Straw Bale Demo in Washington, D.C.
by Pat McArdle
- Arlington, Virginia
Builders Without Borders made straw-bale history on the Washington,
D.C. mall Sunday, May 26, when three BWB members constructed a straw-bale
demonstration building in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol as part of
an all-day festival hosted by the U.S.-Afghanistan Reconstruction Council.
Owen Geiger (Habitat for Humanity straw-bale coordinator in Colorado),
Sigi Koko (Arlington, Virginia, straw-bale architect) and Arlington-based
BWB supporter Pat McArdle gathered at 6:00 AM in front of the Air and
Space Museum, where they unloaded sixty bales of straw and erected an
unplastered straw-bale structure.
Their exhibit attracted hundreds of American, Afghan and other foreign visitors throughout the day. As the temperature rose, people took refuge in the cool shade of the straw-bale house, giving Sigi, Pat and Owen time to explain the advantages of strawbale and pass out the mountains of literature that Catherine Wanek of BWB and The Last Straw had mailed from New Mexico.
By the end of the day, the wife of Afghanistan's Minister of Finance was in deep discussion with Owen about future building projects in Afghanistan. The festival ended at five. With rain clouds threatening, Pat Sigi and Owen dismantled the building and loaded the borrowed bales back on the truck for their return to Steve and Missy Hopkins' Maryland farm.
BWB members are currently exploring possible cooperative efforts to help the people of Afghanistan rebuild their country with low-cost, energy-efficient structures that use locally available materials.
Pat McArdle
can be reached at: <McArdlePL@state.gov>.
For more information about Builders Without Borders, call (505) 895-5400,
visit the organization's Web site at www.BuildersWithoutBorders.org,
or write Builders Without Borders, 119 Main St., Kingston, NM 88042.
BWB is an international network of ecological builders working together for a sustainable future.