Natural Building Materials

Hi friends..
Why there is so much need to talk about the natural building materials?? Since decades now, glass, concrete framing, curtain walls has become so common practice... but, we do need to think about this....

According to the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, 1.7 million homes built with traditional wood, steel and concrete frames consumes the same amount of energy as heating and cooling for 10 million houses each year.

We pay the cost environmentally more for the manufacturing of the materials, eg., Cement Production requires an astounding amount of energy and results in water and air pollution and industrial waste that is usually not recycled.
Like creating structures that are functional, long-lasting, and aesthetically pleasing is important similarly minimizing the embodied energy in structures and also minimizing the ongoing energy needed for operation and maintenance has become the important aspects in architecture today. Sustainability has become a prior importance. And creating homes and buildings that are healthy for humans and for the planet is an essential part of sustainability.

Minimizing the use of products that require considerable embodied energy for their manufacture or transportation, thus becomes one of the main part of sustainability. The objective is to build with simple techniques that don't further pollute the environment, consume more fossil fuel, or unnecessarily extract the resources of Mother Earth.

Natural building has emerged as a response to an increasing concern for our built environment. Natural materials can provide an alternative to toxic substances which have led to widespread environmental illness. Using natural materials reduces the environmental impacts since that are unprocessed or minimally processed by industry. Natural materials have been the number one preference of home-builders since the beginning of human history.
The most important thing is these are the locally available materials throughout the world eg., sand from nearby streams or river beds, straw bales from local farmers, clay free for the digging and much more. So the costs and pollution associated with the transportation of these materials across the country falls.
Natural building materials such as earth, stone and straw are sustainable, safe, nontoxic, and easy to work with, and only require minimal tools and basic skills. so these are inexpensive and easy to build with little construction knowledge. And as far as beauty, there's no comparison. A home built of natural materials is more like a work of art that blends with the environment and gives a natural 'feel' thus making your living spaces more enjoyable.

We will talk about these materials in detail.

Green Green Green...

Whats in the air??? Green building, LEED certification, Eco-building, Environment friendly building...
These are the terms we hear, see, deal now. Is it really making people aware of our Precious Planet???
Still a question mark - huh?
I will say the scenario is not same as it was 10 years or even 5 years back.. things have moved faster.. People are waking up. Some of the friends from the non-architectural background also talks to me these words and my eye-brows do go up...and also bring a smile. :)

For very good reasons, we focus with great efforts on green building, on reducing the energy consumptions of our structures - - and after all its more than 35% of our energy use and carbon dioxide emissions.

With the increasing awareness of eco-building techniques alongside the desire to make our homes healthier, the historical benefits of using natural materials have been rediscovered. So next time lets talk about the natural building materials..