EXPERT ADVICE
(^) // GREEN LIVING
A
lternative building materials fall
into two categories: natural and
man-made. Consider coloured
beer bottles used as decorative
stained glass. By recycling your empties,
you lay the bottles within a concrete or
adobe wall and the glass provides cheap
coloured light. Or recycled pallets used
to frame up homes. We’ve seen the use of
steel shipping containers, but what about
timber pallet crates? Although not intended
to last forever, the timber pallets are
sturdy, inexpensive, readily available and
can be used to form the framing of more
permanent structures.
Not easy being green? While green roofs
are becoming more and more acceptable,
this David Luck Architecture house
in Melbourne takes it to another level,
converting old stables into the house of
grass. While only 11 x 4 metres, this home
off ers green space in a tight street with no
other greenery. The grass sits in irrigated
planter boxes made of Corten steel. The
planter boxes also act as the external
cladding of the house.
In drier climates, consider the work of our
Palaeolithic forebears who, after making
some stone tools, may have come home and
knocked up an extension using straw bales.
You need a watertight foundation on which
to stack your bales, then seal them using
stucco or plaster. This may require some
of your prehistoric friends to come over
occasionally and help reseal!
More 21st century man-made alternatives
include structural insulated panels known as
SIPs. This is basically fi breglass sandwiched
between structural panels. Lightweight, they
can be erected in a matter of hours. Because
the insulation is inherent in the panel, they
are more airtight than traditional methods,
but are also more expensive.
For the adventurous builder, consider a
plastic or PVC home. Some of your pipes are
most likely made of this stuff and many new
window frames use it, but it can be used to
frame or even line a house. This material is
widely used in garden furniture, although I’m
not sure of the resale value of a plastic home.
Man-made engineered wood is simply
strips of timber glued together. It’s
extremely stable, can span and hold large
distances and loads, and doesn’t react to
moisture by swelling or shrinking.
Less alternative and more popular is
modular construction. Usually comprising
steel framing and clad in a variety of
materials, these homes are factory built
and arrive on-site in panels. This form
of building is usually associated with kit
homes, but a growing number of suppliers
are tailoring designs to look more closely
like conventional homes. Because the pieces
are built in a controlled environment, costs
can be accurately calculated.
One material that never goes out of fashion
and is continually being re-invented is
concrete. Instead of grey concrete, there are
now a number of stone-like fi nishes including
Geostone, which can make a design statement.
It’s a durable, versatile, easily accessible
material that’s increasingly used in driveways,
fl ooring, walls and furniture pieces.
Ever heard of hemp concrete? It’s a form of
concrete that uses the fi bre of the cannabis
plant along with lime and water. Traditionally
used in rope and other strong fabrics, hemp
has remarkable insulation advantages and is
resistant to fi re, mould and insects.
Alternative lightweight structural blocks
have been used by Modernists in Europe for
decades. Autoclaved aerated concrete or air-
fi lled blocks make them 80 per cent lighter.
Insulated concrete is another material.
Imagine hollow foam forms interlocked
to create a wall then fi lled with concrete.
Although these concrete forms are easier to
handle than blocks, they are more expensive
and need to be handled by experts.
Where to next in alternative building
materials? How about self-healing
concrete? While still in the experimental
stage, the aim is to create a material that
will literally fi x or heal itself without
human intervention when it starts to
break down. If successful, it will have
dramatic implications fi nancially and
environmentally on how we build.
GOING ALTERNATIVE
There’s no such thing as a new idea, but necessity is the mother
of invention and solving old problems in new ways
WORDS // PETER COLQUHOUN
Port Melbourne Urban Green House from Grand Designs
Australia Series Five. Photography by Rhiannon Slatter