Last chance to complete the survey we shared last month to check in and hear from y’all about the future of The Last Straw:
The wildfires in California serve as another poignant reminder that climate crisis is here now: there is no dramatic arrival in our future, we have passed the turning points. Because of this, there is much to be done to rebuild more resilient and regenerative communities. This month we’re thinking about moving forward with a clear sense of what’s going on. Let us know if there’s a project we should share in the next newsletter, or if you have a workshop you’d like to advertise!
BIOSPHERICS
Wildfires in California spark interest in natural building materials and concern over ecological impacts
Our hearts go out to those suffering from the devastating recent wildfires in California. In the wake of tragedy and planning for a more fire-prone future, natural building materials are getting some attention. Apart from building construction decisions, invasive plants likely also fueled the flames. Once started, these flames are often doused with concerning materials as well.
FIELD NOTES
Drawing the Line: Architecture of Repair in the Anthropocene
In this wide-ranging piece Daniel Barber looks squarely at the field of architecture in light of climate crisis: “The buildings that exist, the buildings we are designing now: all perpetuate the fossil fuel economy. Can we build otherwise? Should we build at all?” For Barber, architects and building designers seeking refuge in the “two persistent mythologies” of net-zero carbon and efficiency are following dead ends. This article is one part of Places Journal’s Repair Manual series which they followed up with the Field Notes:Repair series.
FIELD NOTES
Abbey’s Road: Ecoterror in Fiction and Film
“Perhaps more radical action is coming soon. In the meantime, the ecoterrorists are not out…there in the wild, but rather as a steady stream of representations in fiction and film” - so writes David Schurman Wallace in this overview of media portraying ecoterrorists. This wide-ranging piece offers a deep reading and watching list for the curious and engaged.
BIOSPHERICS
Turning Point: The Three Climate-Planning Scenarios Available to Us
There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the climate crises. Where do you start? What do you do? In this short piece Steven Bingler claims there are three distinct design scenarios the world might follow: focus on ecological management, focus on carbon management, or focus on Hail Mary tech salvation. In Bingler’s view they are listed in order of preference, and serve as decreasingly good back-ups for the prior options. Even if the ways forward are not as neat and clear as Bingler’s this-then-that checklist, this view might help clarify discussions on the ethics and politics of the future.
BIOSPHERICS
Carbon Counts Exhibition debuts online version
FCBStudios has brought their storefront exhibition comparing the embodied carbon of different building materials online! The website explains and compares the basics of several materials’ production. They also are offering the beta version of a carbon calculator for free here.
GREENWASH OF THE MONTH
Harvard’s HouseZero
This piece skewers a demonstration project/headquarters for Harvard’s Center for Green Buildings and Cities, on the grounds that celebrating its success before measurement was premature and that it promotes a paradigm at odds with truly environmentally-conscious building. Fred Bernstein descries how Harvard and Snøhetta turned a modest house into a a supposed prototype for green residences, all despite the “many tons of concrete” added to the structure and the building’s function as 9-5 office with high IT needs. Since that critique was published, Harvard set up a website with project impact data and published a paper about the “house”. These efforts, according to a follow-up from Bernstein, don’t offer much of substance. What do you think?
RESOURCES
“Initial Steps on Your Biomaterial Journey”, slides from the Reimagine Buildings: Biomaterials Conference giving an overview of biomaterials out there right now and in development.
Online browser-based sun angle calculator and building shading analyzer
Interactive visualizer of all biomass and “technomass” on earth (peek at the comparisons between the two below).
We wish you a lovely month and if you ever find yourself near London (U.K.), San Francisco (California), or Green River (Utah) please let us know and let’s meet up!
With love,
The Last Straw Editorial Collective
DON’T MISS OUT, GET OUR LATEST MAGAZINE NOW!
The Last Straw Issue 76, on Natural Building Education
How do you learn natural building? How do you teach it? No one told us the one catch-all trick to natural building education, but in this issue our contributors trace the histories and present to figure out a way ahead.
I thought this was a thinking persons group but now see your buying into the globalists mind control referencing global warming as real? Please look at history and the evidence, not to mention that carbon is essential for plants and us. Seriously , wake up to ask the lies used to make the elites richer or to get more workers for their factory's. Equal rights, women's employment was about doubling the workforce and the rest was a smoke screen. Global warming is a scam to charge us all more again to feather the elites pockets, COVID! My god they have no shame and will kill millions of not billions without a care, bill gates is a mass murderer asking with Fauci and all the people who forced vaccine's . I'm so unimpressed that your publication is a tool to be used by these ruthless murdering thieving unelected elite globalist agenda pricks.