I have become friends with David Stone, the inventor of Ferrock, a carbon negative thermal mass material that consumes both CO2 and the residue of steel manufacturing. You can find out more about this at his website carbon-bound.com or see a video about it at www.pbs.org
David has shared with me some photos and description of a little dome that was made on the Tohono O’odham reservation in Arizona about 8 years ago.
It was half underground in the tradition of their ancient pit houses and the walls were 18″ thick–2″ of Ferrock-ferrocement, then 4″ of glass-Ferrock concrete, then 12″ of Ferrock adobe (monolithic, not block).
So there are three layers of decreasing density and increasing insulative value.
The goal was to keep the interior cool, in which they were successful.
It was a grant-funded experiment to see if they could make everything–including even the doors–out of Ferrock and in that they were successful too.
It was built to be a traditional, earthen, and cool retreat for drumming and meditation.
Because it is shaped like a giant musical instrument, the sound reverberation inside was amazing and before it had doors you could hear people speaking outside as if they were right next to your ear.
David says, “I would love to be back there on the rez around a fire and listening to the drumming and singing to bring in the new year. They still know how to do rituals so that there is a real spirit present!”David further says, “Last year it was demolished. It was not supposed to have been but some old buildings near it were being torn down and they went ahead and destroyed the dome too without checking with anyone. This kind of stuff happens a lot out there. Of course, much worse happens too. Too many Native people’s lives are destroyed by accident and neglect and drugs and alcohol and crime.”
Other blog posts about Ferrock:
naturalbuildingblog.com
naturalbuildingblog.com
naturalbuildingblog.com