We shouldn't want them in construction, all those complex and processed materials! So writes Ronald Rovers in this - monthly - column Post Fossil Building. Before you know it, you have 'construction obesity'.
In simplicity you recognize the master. Historically, I think of nail- and screwless buildings in China and Japan, with highly innovative clamp-connection techniques.
Even in the here and now, it turns out that less is more is true time and again. Look at food, you get it through the daily news, our food is getting more and more complex. Tasty easy foods are being served. Fast and comfort food. Meanwhile, half of society struggles with obesity, with eating too much sugar and too much salt; the problem of diabetes is growing by the dozen.
Professor Seidell said it recently in Buitenhof: at least 80 percent of the food in the supermarket we should leave out. Or else: we are going down with Ultra Processed Foods. The more manufacturers mess with your food, the worse it is. For your health, the environment and for the climate.
Pathogenic building products
Actually, it's no different in the construction world... There, too, we are especially troubled by Ultra Processed Materials. We had asbestos and sick building syndrome, we have construction workers with lung problems, due to dust released during drilling in concrete. I can cite more examples. Take UF foam with formaldehyde. A lot of people got seriously ill from it.
With each other, these complex and processed materials have in common that they cause all kinds of problems, such as groundwater pollution or an unhealthy indoor climate. There are bound to be a few more scandals in the years to come.
Think about sheet materials and paints. Or the enormously high impact by machining metals like aluminum and steel. These are not directly unhealthy on the building site, but they are harmful to the environment (our bio-ecological system) and to the workers in the mines. Not only that. Mining and processing metals leads directly or indirectly to degradation of the landscape and pollution of rivers. Not only here with us in the Netherlands, (think of people living around industrial sites, such as Tata), but also elsewhere abroad.
My argument? Think carefully about where your materials come from and how they were produced. Omit certain products in regular DIY stores. Build pure nature in short. For the sake of people and the environment. From here and from far away.
About Ronald Rovers
Ronald Rovers is an ex-professor, physical fundamentalist, future thinker and nowadays author. He is permanently searching for the ultimate sustainable physical balance on earth, without depleting fossil resources. Productive Land he calls "our real capital, for food energy water and material. And that requires us to live "vegetarian," and therefore to build vegetarian.
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