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Re: GBlist: Rant: Strawbale



John:

Excellent response.  You have brought to light some of the underlying
questions.

The questions remain:  is this an appropriate activity; and what systems
are available to mitigate small-scale actiivities such as these?

Appropriateness:

I know full well that I am dumping chemicals down the drain.  Balance this
against my *need* to make expressions.  Should my aesthetics be limited,
when this is a process that bests suits my expressions? 

Systems:

It's a truism of the landfills that one of the top five sources of
contaminants is left over paint thrown away.  This points to the
disasterous effect of the accumulation of small events.  As you pointed out
at the end of your response,

>You can define, based on the list of
>chemicals used strategies for dealing with potential problems, you can
>even refine the design to allow for recycling of materials, etc.

Can anyone give any help in coming up with strategies?


At 12:05 AM 5/17/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I don't know where to begin. Terry's comments summed up my general
>response to the more philosophical edge of your enquiry so maybe I can
>deal with some of the more specific aspects. I'm not sure if a darkroom
>or 700 sq. ft loft is an appropriate model for addressing modalities of
>sustainability of megurban areas. I lived in enough 5 floor walkups east
>of A to think that their might be some more significant models to choose
>from. So the first issue I would deal with is "appropriateness of
>endeavour" for darkrooms.
>DARKROOMS
>Darkrooms deal with toxic chemicals that have the potential to
>contaminate both their immediate environment (the darkroom itself) and
>can migrate via air, water, transfer of materials (clothing etc.) with
>the potential of disrupting other environments. (anecdote: a friend of
>mine is critically ill because the air in his office came from a
>crawlspace that an adjacent darkroom had been venting into). The
>construction materials that make up a room that contains darkroom
>equipment will become contaminated and might at some point become toxic
>in themselves which brings up issues of future use of the area or
>disposal of those materials. You can define, based on the list of
>chemicals used strategies for dealing with potential problems, you can
>even refine the design to allow for recycling of materials, etc. 
>In the context of 'megurban' issues of environment and sustainablility
>the basic question of appropriateness that comes up for me is:
>Should darkrooms or similar 'private unregulated' chemical processing
>facilities be allowed without adequate safeguards?
>Or more simply, how could somebody in good conscience build a chemical
>processing facility (however small) in a city or the country without
>thinking and preparing for all the consequences of their activity.
>If this seems too extreme then I don't understand the point of the
>enquiry.
>I'm curious - was this 700sq. ft.loft once low income housing and if it
>was where did everyone move to?
>
>John
> 
>
>White Crow / RSDC wrote:
>> 
>> 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
>> 
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by Oikos (www.oikos.com)
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>> send e-mail to greenbuilding-request@crest.org.
>> __________________________________________________________________
>Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\vcard2.vcf"
>

__________________________________________________________________
This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by Oikos (www.oikos.com)
and Environmental Building News (www.ebuild.com). For instructions
send e-mail to greenbuilding-request@crest.org.
__________________________________________________________________


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