While at the Natural Building Alliance Conference in Moab, Utah, last week, Love | Schack team members had the opportunity to learn about the ground-breaking achievement of a small affordable housing non-profit: Community Rebuilds (CR). For the past ten years, Community Rebuilds has been streamlining the process of building with straw bales to be cost-competitive with conventional construction. They have recently raised the bar further by building the first four affordable and deeply sustainable homes ever. (Yes! they are within federal limits of the term and are deed-restricted.)
The Living Building Challenge, through the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), is the most stringent, rigorous, and holistic sustainability standard. It is based on seven “Petals” or categories that deal with aspects from development location and regenerative agriculture, to eliminating all toxic chemicals and designing to human scale, to Zero Energy and Zero Carbon. The knowledge gained by teams who undertake the challenge is open sourced for others who follow.
Lindsey Love first interacted with Community Rebuilds as volunteer labor in their natural building internship program. Innovators from the beginning, the non-profit recognized that the lack of straw bale building expertise was a significant hurdle in using this typology for affordable housing, so they trained their own workforce. Several years later Love | Schack consulted on an early Living Building Challenge (LBC) new build and renovation project and is currently working towards Zero Energy and Zero Carbon certification through ILFI on an ADU project in Wilson, Wyoming. These certifications compliment a Passive House Low Energy Building Standard, and are more easily attainable in a very cold, desert climate.
The seven Living Building Challenge Petals are: Place, Water, Energy, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity and Beauty. The Materials Petal sites a Red List of chemicals that are not allowed in an LBC building. Some of these materials, such as PVC, are not only very difficult to replace with other allowable materials, they are sometimes required by code to meet certain performance standards in specific components. In such cases, ILFI may make exceptions.
Through extensive research and sourcing alternatives, the Community Rebuilds team was able to eliminate all un-allowable materials. For CR, the Materials Petal may have been easier to attain than most. CR already uses plant and mineral based materials and salvages a lot of their lumber and cabinetry.
The other extremely challenging Petal in a desert climate with under 10 inches of average rainfall a year is Water. Achieving the standards here required careful strategic planning and engagement of code and health officials as well as experts who understand alternatives to waste management. The Water Petal requires the building to harvest and reuse all of its water on site. Large blue cisterns collect rainwater from the roof for all non-potable water uses, i.e. in toilets, and washing machines. Grey water, extra rain water and site runoff are directed to swales in the landscape for growing food as well as creating a lovely and more shaded outdoor environment. Composting toilets are incorporated in two of the homes. This Petal alone is an incredible feat in the desert of Moab.
Special features include grey water exit pipes and their splash blocks, a rain water collection cistern and landscape swales that slow natural run off, allowing for a longer period of moisture availability for local plants and animals.
The Rocky Road Straw Bale homes are currently in a period of assessment. They must perform to the LBC standard for one year. Regardless of whether the homes get the certification or not, we want to thank Community Rebuilds for taking the bull by the horns, working with policy and code decision-makers and with the ILFI to pave the way and prove that this can be done and that it’s not scary!