lifestyle.

“Kibbutz Lotan really appealed to me on a gut level,” he said.

A decade ago, Kibbutz Lotan in Israel’s Negev desert – now a world-famous center for all things ecological – was just beginning to experiment with green building projects. Sheen was lucky to be among the first on this exciting new scene.

After six months of building healthy homes at the Kibbutz, he then decided to return to Canada to deepen his knowledge and pursue a Masters in Architecture at the University of Toronto.

Learning the ropes in the United States

But it became apparent very quickly that Sheen’s ideas were too unconventional for the University’s industrial architecture curriculum, so he enrolled at the North American School of Natural Building in the United States instead.

“It was amazing,” he said. But it wasn’t easy. Sheen had to adjust to living in Oregon’s dense, wet forests and to building with his own hands and feet. Then he did an apprenticeship with a leading ecological building firm called TSUI Design.

It was while he was traveling up and down the west coast to visit other natural homes that Sheen began to document what he was learning. “Most people who were involved with natural building didn’t know how to disseminate their knowledge using modern technology,” he explained. So he decided to bridge the gap between these two worlds – seemingly at odds with each other.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoSdnMEhRa0[/youtube]

Telling the whole story

He traveled to Ghana, Ethiopia, England, Europe, and Yemen, where he witnessed first hand the incredible “Manhattan of the Desert” mud towers that have survived hundreds of year, among other places, to gather material for his film.

“I’m a perfectionist,” he said. “I wanted to tell the whole story.” And that is exactly what he has done in the most comprehensive cinematic overview of earth architecture – from its origins to its future – that we have seen.

Sheen is not independently wealthy and had very little funding to make this incredible resource available to the wider public. But he did receive a lot of help from friends and others – a little bit of money here, a few airline miles there, and time.

“They believed in what I was doing,” he said.

First Earth demonstrates that using local, renewable building materials with a low carbon footprint and intelligent design to reduce energy requirements is not only good for “eco-freakos” – everyone can benefit from this knowledge. And we have done for thousands of years.

12 Chapters from the heart

There are 12 chapters, beginning with What’s Wrong With Architecture. Sheen unravels the evolution of architecture from the ancient, sustainable model to the contemporary industrial model that usurps far too many natural resources.

He then moves on to depict examples of African and American natural buildings before proceeding to European, Arabian, Urban, and International earth projects. There are several other chapters in between that are very easy to follow thanks to handy sub titles.

Anyone interested in earth bag construction, building with cob, or any other kind of natural building materials and methods should visit David Sheen’s website and enjoy – one chapter at a time – a project that was compiled with a whole lot of heart.

:: David Sheen

More on Ecological Architecture From the Middle East:

13 Principles of Sustainable Architecture From Nader Khalili Student

Iranian Architect Nader Khalili Built Earth Architecture Fit for Space

Woman Builds Off-Grid Earth Bag Home for Just $3,761

The post Free Movie: First Earth – Uncompromising Ecological Architecture appeared first on Green Prophet.