chaglang wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 6:31 am
I haven’t done a lot of research on this, but offhand I can’t think of how you would build the foundation of a building without concrete.
Instead of a four inch basement slab on grade put in a waterproof membrane, cover it with a hard clay, cover with another membrane let it dry out and lay vinyl tiles on top. For 1000 square feet that's a truck worth of concrete not used. A lot of homes could make use of this method. It would be especially nice for garages or barns.
We also want to think about repairability
There's a lot of poured concrete foundations that are super thin but if they crumble are really expensive to fix. Concrete blocks aren't much greener up front but if you lose a few blocks you support the home, knock them out and replace them. Blocks can also be delivered with other supplies minimizing the number of truck deliveries, greening up the build that way.
We should look into methods like post on beam which use only footings.
This is a bit old but this shows how in some environments how simple a footing we can use for a home.
https://unofficialculture.wordpress.com ... al-method/
Basements are a safety feature in the midwest but imagine if instead of a full basement we built safety rooms . Here's an interesting design which replaces extensive use of concrete with a design that takes advantage of an extreme slope.
https://logangate.com/the-amity/