Earthen plaster is modernity proof. The techniques, the tools, and the materials, all have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. From hillside and field to wall and castle, and eventually return to the same soil it came from. Only the human hand is needed.
The material breathes, won't trap moisture (the bane of modern construction materials), itself toxin free it will even help clean the indoor air of your home.
The ingredients are virtually free, available in every climate on Earth: sand, straw, soil, water.
To master it takes a lifetime but anyone can make a decent enough job, anyone can help, anyone can participate. It is safe to the skin, the tools won't hurt you, and you could lick the walls without even getting a tummy ache.
The necessary tools are all handed down from generation to generation of craftsmen. They can be made from scratch or repaired in any village smithy. True artifacts: buy once, never buy again. Weight, balance, material, size, all perfectly human scaled to fit a user of any age.
Unlike modern energy intensive drywall or toxic paints and glues, earth plasters are infinitely recyclable, after a century of use or when repairs are needed, just knock it down, crush it up and add water.
When earth plaster is subjected to fire, it just turns to brick. No noxious fumes that kill you before the fire is even hot enough to wake you up.
So what will it be? Will you keep living in a flammable cocoon of toxic materials, beholden to the industrial complex and the whims of usurious banks, or will you participate in life and freedom?
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68% of Japan is covered in forests, and of this 49% is officially protected and can not be logged or cut. All protected forests belong to one or more of 17 nationally recognized classes, each with a different purpose, management strategy, and use. This thread will list them all.
1. Water Source And Recharge Protection Forest (Kochi) stabilizes the flow & charge of waters that protects and conserves basins, rivers, mitigates floods and droughts. 2. Sediment Erosion Protection Forest (Kanagawa) stops soil runoff and protects downhill and downstream areas.
3. Sediment Collapse Protection Forest (Hokkaido) protects roads, railways etc., from damage by binding soil with roots. 4. Flying Sand and Coastal Erosion Protection Forest (Fukui) protects sandy beaches from erosion and protects inland areas from sand damage and shifting dunes.
There are limits to human health. We can't trust technology to solve all our problems for us. What're we going to do the next time a corona virus comes? Hunker in miserable pods while fearing for our lives and livelihoods? Let's start building environments that makes us stronger.
We can do this. @1000yearhouse will teach you how to build a house that will last 1000 years, in brick made from the earth it stands on and timber from the woods that protect it.
And @CharlestonArchi and @ErikBootsma will teach you how to make it so beautiful your descendants will utter your name with gratitude and respect.
I went to forage wakame (a highly nutritious edible sea weed) at the beach this morning. The part near the roots is a special delicacy only available/edible around this time of the year, called mekabu (メカブ) At home I rinsed the whole seaweed thoroughly and cut off the mekabu.
The mekabu is absolutely slippery, but you'd better cut the fleshy leafy parts off from the thicker stem. Put in boiling water for 20 seconds, remove and put in cold water to cool off. Nice green color just after boiling but before cooling.
Finally, chop it as finely as you can (still slippery), soak in something like soy sauce or vinegar or ponzu (I was lazy/hungry so I used ponzu), garnish with a little pickled plum purée and sesame seeds. Voila. Seasonal food for free. Takes less than 5 minutes.
“The irony of this new discovery is that for hundreds of years educators did seem to sense that children’s brains had to be built up through exercises of increasing difficulty that strengthened brain functions.” — Norman Doidge, M.D., The Brain That Changes Itself, 2007
Personal anecdote time: It was a long time ago but I still remember my first week in school with a completely new subject: English. Our teacher was a young woman who looked a bit like Amelie (in that famous movie), but completely unsmiling, hard as a rock. Our first task was...
...to memorize an old poem of twelve lines, in complicated English, with perfect diction and perfect pronunciation. She would allow no-one the slightest hesitation, the slightest mistake. We had to speak with a native level proficiency from day one before we had even basic vocab.
The vernacular architecture of the Hausa people (mainly in Nigeria & Niger), called tubali, have an interesting detail always at the front of homes and houses: the dakali, a sort of public bench where visitors can gather and the men of the home can sit keep an eye on the street.
You find these built in benches in many instances of traditional or classical architecture all over the world, from Europe to Asia and Africa, the Americas. Here is an interesting Patrician example from Italy:
Back to the Hausa however, these days the dakali are rapidly becoming extinct as Hausa prefer to live in more western styled homes: instead of the semi-public informal gathering in front of the home, you get teh private living room and TV treatment.
Whenever I talk about how much space our cities dedicate to parking I get upset replies and DMs. People usually have no idea how much space parking uses. Here's downtown Montpelier state capital of Vermont, with a bit over average surface parking for a North American city: 65%!
What went through their heads when they decided that using 65% of downtown for daytime car storage was a sensible use of resources? Imagine how much land all the other car infrastructure occupies, and how much of the budget is spent on maintaining it! The lives wasted commuting!
Montpelier could just give the parking lots away to the commuters (about 14,000) and ask them to build charming little townhouses, walkable streets, shops and courtyards and pocket parks, and finance it by the budget savings on infrastructure spending alone. With room to spare!