construction industry Archives

Bio-based houses are seducing Latin America

The use of natural materials is growing rapidly in Argentina and other South American countries. Technical progress and policy implementation seem to go hand in hand

The green building phenomenon in Latin America has taken off. Bio-based aggregates have started penetrating the construction sector’s market, and the development of eco-friendly renewable products has increased the use of bio-based polymers in the construction industry, as a recent study shows.

South America is one of the emerging markets where a major demand in natural materials for buildings is expected in the next years. People today are indeed increasingly persuaded that they can safely get the same quality level as traditional products.

The policy implementation in the region following suit. Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru have carried out different measures ranging from relevant tax cuts to soft loans for sustainable construction.

Although in Argentina this is still a new phenomenon, the situation and legislation are quickly changing. “In my country public interest and the market are also growing because young people are getting involved and interested in this topic,” says Juan Manuel Vazquez, an Argentinian agricultural engineer, who started using bio-based material for construction 15 years ago.

“I was working in an agronomic olive oil industry and I found that olive oil can lose quality in storage, in particular in countries with extreme climates. That was also when I first heard about straw bale warehouses, used for storing bulk food because of their insulation properties,” he told youris.com.

He later became co-founder of Henia Carbono Negativo, a company that develops pre-assembled panels of straw bales, using 100% biological material for dry construction, with high thermo acoustic, mechanical and fireproof performances. It was in La Cumbre, Córdoba, that they built their first family house of 250 m².

“We are now working to conquer the mass market, it will take time but not that much,” affirms the expert with conviction. “I recognise that my method may be a niche one, but I think that economic paradigms are changing. People are willing to pay a little more for green materials because it’s a matter of health and well-being.’

An eco-friendly house in Argentina would cost only 10% more than a traditional one, on the basis of Manuel Vazquez’s estimations. He also says that thermal insulation is seven times greater than that produced by a double hollow brick wall.

It is also resistant to fire and earthquakes. The straw used is kept compact, and without moisture, and it does not attract insects of any kind. High insulation potential, no pollution, and the fight against climate change are just some of the reasons which motivate him.

Henia’s experience is in line with ISOBIO, a EU project that proposes a strategy to mainstream bio-based construction materials. This is another source of inspiration for Manuel Vazquez. According to the European researchers, bio-based construction materials are in fact capable of achieving a 50% reduction in embodied energy and CO₂ emissions, with 20% better insulation properties compared to conventional materials such as bricks, cement and beams in walls and roofs.

There are several signs of policy changes to promote energy efficiency in Argentina’s buildings. For example, the city of Rosario has implemented a certification, carried out in 500 homes, which enabled household performance and energy-saving potential to be identified.

Specialist in bio construction Maria Loreto Retamales lives in a bio-based house in Valparaiso, in Chile, but her first eco-friendly house was in Argentina. “Ten years ago, I decided with my family to live in harmony with nature,” she explains. “I read about the architect Nader Khalili, his Cal Earth Foundation (California Institute of Earth Architecture), and his research and work with soil and sack.”

She studied his technique called “SuperAdobe”, a form of earth bag architecture, and now she trains other people on it as well. “In less than a year, I even gave workshops to architects and engineers in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia,” she tells us.

House built with the SuperAdobe technique. Photo credits: Maria Loreto Retamales

Maria Loreto has no doubt: “Living in a natural building has big advantages such as a more stable temperature and humidity. People don’t get ill so much. Moreover, earth isolates from the sun’s radiation and electromagnetic waves.”

Argentina has one of the most recognised bio constructors in the world, Jorge Belanko, specialised in earth buildings. Of course, this technique still remains quite unusual, but in the last 10 years Maria Loreto has seen hundreds of innovative projects developing.

Finally, one of the architectural symbols of the growing movement of natural builders in the country, is Tol-Haru, la Nave Tierra del Fin del Mundo, the first self-sufficient house in Latin America. It was built in Ushuaia, the closest city to Antarctica in 2014, using recycled materials. Wind and solar energy provide heating and cooling. The shelter also reuses rainwater and it even recycles waste.

Its construction has been promoted by the actors Mariano Torre and his wife, Elena Roger, members of the NAT Foundation (Nature Applied to Technology). The visionary architect Michael Reynolds helped them through the construction process.

By Anna Maria Volpe

Cover credits: Juan Manuel Vazquez

10 May 2018

Bio-based materials facing the challenges of the construction industry

The use of bio-based materials is often met with scepticism from architects, insurers and contractors in the construction industry, which has led to slow market uptake. This scepticism generally results from a lack of adequate training and support with regard to regulatory frameworks.

This was the backdrop of the ISOBIO workshop, held 22 March in Brussels where the project team met with representatives from Earth Building UK and Ireland, BC architects & studies, the ECO-SEE project and the German Association for Building with Earth. The aim was to identify the levers for faster adoption of bio-based material in the construction sector.

The workshop was able to pinpoint new ways to improve professional knowledge, develop adequate curricula and set out a suitable legal framework. A further issue to be addressed going forward is how the general public perceive the emerging bio-based construction sector in comparison to the established construction sector.

Drawing on its early achievements, ISOBIO gave valuable insights into its testing and prototyping activities with a view to raising awareness and encouraging greater acceptance of bio-based materials. The project partners reiterated their common goal of designing a bio-based product which offers high insulation, low embodied energy and carbon, and hydrothermal efficiency for a greener building and construction industry.

A key finding from the workshop was that standard products (panels) made from enhanced bio-based properties could possibly be a leading driver of market uptake for bio-based materials in the industry.

The workshop report is available here.

To download the presentations, click here.

29 March 2017

Back to basics – Setting the path towards making bio-based materials mainstream: opportunities offered by nature are facing cultural, technical and market challenges

ISOBIO aims to develop new bio-based insulation panels and renders, and to scale them to mainstream adoption in the building and construction industry. A purpose driven by a common vision: the less we intervene on materials, the more we achieve.

In ISOBIO, innovation is coming straight from nature: fibres and straw are some of the raw materials at the core. Scientists and stakeholders do acknowledge this but demonstrating this vision presents a number of research and technical challenges. This could be a niche market, and a highly eco-friendly one.

The University of Rennes hosted the first regional stakeholder workshop on 4 February 2016. It brought together academia and research stakeholders to tackle the main challenges of the project’s objectives and to explore opportunities offered by bio-based construction materials.

Multifold barriers were identified that need to be overcome if bio aggregates are to be widely adopted across the construction sector: technically, the challenge is to do with confidence in producing raw materials and meeting the technical standards for natural insulation materials. Scientifically, water repellence and fire resistance are essential issues under the microscope.

Behind the uptake of bio-based aggregates, there is an even more substantial question: is the market ready for them? This raises the issues of public perception and market penetration. Persuading users that they can safely benefit from bio-based materials may be as challenging as reaching the market penetration level required to replicate the solution developed while keeping the same quality level of the final product.

The workshop enabled a wide range of research and academia stakeholders to engage directly with one another and explore these challenges, in view of working together towards ISOBIO’s aim of widespread adoption and design of a bio-based product with high-insulating properties, low embodied energy and carbon, hydrothermally efficient, greening the building and construction industry.

COP 21 wave – Towards a new era in the green construction sector

The impacts of the Paris Agreement on green business environment: The role of the private and public sectors, the effects in terms of legislative & legal frameworks and possible benefits for novel construction materials

“History will remember this day,” said Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, moments after the green-topped gavel, symbol of the Paris talks, was dropped on what is considered the most ambitious deal on climate change that the world has ever seen.

Households are responsible for 32% of greenhouse gas emissions and 42% of energy consumption in Europe. During the COP21 Buildings Day on 3 December, a Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction was launched, with the aim of scaling up low-carbon development in the sector.

Participating countries include Austria, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Senegal, Singapore, Sweden, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Furthermore, over 60 organisations are members of the alliance.

The World Green Building Council is a key member of the initiative. “While the Paris Agreement is not itself legally binding, many countries will choose legislative and legal frameworks to support its implementation,” says Terri Wills, CEO of the World Green Building Council, a network of national green building councils in more than one hundred countries. Many of them are working closely with their national governments to develop renovation strategies.

“Some countries will opt for a ‘carrot’ over a ‘stick’ approach” adds Wills, explaining that “they will decide to offer incentives in the form of subsidies, grants for ambitious green building projects, or planning approvals for extra building space if a building complies with a green certification standard.”

The COP 21 Paris Agreement has put emphasis on the construction sector and on the adoption of novel building materials, designs and technologies.

“States should provide long-term incentives and support for emissions reductions to show real commitment to change. Policy actions could include carbon pricing, ambitious buildings standards and targeted spending on new technologies through green public procurement”, says Simon Hunkin from Greenovate!Europe. The independent expert group, dedicated to developing sustainable business, is collaborating with a research project called ISOBIO, which aims to develop bio-based materials as an alternative to traditional insulations while reducing their cost.

The researchers are developing a new approach to insulating materials, through the combination of existing bio-derived aggregates with low embodied carbon and innovative binders to produce durable composite construction materials.

With these novel composites, the aim is to cut embodied energy and carbon dioxide at component level by 50%, and to improve insulation properties by 20% compared to conventional material. The study will also seek to demonstrate a reduction in total costs by 15% and in the total energy spent over the life time of a building by 5%.

But could such biomaterials be commercially attractive? “To a certain extent, these materials may appeal to businesses, contractors and homeowners. As they have low or even zero-embodied energy, there is proof of increased sustainability and energy efficiency when compared to traditional materials,” says Anthimos Pavlidis, a civil engineer and quality coordinator in the project of the skyscraper centre One Blackfriars, London.

Financial profit can be identified from manufacture through to impact across the operational life-cycle of buildings. “Nevertheless, a rationalised piece of legislation is needed in order to woo manufacturers and contractors. Integrated policy measures including incentive schemes and training seminars have to be implemented in order to achieve widespread use of biomaterials,” Pavlidis tells youris.com.

As for construction companies, they are smelling the business opportunities. “These companies – particularly those in the green building sector – aren’t going to wait for their national governments; they are simply going to act on climate change because they know it makes good business sense,” says Wills, “There is no longer any question of whether or not to decarbonise. In our opinion, this is the greatest triumph of the COP21″.

By Elias Aggelopoulos

Low carbon materials to capture the imagination of homebuilders and owners

Innovation in the construction industry will play an important role in reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency — though developing new materials and methods is only half the battle. Convincing architects and homeowners of the performance and long-term financial benefits of a new product presents a significant challenge.

In Europe, households are responsible for 32% of greenhouse gas emissions and 42% of energy. Cement production alone contributes to 5% of manmade CO₂emissions.

By contrast, bio-based insulation typically have much lower “embodied energy” levels compared with more conventional building materials. Furthermore, the source materials themselves sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide via photosynthesis.

“The beauty of bio-based materials is that they are often a byproduct of growing our food. We can build with carbon. Instead of seeing carbon as a problem, we can recast our relationship with it to one of positive innovation”, says Craig White, director of ModCell, which produces straw-bale eco-homes.

The company is one of the 12 partners in academia, research and industry that are collaborating with the European project ISOBIO. It aims to deliver bio-based insulators with 20% better performance than conventional materials, leading to a 5% total energy reduction over the lifecycle of a building at reduced costs of 15%.

Producers of bio-based insulators have the advantage that users are both receptive to change and familiar with the products in some capacity. In a study conducted by the Architects’ Council Europe (ACE) for the Low Embodied Energy Insulation Materials (LEEMA) project, 94% of architects surveyed said they would consider using a new and innovative insulation material. An overwhelming endorsement for what remains a niche application in the construction and renovation industries.

Renovations present a key market for producers of new insulation materials. According to the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), more than 40% of Europe’s existing homes were built before the 1960s, when there were few requirements for energy efficiency, leading to low insulation levels.

Increasing awareness of the importance of insulation among homeowners is an important consideration. Homeowners may be inclined to, for example, upgrade appliances and install energy saving light bulbs, unaware that retrofitting wall and roof insulation leads to the greatest savings opportunities.

Veronika Schröpfer, lead author on the ACE survey, believes that bio-based insulation materials will continue to move from the niche into the mainstream and that new skill requirements will not present significant roadblocks.

Schröpfer says new building materials are often applied the same way as commonly used ones and manufacturers usually offer training when this is not the case. She states the main concerns involve pricing and regulations in different European countries.

“For architects it is important that a new material has all the necessary certificates and that the product information is transparent, to quickly compare its performance and price with traditional products,” says Schröpfer.

White believes that developers will be receptive to change. “The challenge that ISOBIO will overcome will be to bring [products] to market at scale at the price point that matches their performance to market demand,” he says.

Europe’s construction industry has experienced a turnaround over the last two years. After registering negative growth in 2013, the industry grew by 2.1% this year, and is forecast to grow by a further 2% over the next five years.

Evidence suggests that a growing minority of these builds will involve green projects. A market report from the Word Green Building Council states the proportion of architects and engineers that dedicate 60% or more of their project load to sustainable builds more than doubled over a four-year period — from 13% in 2009 to 28% in 2013.

The report states that increasingly, industry consumers not only demand that new innovations improve performance, but also reduce environmental impact. Fertile territory for the right nature-inspired solutions.

By Angus McNeice