HOUSE MADE OF RECYCLED MATERIALS The John J. Makinen Bottle House is a house built of bottles. It uses for its construction 60,000 bottles laid on their sides with the bottoms toward the exterior. There is a large variety of bottles that were used for many products, including drinks, wine, beer, and liqueur. The bottles were not only round, but oblong in shape as well. The bottles are arranged with clear bottles and brown color bottles on the front of the house to spell "HAPPY HOME."
Tha paper house was done in 1924 by Mr. Elis F. Stenman.It is located at the North of Boston, in Rockport, Massachusetts. The framework to the house is wood and it has a regular wood-en floor and wooden roof. The wall material, which was supposed to be insulation, is pressed paper about an inch thick. It's just layers and layers of newspaper, glue, and varnish on the outside. That keeps it water-proof.
The Newspaper House is an interactive public installation making use of the free newspapers found scattered in and around London. Newspappers are transformed into logs and bricks by rolling and folding them up, and tied with cellotape or cable tie.
Beer can house was built by John Milkovisch in 1968 with 39,000 beer cans. (Houston, Texas)
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Natural Building Techniques Natural building utilizes minimally processed materials and systems used appropriately for the climate, site and intended use. It utilizes primarily natural materials rather than high processed materials, with a focus on getting these natural materials from as local a source as possible. Solid earthen walls Thick, solid earthen walls can be created by ramming slightly moistened earth in sturdy forms. The resulting walls can be finished with a clear sealer to reveal the earthen stiations, or plastered with lime or earth plaster. Rammed earth walls are load-bearing and offer very high thermal mass but low insulating properties. Compressed earth blocks(CEB) Slightly moistened earth is compressed under great pressure in to blocks that are immediately ready to put into the wall. Compressed earth blocks (CEB) can be used to form load bearing walls or for infill within another, structural system. Due to the enormous mass,CEB has excellent thermal performance, reducing heating and cooling costs. Earthbag Earthbag construction is a relatively quick process that uses woven polypropylene bags filled with clayey or sandy soil, sand or gravel to form foundations, walls,... Curvey forms and domes can be created. Strawbale Bales of straw can be used for load bearing wallsor they can used to create non structural walls. Walls are generally plastered with lime on the exterior and earth on the interior. The thick walls created not only provide very good insulation (about R-43). Appropriately designed and constructed straw bale buildings do well in nearly all climates. Light Clay Straw Light clay straw walls are made by tossing loose straw with clay slip, then lightly packing the mixture into slip forms. It is a non-loadbearing material.Offers both insulative and thermal mass properties. It can be used as perimeter walls or interior walls and typically receives coatings of lime or earthen plaster.
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PET BOTTLE CONSTRUCTION PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) is a strong but very light material. It is commonly used for bottles of all kinds; the anual production estimated is of 170,000 millions, 20,000 millions of them just in the U.S. Thanks to the development of this new construction to practice in Honduras, bottles are starting to be regarded not as a waste that disposal, but as a new kind of brick, resistant and durable. In fact, it is proven that these bricks are more durable than concrete blocks: plastic recipients can last up to 300 years, even more than the
them together. The pasting can be done in many ways, but good results are obtained using a mixture made of sand, clay, sawdust, and a bit of mortar. The main attractiveness of this technique is of course its low cost and its DIY nature (it is very easy to build this way). Moreover, it can be considered a green constuction, as it is recicling material.
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method 1: Small and empty bottles, sewing them together with steel thread and making positions, obtaining a solid construction unit.
method 2: Big bottles compressed sand to make a more stable wall, it results in a material similar to concrete in strength and resistance. The sand also provides thermal mass.
method 3: Bottles and concrete are wrapped in a steel net, then walls can be covered with concrete obtaining a look like a regular house. This can be useful for protection from thermal agents.
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OUR PROPOSAL After our research, we have the idea of making a brick out of the milk brick that we use every day. It would need to be fill with a material that takes the form of the brick and also stays once the cardboard of the brick has been degraded with time, and if possible, following our idea of sostainability, doesn’t harm the enviroment.
HOW TO FILL THE MILK BRICK? One option is to fill it with polyurethane foam. This material acts as a filler and thermal isulator. It is used in construction for isulating the building, also for filling cusions, for making toys or in the construction of a car. There are two types of poluyrethane that we can use, hot or cold polyurethane foam. We are going to focus on the cold one, because it’s the one used for creatin pieces from a mold, and normally this foam is of more quality and duration than the hot one. In our case the mold is going to be the milk brick. This material has a CO2 eq emisions in the manufacturing, shipping, installation and waste fases, that are amotized in the first year of use. The CO2 releasing don’t reach to the 2% of the savings achived in the use fase, that means that if we replace the polyurethane foam by another ideal material, with 0 emision in its fabrication, shipping, installation and waste, but with a usefull life only 2% lower, the total energetic balance would be unfavorable. Also the polyurethane foam has a useful life higher than the building life, and it doesn’t require manteinance or any substitution.
Energy balance of 1kg of polyurethane foam Release of CO2 in the fabrication, shipping, installation and waste Saveting in a building during 50 years
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11kg CO2eq 800kg CO2eq
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RECYCLING The polyurethane foam residues, can be reused as a filler of the original system, if we shredded them can be reused pressed for making new pieces with the same quality, or we can use it for the fabrication of plates, and carpets. All the residues can be burned in combustion cameras for transforming energy in electricity and with this method contribute to preserve the natural resources. Throught a proces of glycolysis we can transform the polyurethane waste to new primary matter. The poliol obtained with this technique can be reuse to make new polyurethane.
A MORE SOSTENIBLE ALTERNATIVE EOLOGICAL POLYURETHANE In 2003 a new alternative to the polyurethane foam appeared, the BIO-isulation. The BIO-isulation uses a technology from thesoybean for raplacing the petrolium. This polyurethane is more durable than the conventional, also is waterproof so it prevents the appearence of moho. The cost is repay soon because the energetic efficiency of a building that uses this technique can be reduced up to a 50%.
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