Building Community

As we get closer to the point where we fend for ourselves, learning green building techniques comes to the forefront of the radar screen. Locally, we are getting ready to work with papercrete. The machine for preparing the slurry is on hand, but it requires somebody to work on the motor. This is a soft process that produces a product that resembles dry-wall. A different process that I've seen produces bricks that are much harder and weather resistant.

Some friends of mine are looking at building a cob house. Cob is a mixture of straw, clay and sand that sets up much like adobe. Combine this with rocket stoves and water catchments and we may have the ability to set up low-cost housing units that are functional for new community building. I know as a kid that i enjoyed playing in the mud ... is this much different?