"Green building" gets a boost in Ojai

by Charles Levin

Ventura County government grant of $56,000 helps Ojai Foundation explore alternative buildings...

The brown, circular edifice rises from the hillside surrounded by oak trees, a bas-relief of people and animals protruding from its dirt wall. Layered into the wall are soda bottles, whose colored glass bottoms twinkle in the afternoon sunlight.

Ostensibly, someone could live in the 120-square-foot building, a composite of straw, mud and clay that rests comfortably on a base of polypropylene bags. But, for the moment, no county codes exist for living in structures made of ... well, mostly good old terra firma.

Solving that problem weighs on the minds of the building’s creator, The Ojai Foundation, and Ventura County officials. This unlikely pairing just received a state grant to build more of these unconventional structures.

The partnership will offer contractors, architects, solid-waste policymakers and others a chance to explore providing low-cost, environmentally safe housing while meeting state mandates to reduce the amount of material sent to landfills.

The foundation, located in the upper Ojai Valley, has quietly pursued so-called “green building” for more than 15 years. On the foundation’s 40-acre compound is an almost-completed storage shed made from “earthen, pressed blocks,” a modern variation on adobe bricks. A plaster made of clay, sand and whole-wheat flour will eventually seal the blocks.

The $56,285 grant also will pay for testing a wall made from recycled tires. Other types of green building include constructing homes from straw bales.

The ideas are part of a greater movement dubbed “sustainable building” that keeps materials such as concrete, brick, and glass from glutting landfills. Ventura County surveys recently found strong interest among contractors and architects to pursue these ideas. But few have experience using the materials. Worse yet, there are few real-life examples to study. With the grant, contractors and others can try their hand in building a project or simply come and look at the results, said Marialyce Pedersen, a county recycling specialist. The grant will also give the foundation and county the opportunity to evaluate the structures for seismic safety and code compliance, said Gerard Kapuscik, manager of the county’s planning and recycling division. “Builders and contractors are tactile people,” Kapuscik said. “Something is real if they can actually work with it. That’s more real than reading about it.” Ultimately, the county hopes to create a network of builders, architects and contractors who can exchange information on sustainable building. If they absorb and incorporate these ideas in their projects, “they will become the norm rather than the exception,” Kapuscik said.

Such building is often dubbed “alternative.” But mud buildings dating back hundreds of years are still standing in England, said Marlow Hotchkiss, co-director of the Ojai Foundation. About 20 people have helped build the circular mud building, a day or two at a time. Foundation co-director Gigi Coyle likens the process to a barn-raising. “We would like this to be a place where people come and see that there’s not one way (of building), and explore the way that’s right with their community and environment,” Coyle said.

The reason, Hotchkiss and Coyle said, is simple: The world is running out of natural resources, particularly trees.

“If we build with dirt, we’re not going to run out of it,” Hotchkiss said.

Reprinted with permission from Charles Levin County government reporter for the Ventura County Star, 805/655-5811, clevin@insidevc.com; Published: 01/02/2001.