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GBlist: Rant: Strawbale



I don't get it.  All this discussion about strawbale seems to me to fall
into the category of *penny wise/pound foolish*.  The pattern of
development that supports strawbale is at best suburban sprawl and at worst
exurban creep.

How do we make the megurban areas of NY, Paris, Tokyo sustainable, much
less Cairo, Calcutta, and New Haven or Bridgeport?  How are we going to
deal with all these people?

The strawbale/earthship model reminds of the various back-to-the-land
utopian efforts throughout American history which seem more about turning
away from technological trauma than about solving problems.  Someone here
mentioned Thoreau living in the forest; he lived in a glade of trees
minutes away from his cohoorts.

My suggestion is to use part of this forum as a charette for pulling
together the various modalities and direct efforts to megurban problems and
solutions.  It is not an issue of asking for *free* design services.  Its a
matter of having a framework onto which to connect up expertise and ideas.

A couple of problems:

-*- At the beginning of the list, I floated out the problem of a small
darkroom.  No takers.  The problem has, in a very manageable scale, issues
of air quality, water quality, chemical disposal, electrical sheilding and
tempering, and even the appropriateness of the endeavor.  I offer it again
as a problem area to discuss.

-*- We will be renting / buying a loft in NYC.  What kind of systems can be
brought to bear within a very space-confined envirnoment?  Grey water?
Lighting systems?  Add-ons to the ubiquitous steam heat system?  Air
cooling?  Air conditioning?  Waste management?  Insulation?  Window
systems?  I would be happy to provide a floor plan of a small 700 sf loft
which we did *not* get.

Any takers?

amos





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