Green Home Building
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This design is my favorite concept for this site, I think it looks nice. What do you think? There shouldn't be any problems with diffrent machines and browsers because it's valid XHTML 1.0 transitional and CSS 2. Verdana and Georgia are used as the main-fonttypes, except them only Arial is used. The text is displayed in 12px, Verdana, left-aligned and with an line-hieght of 20px (1,7em).
Cob for instance
Cob is a very old method of building with earth and straw or other fibers. It is quite similar to adobe in that the basic mix of clay and sand is the same, but it usually has a higher percentage of long straw fibers mixed in. Instead of creating uniform blocks to build with, cob is normally applied by hand in large gobs (or cobs) which can be tossed from one person to another during the building process. The traditional way of mixing the clay/sand/straw is with the bare feet; for this reason, it is fairly labor intensive. Some of the process can be mechanized by using a backhoe to do the mixing, but that diminishes the organic nature of it. Because of all the straw, cob can be slightly more insulating than adobe, but it still would not make a very comfortable house in a climate of extreme temperatures. The wonderful thing about cob construction is that it can be a wildly freeform, sculptural affair. I've seen some very charming homes made this way. Cob was a common building material in England in the nineteenth century, and many of those buildings are still standing.
What do you think?
Here we can outline some stuff, or link to the gallery.
Architecture is fun.
Did you know?
Adobe is one of the oldest building materials in use. It is basically just dirt that has been moistened with water, sometimes with chopped straw or other fibers added for strength, and then allowed to dry in the desired shape. Commonly adobe is shaped into uniform blocks that can be stacked like bricks to form walls, but it can also be simply piled up over time to create a structure. The best adobe soil will have between 15% and 30% clay in it to bind the material together, with the rest being mostly sand or larger aggregate. Too much clay will shrink and crack excessively; too little will allow fragmentation. Sometimes adobe is stabilized with a small amount of cement or asphalt emulsion added to keep it intact where it will be subject to excessive weather. Adobe blocks can be formed either by pouring it into molds and allowing it to dry, or it can pressed into blocks with a hydraulic or leverage press. Adobe can also be used for floors that have resilience and beauty, colored with a thin slip of clay and polished with natural oil. Read more...
Part two
Rammed earth is great, but I like earthbags more.
part three
etc. etc.