Subject: Re: sustainable companies
well some are trying to do the weird green thing. check out http://www.strawbuilding.org/ that is the California Straw Building Association CASBA -- yes walls made of strawbales in high seismic zones (tax credit for using straw too!) a few years ago they got money from the state to do a structural testing program on strawbale walls and shear walls (testing research papers at http://www.ecobuildnetwork.org/). the result is a new book by Bruce King titled Design of Strawbale Buildings (the nerdest strawbale book ever) they did a full scale test of a plastered strawbale wall (got about 610 plf as a design value) (they also passed a 2-hour ASTM fire test). CASBA also has a draft appendix for strawbale construction before the California Building Standards Commission.
I have designed quite a few strawbale buildings. anyway check out the resource list from the CASBA website for engineers and firms that are building with straw and thinking of the world in a different way.
wow ! ! it looks like I over spent my $0.02
Tim Rudolph PE
writing this from my strawbale home/office -with 24" thick walls @ R30 walls & R50 attic insulation
Pinyon Engineering
115 Eagle Vista
Bishop CA 93514
3 little pig jokes welcomed