A life of sustainability
By Kelly Lewis
Special to the Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.10.2008
The walls of Kyle Young's house are made partly from straw, but no huffing or puffing will blow it away.
A pioneer in the natural-building movement that took off in the late '70s, Young built his 600-square-foot home in Arivaca entirely from natural materials such as cob and bamboo, creating a weather-proof fortress that is both environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
"Most of the materials came from excavations at the building site," says Young, now 54. "I just dug in and added a little bit of straw for reinforcement."
Growing up on a farm in Kansas, Young learned at an early age about sustainability.
Coupling this knowledge with a background in construction, he soon became associated with a number of natural-building projects, including one in Sonora that built low-income houses in conjunction with the Save the Children foundation.
Eventually, Young discovered his passion for building with bamboo, founding the Tierra Seca chapter of the American Bamboo Society and serving as its first president.
These days, Young lives on an organic farm that is almost entirely self-sustaining, using rainwater and compost to help cultivate his plants, which include bamboo and nopal.
He also uses the juice from the nopal plant as a stabilizer when mixing cob and plaster.
"When you consider that the U.S. represents 4 percent of the population but consumes 40 percent of its resources, it stands to reason that we're taking more than our share of this planet's resources, and a lot of that has to do with the housing in this country," Young says.
Aside from the environmental advantages of building naturally, using local resources instead of those obtained from large companies, this type of construction is also cost-effective.
Young says he built his home entirely out of pocket, never going to a bank for a loan or racking up debt.
"People are missing that important aspect of what's actually happening," Young says, talking about the current mortgage crisis.
"The price of housing is so astronomical it takes a two-income family to make the mortgage, and materials are coming from all over the Earth to build at your site, which uses fuel and energy to get it there."
"The handwriting on the wall is saying that this is not sustainable and the cost is showing us that."
Kelly Lewis is a University of Arizona journalism senior who is apprenticing at the Star. You can contact her at starapprentice@azstarnet.com.
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