Eco-House (i) Strawbale + Palette Truss

mA received project management training in the construction of Strawbale Housing and the processes involved in the design and building of eco-houses that re-use natural elements to provide sustainable living in a harsh climate. The project was carried out in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for Worldhandsproject, a wonderful organisation run by inspirational architect and eco-inventor Alfred von Bachmyer. Straw is a huge waste product in the US and so purchasing the 18" x 12" bales was a cheap way of obtaining material to make walls from. Palettes picked up from around the neighbourhood, bought for a less dollar each, were quickly dissassembled to be fitted into a truss system to carry a sheet metal roof. The roof was one of only a few of high embodied energy materials (others were rock-board for internal ceiling, concrete for foundation and rebar for stability) used to harvest any rainwater which fell throughout the year for reuse with domestic functions such as washing or bathing. Juarez has a harsh climate with less than 6 inches of rainfall a year so water is a precious commodity.

The strawbale walls are held firm using metal rebar which is tied inside and out and fixed to a bond-beam at the top of the walls; these ties are then looped through a shallow but necessary concrete foundation underneath the walls. Pallette trusses are then fixed to the bond beam and stabilised across themselves with spare wood. The sheet metal is then fixed to the trusses.

The material applied to the walls is called Cob. It is a hand mixed concoction of straw, sand, clay and water and is mixed often by stomping around in a tribal fashion! This Cob, starting with a viscous mixture, is applied by hand to the strawbale walls and continues until the whole wall is flush straight with an even plaster-like finish. In particular, the detailing around the windows is soft and aesthetically very pleasing. A natural wheat-based lime finish is then painted onto the Cob walls to give a stunning white-washed finish to the building.

mA were in discussions with Worldhandsproject regarding systems that in the future could be implemented to provide even more recycling of waste and water to fertilise fruit-tree gardens and composting crop beds. The self-contained allotment of the future perhaps necessary in an age where the Earth's natural resources are being exploited so carelessly?

Good intentions and a dwindling population...

In the 1930’s the population of Glasgow peaked at about 1.1 million people, and for the following fifty years or so remained above one million. However, during the 1960’s the population of Glasgow began to decline, dropping to about 600,000 inhabitants by the start of the new millennium. This was due in part to the major relocation of people to ‘New Towns’ and Glasgow’s peripheral developments, which happened after the clearance of slums and poverty stricken areas such as ‘the Gorbals’. This wholesale break up of deep-rooted communities led to the rise of suburban ‘anti-places’, such as Robroyston. These endless swathes of suburban housing took hold and continue to spread uncontrollably outward, destroying the green belt surrounding the city. If this tumour is not diagnosed swiftly and intelligently then we could potentially end up covering the countryside in a two-storey crust of mediocre cul-de-sacs and not much else. 

Critical Humdrum

Critical Humdrum is focused upon the tensions between the physicality of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter and it’s social architectures, and how these tensions shape the experience of everyday life for locals. It is a key-based map describing mundane yet critical places, which contribute to a social and survivalist topographical depiction of the area. Designed to bring you on an alternative tour of points and nodes around the area, the map will highlight unspoken activities and their locations. Playfully between fact and fiction, the user is drawn to find the extraordinary in the street corners such as the discovery of Accidental Architectural Genius, Drug Exchange Points, Important Pubs, Semtex Stores, Outdoor Disco locations, an MI5 Bunker and suggested places to shack up for the night if one is penniless.

Suburbs in the Sky

This video is a 2 minute snapshot of a larger mA work looking at the rapid construction happening in the Middle East. Filmed in Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi the work is shot from rooftops and half-finished tower blocks. The footage asks the questions 'who is building the Middle East?', as it borrows portraits of the immigrant workers. The film examines the reality of a sky-high suburbia, sold as a western vision to potential buyers and points out the experimental architectural playground the Middle East has become for it's kings.

the garden is where the soul is...

The empty space surrounding an object can be shaped and manipulated so as to draw out a form that has existed within all along. Consider a block of clay on a sculptor's bench; he removes the clay releasing the thing that only he knows exists inside. By considering what we take away we eventually come to the solution. The empty space on a building site is the clay that we remove, with every concrete block, partition wall, cladding system or pitched roof we implement. These are the negative spaces of a building, the dead or lost spaces within a wall or roof. 

Lifestyle will occur only where it is allowed to flow freely. Therefore the open space that surrounds and penetrates through any built structure is far more important than its solid mass. Public space shouldn't be the residual component or the remainder of an unbalanced equation left behind by a careless architect or designer. The spaces between buildings are more important than the buildings themselves. 

If home is where the heart is, and the schools, galleries & museums are where the mind is; then the gardens, parks & public spaces are where the SOUL is. A person's soul is often considered subjectively and is not normally for the concern of those who deal purely with science and mathematics. As an architect is placed equally between the two camps of science and the arts it is perhaps important to consider the soul of a building or space, and ultimately of course our own one. As with the previous definition of the heart, the first part of the dictionary definition of a soul is the most important and relevant when discussing the development of our cities. According to it's meaning (as the centre of our personality, intellect, will, emotions etc), it is our soul 's capacity that is the limiting factor to the activity of our heart and mind and determines the kind of person we are. If a space can help our soul to flourish then it has the power to enhance our personalities increasing our intellect, our will and our ability to display our emotions. Disregarding what personal prejudices we may have about the existence of a person's soul, if a space can do this for us then it is surely deserving of our full attention. I am therefore convinced that these kind of spaces that help invigorate our souls are of the greatest developmental importance and are the kind of spaces I we like to explore. 

"The political theorist Michael Walzer has classified urban space into two distinct groups; 'single-minded' and 'open-minded' spaces… The residential suburb, the housing estate, the business district, the industrial zone, the car park, underpass, ring-road, shopping mall, even the car itself provide 'single-minded spaces. But the busy square, the lively street, the market, the park, the pavement café are 'open-minded'. When we are in the first type of spaces we are generally in a hurry, but in the 'open-minded places we are readier to meet people's gaze and to participate. Both categories have a role to play in the city. Single-minded spaces cater to our very modern craving for private consumption and autonomy. They are very efficient, in those terms. In contrast, 'open-minded' places give us something in common: they bring diverse sections of society together and breed a sense of tolerance, awareness, identity and mutual respect."- cities for a Small Planet.

At this time of world wide financial conflict it is of great importance to understand ways of bringing people together and how to get the best out of humanity and its communities. Perhaps it is our cities and their 'open-minded' public spaces that can set the stage for this social regeneration/realignment.

home is where the heart is...

"The 'minimum existence' does not bring happiness, whatever the situation. So let us concentrate our means on certain points, even if in doing so we create a single moment of sensuality, of well-being; that is better that sinking the lot in a mediocre middle-class house." 

"What is at stake is far from insignificant; it is how one should live one's life". 

What is a city? Foremost it is a place where we strive to live…not just exist. It is where we would like to make our home. Home is where the HEART is. What is the importance of this? 

"heart n 1 a hollow muscular organ whose contractions pump the blood throughout the body 2 this organ considered as the centre of emotions, esp. love. 3 tenderness or pity: my heart went out to her. 4 courage or spirit. 5 the most central part or important part: at the heart of Italian motor racing. 6 (of vegetables, such as cabbage) the inner compact part. 7 the breast: she held him to her heart. 8 a shape representing the heart, with two rounded lobes at the top meeting in a point at the bottom. 9 a a red heart-shaped symbol on a playing card. b a card with one or more of these symbols or (when pl) the suit of cards so marked. 10 break someone's heart to cause someone to grieve very deeply esp. by ending a love affair. 11 by heart by memorizing. 12 have a change of heart to experience a profound change of outlook or attitude. 13 have one's heart in one's mouth to be full of apprehension, excitement, or fear. 14 have the heart to have the necessary will or callousness (to do something): I didn't have the heart to tell him. 15 set one's heart on something to have something as one's ambition. 16 take heart to become encouraged. 17 take something to heart to take something seriously or be upset about something. 18 wear one's heart on one's sleeve to show one's feelings openly. 19 with all one's heart deeply and sincerely. If we consider the home as where the heart is, or rather the home as if it were a heart; then we can draw out its importance from this provocative description. The first and perhaps most literal part of the definition is the most relevant in terms of the theoretical city. The heart organ draws deoxygenated blood into its chambers replenishing the haemoglobin with oxygen molecules (oxy haemoglobin) then pushing it back out into the living body. The home has the same function spiritually; first welcoming and embracing, then comforting and nurturing, finally it should be purposeful and inspiring (for our own benefit and that of the city)."

Continuing with the comparison of architectural theory with a cinema…a film house continually changes the movie it screens. As designers we should retain in our minds that a building's function and its occupants will also change periodically. The buildings that occur in between the open public spaces where we exist need to form an unrestrictive backdrop to our lives allowing us freedom in our ever-changing activities. Mistakenly architects continue to impose their own formulaic and repressive lifestyle/regime/utopia on a building form (and ultimately the surrounding public/private space) in the shape of façade design...

glorious TECHNICOLOR

"Architecture has perhaps not so much need to be looked at (except by visiting architects). All of which makes me think that the first ecological act for us architects is without doubt to integrate our work with real life." 

Good architecture needs to perform as a projectionists screen at the cinema. This screen should allow for a motion picture to be projected reflected or cast upon it in its own full glorious Technicolor with each individual stroke of light passing freely over it. A film could never be enjoyed as it was intended if the viewing screen was coloured or detailed in a way as to obstruct, distort or disrupt the moving pictures. This same principle should be applied to architectural form. How can lifestyle occur at any kind of optimum if it is being obstructed, distorted or disrupted by unnecessary and superficial colour, pattern or style?

micro-evolve

"If modernity requires that we replace rather than repair, this will have costly ecologically unsound consequences. So we should work instead with materials that are easy to maintain, easy to convert and easy to repaint. We should offer people the opportunity of remodeling their homes."

We need a progressive formula that as its variables change, continually and constantly rebalances itself. Designing buildings that can be 'remodeled' easily by their new occupants means that we no longer require the intrusive and expensive building process to occur. By designing for and implementing an overall system that will function for eternity we remove the need to replace. The spaces that occur (deliberately) can breathe and evolve as the people that exist there do. Architects should eventually work themselves out of a job…

it's worse to stand back and do nothing, than to make some honest mistakes...

A good architect or designer should solve problems, not create them; also he should care deeply and indiscriminately. "The circles of incompetence (in Dante's hell)..are devoted to those who sinned less by deliberate choice of evil than by failure to make resolute choice of the good. Here are the sins of the self-indulgence, weakness of will, and easy yielding to appetite - the 'sins of the leopard'."

micro-life