[Applause]
what should a place that someone lives
in B that’s the question did I decide to
ask ten months ago you’ll notice I don’t
use the word house the reason for that
is we’re all very familiar with the
concept of a house so naturally there
are certain assumptions that we all make
about what a house is you know if I were
to ask you what should a house be you
might say something like how should be a
place that has walls or a roof and this
came like pretty safe assumption to make
most of the houses I’ve seen have those
things but a lot of people maybe not you
when they think of a house they make
certain other assumptions like how
should you sir number square feet or how
should be built on a concrete foundation
in those assumptions I think are a
little bit more problematic so rather
than start with any assumptions and
answering this question what I decided
to do is start with four principal words
for building block words that comprise
the foundation of what I want to build
so what should a place that someone
lives in be well first it should be
affordable doesn’t matter how luxurious
or amazing in places if no one can
afford to live in it then what’s the
point second it should be comfortable
the place we live is someone we’re going
to spend a lot of time so I think it’s
somewhere that you make us feel good
that we enjoy spending time third it
should be efficient the materials that
we use to build this building should
work together as a well-oiled machine
that operates as greater than the sum of
its parts what I’m referring to there’s
energy efficiency I’ll get into that and
finally the place that we live should be
sustainable it should be somewhere that
last not decades but centuries and it
should have as little as possible in
effect on its surrounding environment so
i started with these four general words
and then i had to build up some more
specific i had to figure out what is
this actually going to be you know you
can’t build a house out of four words
and so in my research what I found and
came up with was the concept of natural
building which is simply using materials
that you can find in your local
environment to build extremely
affordable environmentally friendly and
personal buildings so I found natural
building and I was like wow this is
pretty cool and then I decided to ask
how can I use this to help people and so
what I decided to do in April 2016 with
my friend steven burns as i founded y
innovations a nonprofit organization and
together Steve and I started our
sustainable development project with the
goal of using natural building
techniques to create affordable and
environmentally friendly housing for
low-income and homeless citizens so I
started with natural building and the
first project that we did this past
summer was the seagull JCC it was with a
material called cop caught his clay sand
and straw buildings of the seagull JCC
it was about 200 square feet it costs
about twelve hundred dollars and
materials to build and we had over 40
student volunteers from five different
high schools spend over 800 service
hours working on the project is
incredible so now what we’re seeking to
do is combine the best elements of cob
with the best elements of another
natural building technique called straw
bale construction and we’re working with
an organization called Family Promise
who works with homeless families and
we’re seeking to build our first
naturally built home for a homeless
family right here in Delaware so for the
past couple months I’ve been working
with architects with contractors with
professional natural builders and with
building permit officials and I’ve been
working on building plans nailing out
the specifics behind how this is
actually going to go so now I want to
share with you my vision my image for
what this house is going to be and the
way that I want to do that is by using
those four principal words we laid out
for what a place that someone lives and
should be and all you compare what I’m
proposing to build with more traditional
methods of building and show you just
how affordable just how comfortable just
how efficient and just houses
stainable what I’m seeking to build will
be so to begin with it’s going to be
about a 540 square foot one story home
the main exterior walls are going to be
built with straw bales the interior
walls the floors they’re all going to be
built with cop now get into the
reasoning for that in a minute as far as
affordability the raw material costs of
construction is going to be ten thousand
dollars which comes out to a little bit
under 19 dollars per square foot the
national average for new housing
construction the United States is about
one hundred and thirty dollars per
square foot so a little bit under that
so that’s the material affordability
combine that with the fact that it’s
going to be a six hundred square foot
home compared to the over 2,600 square
foot that’s average you can quickly see
how this is going to be a lot more
materially affordable than traditional
buildings you know ask your parents you
can’t find house for ten thousand
dollars that’s crazy all right now for
comfort so this one’s going to have all
the modern amenities that a traditional
home would have heat running water
electricity toaster ovens for your pop
tarts in the morning if you’re into that
I don’t know if you’re into that my
brother really likes pop-tarts um we’re
not creating substandard housing but
beyond that there’s something very
personal very homey about natural
building in order to communicate that I
have a couple pictures here they’re from
buildings than a man by the name of
Chris McClellan built he’s a
professional natural builder who lives
up in Ohio I actually got a chance to
visit him this past October you can see
that picture there on the right that’s a
call building and what Chris did is he
took bottles and he put them in the
shape of a sunflower and created a
sunflower window it’s little details
like that that just give natural built
homes that added touch of personality
all right now for efficiency so we
already said we’re shooting for material
efficiency we’re shooting for a home
that is cheaper to build up front in
terms of material costs but beyond that
we’re shooting for a home that is
sustainably affordable in the long run
to maintain in the way we’re doing that
is with energy efficiency and with those
straw-bale exterior walls
the really nice thing about straw bale
walls is that they’re extremely good
insulators insulation is basically the
property of a wall of how good it is
that keeping heat inside the building so
obviously in a home in a cold climate
like ours where you’re going to be
heating the home in the winter you know
you want wall is it a good insulators
otherwise all the heats going to escape
you’re gonna have to spend more keeping
yourself warm wall and insulation values
are measured in something called our
values with higher our values
corresponding to higher levels of
insulation in the wall traditionally in
our value around our 20 is considered
really good the walls were planning to
build are going to be the excessive are
40 and so that means is there going to
be a lot more energy-efficient they’re
going to do a lot better job keeping
heat in and that means energy savings
cost savings for the homeowner every
single month finally sustainability the
biggest problem or one of the big
problems that I see with traditional
building applications in regard sense
sustainability is the use of concrete
truck beats use a lot for things like
foundations and traditional applications
and the problem with concrete in my
opinion is that its main component is
cement which is created through a
process of heating shale and limestone
at temperatures in excess of a thousand
degrees Fahrenheit as a process that
releases 1.8 billion metric tons of
carbon dioxide into our atmosphere
annually I won’t get into tangent about
global warming or climate change but
I’ll just say that I think we need to
take personal responsibility and look at
what kind of effect are the buildings
and things were creating having on our
environment so that’s why this home that
we’re proposing to build uses zero
concrete not on the foundation not
anywhere finally I just want to say that
a year ago I would not have been
expecting to be here I wasn’t thinking
about any of these kinds of things but I
asked a question and I relentlessly
pursued the answers I still relentlessly
pursue the answers to those questions
because I truly believe that they can
help people so my challenge to you today
would be one ask questions let your
natural curiosity
guide you in asking questions that truly
fascinate you to seek out the answers to
those questions relentlessly the power
of hard work can never be underestimated
and three always remember to ask
yourself how can one be what I’m
learning be used to help the world
around me how can I pay it forward if
you do those things I think you’ll be
truly amazed at just how capable you are
thank
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