Making Bricks

[SVrunner]

Check out clean green enery saving web site.

[onearmedbandit]

Moving thread to appropiate forum.

[bugjuice]

you wanna know how many times I miss the 'B' in the title for a P.. what's goin on?!

[onearmedbandit]

...Of course certain African tribes have been building and using adobe bricks for a numbers of years using mud and straw... (shit is no good - it decomposes)

Last time I was in Japan I caught a travel program on tv where they travelled to somewhere in the Middle East, not sure exactly where as I can't read Japanese and understand very little of the spoken language. Anyway this city they visited was heavily populated but contained in a very small area. So they had to build up, and what looked like a mass building development of apartments from a distance was actually buildings between 5-9 stories tall constructed of mud and straw! They mixed the two together until a certain consistancy was attained, then baked them in the sun in a wooden box mold.

There were very few straight edges to be seen, and if they felt the need they would build skyways from one building to another! Inside they varied from dark small rooms through to majestically painted dining, sleeping, and prayer rooms. It was very basic still, they had electricity (ceiling fans, lights) but very little in the way of plumbing. The toliet was a sectioned off part of the kitchen, with just a open drain running off it. You should've seen the Japanese female prestenters reaction.

A city of mud and straw.

[pyrocam]

concrete will be my first medium but later on I will probably use something more 'eco friendly' for the hippy commune up north that my landlord lives at

[Colapop]

The reason adobe bricks work so well in countries like that is that they are very lightweight (straw) and kept very dry, which stops the straw from decomposing too quickly. Have you looked into rammed earth walls? Very eco friendly and there are approriate building standards available (lessens the adminstrative expense).