Related ideas and strategies
Other concepts, methods and strategies often (or sometimes) associated with natural building include: building "underground," earth sheltering, or berming, "green" or "living" planted roofs, thatched roofs and cement-free earthen floors, rubble-trench, or gabion foundations.
To increase sustainability, various approaches to lower energy consumption are used in conjunction with natural building: sun-shading or other passive cooling techniques, passive solar heating, geo-exchange heating and cooling, "short-cycle" and "annualized" passive (and PV-assisted) solar space and water heating, hot water heat recycling, biologic air purification by indoor plants, passive or air-to-air/heat-recovery ventilation, solar or annualized cooling, insulated glazing and selective glazing films, night and cold-weather "movable" insulation, or on-site electric power generation by renewable energy in the form of photovoltaics (PV), wind generators, or micro-hydro (either with fully independent systems referred to as "off-grid" or with "grid-tied" systems feeding into the public electric network), low-voltage electric and avoidance of electro-magnetic and other possibly harmful forms of radiation.
Other green building strategies that improve conservation of resources include: rain-water catchment, storage, and purification; waste-water separation; biological waste-water purification and grey-water reuse; composting toilets, on-site snow/rain-water run-off management,bioswales, permeable paving, native or low-water-use ("xeriscape") landscapes, and accommodation of alternative-fuelled/powered and human-powered vehicles.
Chirpici
Making chirpici bricks in semi-developedRomania
Chirpici [kirˈpit͡ʃʲ] is a Romanian term for adobe bricks. Chirpici is a traditional construction material made out of clay and straw, used especially on the steppes of southern Romania, in theBărăgan Plain, but also in other lowlands of Oltenia, Moldavia and Dobruja.
The Romanian word "chirpici" is derived from a Turkic "kerpiç", as several Turkic tribes (notably theCumans and Pechenegs) came from Central Asia and settled in the Bărăgan. As they were less numerous than the Romanians, they were assimilated, but kept the way they made chirpici.
Traditionally, Romanian houses require wood, which is used both for construction (some types of houses in Maramureş and Bukovina were made exclusively out of wood) and also for the firing ofbricks. Wood is plentiful in the hilly and mountainous regions of Romania, but in the Bărăgansteppe and other lowlands, neither wood nor rock can be easily found and in the Middle Ages it was not practical to transport these materials hundreds of kilometres.
As such, the chirpici bricks used for construction are made out of clay, with straw and manure and are baked in the sun before they are used. The result is not as hardy as regular bricks and it becomes less so with time. It is also especially vulnerable during floods.
Since cement and mechanized transportation have become available, chirpici is no longer used on such a large scale, although it remains in use in some parts of the Bărăgan Plain, which is one of the least developed areas of Romania.