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Cob: Smart Shelter NetworkPositive Solutions with Natural Building SLIDE SHOW AND TALK TOUR AND WORSHOP IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA with Gary Duncan

Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson lakinroe at silcom.com
Wed Oct 18 08:58:11 CDT 2000 

GARY DUNCAN FROM SMARTSHELTER NETWORK
SLIDE SHOW AND TALK ON THE CENTRAL COAST CA

Nov 8: Wed Ojai...7pm Happy Valley School Auditorium, contact Dave White,
Ojai Permaculture Guild, 805-646-9809 artdetour at mac.com.
Nov 9: Thursday Santa Barbara.. 7:00pm at the Santa Barbara Public
Library Main Branch Downtown, Faulkner Gallery, donation $3, Santa Barbara 
Permaculture Network and other cosponsors  contact 962-2571
or sbpcnet at silcom.com.
Nov. 10: Friday San Luis Obispo... 7pm at the Community Room at the SLO 
Library
co-sponsored by HopeDance (544-9663), Sustainable Building Council, CC 
Permaculture Guild
and the Canaries of the Central Coast, Future Electric

strawbale building, passive solar design, adobe, cob,
pressed earth, earthships, environmental illness, electromagnetic fields,
Feng Shui, water catchment, biological waste water treatment, remodeling,
solar electric, solar hot water, pressed block, permaculture, green houses,
green building, finance, insurance, Russian Stoves, timber frame, green
power....and more. Plus a special look at Environmental Illness for those
affected by sensitivities or allergies caused by buildings, toxic
indoor air quality problems, cleaning products, furnishings, perfumes, etc.

Setting Up a Natural Building Network in California, a half day workshop 
given by Gary Duncan, Saturday, November 11. Links builders, architects, 
lenders, real estate & insurance agents, county building officials, 
individual natural home owners to exchange info on natural & green building 
methods. The workshop takes as a model the Smartshelter Network in Colorado 
and is tailored to our local region, The network provides advocacy in order 
to compete with the non-renewable toxic and environmentally destructive 
aspects of conventional building.
At the CEC Gildea Resource Center 930 Miramonte Dr Santa Barbara.
Cost/$60 For more info & registration call SBPN 805/962-2571, email 
sbpcnet at silcom.com.


Smart Shelter Network
Positive Solutions with Natural Building Introduction by Margie Bushman

Last April South Coast Permaculture Guild did a presentation on Earthships 
as a part of our monthly meeting at the Community Environmental Center in 
Santa Barbara.  In the audience was Gary Duncan, from Smart Shelter Network 
in southwestern Colorado, and we were lucky enough to spend time with him 
before he left Santa Barbara and learn of his immense knowledge of natural 
building and alternative building design.

Strawbale, cob, and adobe.  We've all heard about them, maybe even dreamed 
of building and owning one, but what exactly is involved in building one of 
these non- conventional structures?  Since they have been around for so 
long, why don't we see more of them built?

Gary Duncan had many of these same questions and a curiosity to learn 
more.  He began Smart Shelter Network as a result of an illness caused from 
years of working with toxic building materials.  He had also observed how 
many alternative building structures were being built in his area of 
southwestern Colorado, and dreamed of forming a network, to share and 
exchange knowledge.  This network would not only share information on how 
to build, but what was involved in financing, insuring and permitting these 
structures.  This wonderful vision became a reality and now the network 
provides advocacy and education to code officials, bankers, material 
suppliers, the media and public.  It is composed of members who form tasks 
forces dealing with specific issues such as water catchement, ferro cement, 
strawbale, bamboo, pressed earth block and more.


Gary Duncan began Smart Shelter Network as a result of two things. After 35 
years in the building trade he experienced an illness caused from years of 
working with toxic building materials. He had also observed how many 
alternative building structures were being built in his area, and dreamed 
of forming a network, to share and exchange knowledge, not only on how to 
build, but what was involved in permitting, financing, and insurance. He 
will share some of the experiences in an upcoming lecture and slide show 
with over 3000 slides of documented case studies he has collected over the 
last six years, and later a half day work shop, both to be held in Santa 
Barbara in Nov .


*************************************

Smart Shelter Network
Positive Solutions with Natural Building by Gary Duncan  c
*************************************


Where’s the positive way out? As news of the increasing destruction of our 
planet¹s environment escalates, more and more people are seeing that 
effective personal action is not only advisable.but absolutely necessary.
Gandhi kept turning our attention, often focused on other people’s 
action,back to the real origin of responsibility back to ourselves.
Pro-active environmentalism is necessary. We need to be pressuring the 
electric energy producers, developers and auto manufacturers to turn the 
course of global warming and resource depletion around. But the lion¹s 
share of effective changes will come not from those who produce 
commodities, but from changing the way we consume them. This is called 
demand side
management.
  Of all the purchases we make in a life-time, the buildings we live and 
work in pack the largest environmental wallop we finance as consumers. They 
are responsible for the loss of old-growth forests. They are heated and lit 
with electricity...the number one contributor world-wide to global climate 
change. 30% of these  harbor toxins sufficient to produce environmental 
illness in their dwellers.(according to the EPA and World Health 
Organization)                                                             2
There are a couple of beacons of hope on the horizon. Some of them are 
delightful surprises, which is often characteristic of profound solutions 
to perplexing problems.
Bucky Fuller¹s concept of “Synergy” stated the seemingly impossible. He 
insisted that solutions could be found.Solutions which will produce more 
energy than they require to create. Strawbale Hybrid Solar Design is just 
such a solution. A natural home built of soil and bales not only reduces 
the slaughter of trees, it produces super-insulated, sound-proof, 
affordable homes for those with the spirit to step out of the ordinary and 
build one.
After you¹ve felt the interior ambience of these 'Natural Homes'. Of which 
I¹ve been through a couple of hundred now, you realize Bucky¹s synergy 
extends to the subjective and spiritual realm as well. These homes feel and 
live on levels impossible to describe until you¹ve felt them and definitely 
far above that of conventional dwellings.
The second irony of natural homes has to do with their cost and the 
attitude of their owners. We have found here in Western Colorado that 
people who go the extra mile in considering the environmental impacts of 
their homes have a definite tendency to wind up in them at 10-30% less cost 
than those who are selfish and don¹t care. We can¹t explain that, but we 
know for a fact that it¹s a verifiable pattern.
Much of the experimental era in Natural Building is over. The cutting edge 
explorers willing to tackle raw desert and isolation to create this new 
architecture have already laid the foundation for the most profound change 
in the history of the American Building Industry. There is no longer any 
doubt that agricultural waste products and soil can save our forests and 
produce better buildings. Load Bearing Strawbale and hybrid designs are 
tried, tested, and in many jurisdictions, already approved. These 
techniques are now spreading from new construction projects to application 
in retrofit of existing homes. These are techniques you can use today in 
the house you already live in. You don¹t need to wait to be able to afford 
a new one.
There are several hotbeds across the nation where natural building is 
flourishing. The area of Southwestern Colorado from Aspen to Pagosa Springs 
(roughly equivalent to the area from San Luis Obispo to San Diego) hosts 
200 known strawbale buildings (of which 28 are load-bearing), 50 
earthships, 2000 adobe structures and healthy smatterings of rammed earth, 
cob, poured adobe, non-toxic and reclaimed structures. This is the highest 
documented per-capita utilization of sustainable building techniques in the 
United States.
In the years to come, the availability of healthy homes(especially for 
those of us with environmental illnesses) and the right to build 
sustainably may depend on entities similar to the Smart Shelter Network 
which documents, studies, photographs and advocates natural building in 
this mountain area with bankers, insurers, builders, code officials and 
politicians. It acts as an independent, business-based entity to support 
sustainable building, in sharp contrast to the lobby interests of the 
multi-national corporations who produce manufactured building products and 
write the building codes.
Southern California already has some of the ingredients necessary in the 
California Strawbale Association , Sustainability Project, the Green 
Building Alliance in Santa Barbara, the Sustainable Building Council of the 
Central Coast and Ecohome Network located in Los Angeles and South Coast 
Permaculture Guild and it's related guilds in Southern California. It has 
an arsenal of talent in people like  Architect Jim Bell who brought us 
Santa Barbara¹s one of first strawbale project and Dennis Allen of Allen 
and Associates and Wes Roe and Margie Bushman of the Santa Barbara 
Permaculture Network.
Networks like Smart Shelter take natural building into the business realm, 
creating and supporting jobs and a professional class dedicated to 
sustainability. It establishes credibility with politicians, financiers and 
code officials by objectively studying and documenting large numbers
3
of natural building techniques. Entering it¹s 5th year in Colorado, the 
Smart Shelter service area does not contain a single code jurisdiction 
which does not support strawbale construction. This works and the reason 
why is that it bases its resources and advocacy on the professional 
building community as well as the person building or remodeling their own home.
On Nov 8-10- Smart Shelter will tour the Central California Coast with a 1 
1/2 hour slide show on natural building in Western Colorado...the majestic 
scenery, the million dollar strawbale homes, the converted WWII quonset 
huts with adobe sun rooms an armchair tour of some of the most vibrant 
natural architecture in America and the characters who create it.
On Sat, Nov 11 Smart Shelter will produce a half-day workshop geared toward 
creating a Network of this type in Southern California (1-6 pm, CEC Gildea 
Resource Center, Santa Barbara).
For slide show and workshop information <sbpcnet at silcom.com>.
For information about Smart Shelter Network: www.smartshelter.com.
By Special Request of the speaker this event will be “FRAGRANCE FREE”
GARY DUNCAN FROM SMARTSHELTER NETWORK
SLIDE SHOW AND TALK ON THE CENTRAL COAST

Nov 8: Wed Ojai...7pm Happy Valley School Auditorium, contact Dave White,
Ojai Permaculture Guild, 805-646-9809 artdetour at mac.com.
Nov 9: Thursday Santa Barbara.. 7:00pm at the Santa Barbara Public
Library Main Branch Downtown, Faulkner Gallery, donation $3, Santa Barbara 
Permaculture Network and other cosponsors  contact 962-2571
or sbpcnet at silcom.com.
Nov. 10: Friday San Luis Obispo... 7pm at the Community Room at the SLO 
Library
co-sponsored by HopeDance (544-9663), Sustainable Building Council, CC 
Permaculture Guild
and the Canaries of the Central Coast, Future Electric



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<html>
<div align="center">
<b><u>GARY DUNCAN FROM SMARTSHELTER NETWORK<br>
SLIDE SHOW AND TALK ON THE CENTRAL COAST CA<br>
<br>
</u>Nov 8: Wed Ojai...7pm </b>Happy Valley School Auditorium, contact
Dave White, <br>
Ojai Permaculture Guild, 805-646-9809 artdetour at mac.com. <br>
<b>Nov 9: Thursday Santa Barbara</b>.. 7:00pm at the Santa Barbara Public
<br>
Library Main Branch Downtown, Faulkner Gallery, donation $3, Santa
Barbara Permaculture Network and other cosponsors  contact 962-2571
<br>
or sbpcnet at silcom.com. <br>
<b>Nov. 10: Friday San Luis Obispo</b>... 7pm at the Community Room at
the SLO Library <br>
co-sponsored by HopeDance (544-9663), Sustainable Building Council, CC
Permaculture Guild<br>
and the Canaries of the Central Coast, Future Electric<br>
<br>
</div>
strawbale building, passive solar design, adobe, cob, <br>
pressed earth, earthships, environmental illness, electromagnetic fields,
<br>
Feng Shui, water catchment, biological waste water treatment, remodeling,
<br>
solar electric, solar hot water, pressed block, permaculture, green
houses, <br>
green building, finance, insurance, Russian Stoves, timber frame, green
<br>
power....and more. Plus a special look at Environmental Illness for those
<br>
affected by sensitivities or allergies caused by buildings, toxic <br>
indoor air quality problems, cleaning products, furnishings, perfumes,
etc. <br>
<br>
<b>Setting Up a Natural Building Network in California</b>, a half day
workshop given by Gary Duncan, Saturday, November 11. Links builders,
architects, lenders, real estate & insurance agents, county building
officials, individual natural home owners to exchange info on natural
& green building methods. The workshop takes as a model the
Smartshelter Network in Colorado and is tailored to our local region, The
network provides advocacy in order to compete with the non-renewable
toxic and environmentally destructive aspects of conventional building.
<br>
At the CEC Gildea Resource Center 930 Miramonte Dr Santa Barbara. <br>
Cost/$60 For more info & registration call SBPN 805/962-2571, email
sbpcnet at silcom.com.<br>
<br>
<br>
Smart Shelter Network<br>
<u>Positive Solutions with Natural Building Introduction by Margie
Bushman<br>
<br>
</u>Last April South Coast Permaculture Guild did a presentation on
Earthships as a part of our monthly meeting at the Community
Environmental Center in Santa Barbara.  In the audience was Gary
Duncan, from Smart Shelter Network in southwestern Colorado, and we were
lucky enough to spend time with him before he left Santa Barbara and
learn of his immense knowledge of natural building and alternative
building design.<br>
<br>
Strawbale, cob, and adobe.  We've all heard about them, maybe even
dreamed of building and owning one, but what exactly is involved in
building one of these non- conventional structures?  Since they have
been around for so long, why don't we see more of them built?  
<br>
<br>
Gary Duncan had many of these same questions and a curiosity to learn
more.  He began Smart Shelter Network as a result of an illness
caused from years of working with toxic building materials.  He had
also observed how many alternative building structures were being built
in his area of southwestern Colorado, and dreamed of forming a network,
to share and exchange knowledge.  This network would not only share
information on how to build, but what was involved in financing, insuring
and permitting these structures.  This wonderful vision became a
reality and now the network provides advocacy and education to code
officials, bankers, material suppliers, the media and public.  It is
composed of members who form tasks forces dealing with specific issues
such as water catchement, ferro cement, strawbale, bamboo, pressed earth
block and more.<br>
<br>
<br>
Gary Duncan began Smart Shelter Network as a result of two things. After
35 years in the building trade he experienced an illness caused from
years of working with toxic building materials. He had also observed how
many alternative building structures were being built in his area, and
dreamed of forming a network, to share and exchange knowledge, not only
on how to build, but what was involved in permitting, financing, and
insurance. He will share some of the experiences in an upcoming lecture
and slide show with over 3000 slides of documented case studies he has
collected over the last six years, and later a half day work shop, both
to be held in Santa Barbara in Nov .<br>
<br>
<br>
<div align="center">
<b><u>*************************************<br>
<br>
</u></b></div>
<font size=5>Smart Shelter Network<br>
Positive Solutions with Natural Building by Gary Duncan  c<br>
<b><u>*************************************<br>
<br>
<br>
</u></b></font><div align="center">
Where’s the positive way out? As news of the increasing destruction of
our planet¹s environment escalates, more and more people are seeing that
effective personal action is not only advisable.but absolutely
necessary.<br>
Gandhi kept turning our attention, often focused on other people’s
action,back to the real origin of responsibility back to ourselves.<br>
Pro-active environmentalism is necessary. We need to be pressuring the
electric energy producers, developers and auto manufacturers to turn the
course of global warming and resource depletion around. But the lion¹s
share of effective changes will come not from those who produce
commodities, but from changing the way we consume them. This is called
demand side<br>
management.<br>
 Of all the purchases we make in a life-time, the buildings we live
and work in pack the largest environmental wallop we finance as
consumers. They are responsible for the loss of old-growth forests. They
are heated and lit with electricity...the number one contributor
world-wide to global climate change. 30% of these  harbor toxins
sufficient to produce environmental illness in their dwellers.(according
to the EPA and World Health
Organization)                                                            
2<br>
There are a couple of beacons of hope on the horizon. Some of them are
delightful surprises, which is often characteristic of profound solutions
to perplexing problems.<br>
Bucky Fuller¹s concept of “Synergy” stated the seemingly impossible. He
insisted that solutions could be found.Solutions which will produce more
energy than they require to create. Strawbale Hybrid Solar Design is just
such a solution. A natural home built of soil and bales not only reduces
the slaughter of trees, it produces super-insulated, sound-proof,
affordable homes for those with the spirit to step out of the ordinary
and build one.<br>
After you¹ve felt the interior ambience of these 'Natural Homes'. Of
which I¹ve been through a couple of hundred now, you realize Bucky¹s
synergy extends to the subjective and spiritual realm as well. These
homes feel and live on levels impossible to describe until you¹ve felt
them and definitely far above that of conventional dwellings.<br>
The second irony of natural homes has to do with their cost and the
attitude of their owners. We have found here in Western Colorado that
people who go the extra mile in considering the environmental impacts of
their homes have a definite tendency to wind up in them at 10-30% less
cost than those who are selfish and don¹t care. We can¹t explain that,
but we know for a fact that it¹s a verifiable pattern.<br>
Much of the experimental era in Natural Building is over. The cutting
edge explorers willing to tackle raw desert and isolation to create this
new architecture have already laid the foundation for the most profound
change in the history of the American Building Industry. There is no
longer any doubt that agricultural waste products and soil can save our
forests and produce better buildings. Load Bearing Strawbale and hybrid
designs are tried, tested, and in many jurisdictions, already approved.
These techniques are now spreading from new construction projects to
application in retrofit of existing homes. These are techniques you can
use today in the house you already live in. You don¹t need to wait to be
able to afford a new one.<br>
There are several hotbeds across the nation where natural building is
flourishing. The area of Southwestern Colorado from Aspen to Pagosa
Springs (roughly equivalent to the area from San Luis Obispo to San
Diego) hosts 200 known strawbale buildings (of which 28 are
load-bearing), 50 earthships, 2000 adobe structures and healthy
smatterings of rammed earth, cob, poured adobe, non-toxic and reclaimed
structures. This is the highest documented per-capita utilization of
sustainable building techniques in the United States.<br>
In the years to come, the availability of healthy homes(especially for
those of us with environmental illnesses) and the right to build
sustainably may depend on entities similar to the Smart Shelter Network
which documents, studies, photographs and advocates natural building in
this mountain area with bankers, insurers, builders, code officials and
politicians. It acts as an independent, business-based entity to support
sustainable building, in sharp contrast to the lobby interests of the
multi-national corporations who produce manufactured building products
and write the building codes.<br>
Southern California already has some of the ingredients necessary in the
California Strawbale Association , Sustainability Project, the Green
Building Alliance in Santa Barbara, the Sustainable Building Council of
the Central Coast and Ecohome Network located in Los Angeles and South
Coast Permaculture Guild and it's related guilds in Southern California.
It has an arsenal of talent in people like  Architect Jim Bell who
brought us Santa Barbara¹s one of first strawbale project and Dennis
Allen of Allen and Associates and Wes Roe and Margie Bushman of the Santa
Barbara Permaculture Network.<br>
Networks like Smart Shelter take natural building into the business
realm, creating and supporting jobs and a professional class dedicated to
sustainability. It establishes credibility with politicians, financiers
and code officials by objectively studying and documenting large numbers
<br>
3<br>
of natural building techniques. Entering it¹s 5th year in Colorado, the
Smart Shelter service area does not contain a single code jurisdiction
which does<i> <b>not</i> </b>support strawbale construction. This works
and the reason why is that it bases its resources and advocacy on the
professional building community as well as the person building or
remodeling their own home.<br>
On Nov 8-10- Smart Shelter will tour the Central California Coast with a
1 1/2 hour slide show on natural building in Western Colorado...the
majestic scenery, the million dollar strawbale homes, the converted WWII
quonset huts with adobe sun rooms an armchair tour of some of the most
vibrant natural architecture in America and the characters who create
it.<br>
On Sat, Nov 11 Smart Shelter will produce a half-day workshop geared
toward creating a Network of this type in Southern California (1-6 pm,
CEC Gildea Resource Center, Santa Barbara). <br>
For slide show and workshop information <sbpcnet at silcom.com>.<br>
For information about Smart Shelter Network:
<a href="http://www.smartshelter.com/" eudora="autourl">www.smartshelter.com</a>.<br>
<b>By Special Request of the speaker this event will be “FRAGRANCE
FREE”<br>
<u>GARY DUNCAN FROM SMARTSHELTER NETWORK<br>
SLIDE SHOW AND TALK ON THE CENTRAL COAST<br>
<br>
</u>Nov 8: Wed Ojai...7pm </b>Happy Valley School Auditorium, contact
Dave White, <br>
Ojai Permaculture Guild, 805-646-9809 artdetour at mac.com. <br>
<b>Nov 9: Thursday Santa Barbara</b>.. 7:00pm at the Santa Barbara Public
<br>
Library Main Branch Downtown, Faulkner Gallery, donation $3, Santa
Barbara Permaculture Network and other cosponsors  contact 962-2571
<br>
or sbpcnet at silcom.com. <br>
<b>Nov. 10: Friday San Luis Obispo</b>... 7pm at the Community Room at
the SLO Library <br>
co-sponsored by HopeDance (544-9663), Sustainable Building Council, CC
Permaculture Guild<br>
and the Canaries of the Central Coast, Future Electric<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<br>
</html>