There is a manufactured building system that has been gaining popularity in Europe for several years called Thermoplan or Zeigel Blocks. While I have no personal experience with this technology, I can readily see its many advantages. As far as I know this system has not made its way across the ocean to North America. From what I can gather from the websites (referenced below), here are some of the advantages:

Thermoplan or Zeigel Blocks are fired clay blocks which use about 1/3 less energy to make compared to concrete blocks, and about 2/3 less CO2. They are fast, simple and ideal for a self builder to use. About 50% of German homes are made this way and the technology is spreading to other areas of Europe.

Thermoplan systems use Ziegel blocks with a thin bed of mortar, to provide a breathing wall construction system. When combined with woodfibre board they can form a thermally and acoustically high performance shell. The Ziegel blocks come as part of a full load-bearing external and internal wall masonry system, and combine high thermal performance with robustness, speed of build and a breathing wall design.

Because of all the trapped air and the thickness of the walls, these blocks provide reasonable insulation, while at the same time do provide some degree of interior thermal mass for maintaining constant interior temperatures. This is an unusual combination of these two factors in a single wall system.

See www.burdensenvironmental.com or www.natural-building.co.uk for information for this innovative system.

Over at the blog ‘ideasonideas‘ Eric Karjaluoto has posted an interview with the well known (Sir) Kevin Roberts from Saatchi.

I thought I’d want to post my very own comment on this here since the interview is touching some good arguments that summarise my recent efforts (both theoretically as well as practically) on building an argument why it is essential for the design management community to understand and embrace the impact of digital communication and ‘social networks services in particular.

In a current client project I’m involved in we (that means Erik & Edwin from designest) are challenged by identifying the various digital and social touch points of social media with the brand in relation to the consumer.

What makes this process challenging is the somehow unknown territory we’ve entered therefore I’ve read with some relief Robert’s response to the question:

Eric: What kind of experiments are you running in interactive? Are there areas that you are testing with greater success than others?

Kevin: Our whole approach is pretty much one big experiment at this stage. There?s no proven pathway (Thank God!!!).

Accordingly we are currently combining tools of design research (consumer journey’s, empathic observation or ethnographic research in its broadest meaning) in conjunction with considering the whole spectrum of social network platforms & tools currently available.

While we still have a long way to go I do think that we are coming closer to “expanding tools, technologies and teams to get closer to consumers on the terms they want.”

However this all wouldn’t be possible without our client to allow for some degree of freedom and exploration that Eric and Kevin are discussing here:

Eric: What?s the sense like amongst your clients? Are they racing to embrace these new tools, or are you finding them more cautious?

Kevin: They?re emotionally engaged and rationally careful. But ? they?re becoming less cautious as they see the benefits of keeping up with consumers. You miss 100% of the shots you don?t take.

My personal conclusion so far is that the design management community has not embraced this challenge pro-actively so far (maybe there have been some discussions at the recent DMI conference in Paris of which I’m not aware). However what I mostly hear from my peers in my network is more lip service than actually founded arguments & insights.

Simply talking about ‘customer co-creation’ and ‘user driven design’ sounds nice and might sell good, but I’d like to see applications beyond being able to customise the colour of your sneaker …

This is just a short posting as one assignment follows the next one these days. I hope I’ll find the time to synthesise all what’s happening these days and squeeze some valuable (design management related) insights out of it for this blog; promised ;-)

However in the meantime I’d like to point you to the blog of my current project partner Erik Roscam Abbing over in Rotterdam: “BrandDrivenInnovation.com“. After a longer period of silence on his blog Erik started again and posted some interesting stuff.

One posting is about a paper Erik has submitted to DMI’s upcoming academic conference. You can download the paper (co-authored with the wonderfully skilled design graduate Christina van Gessel) on Brand Driven Innovation here >>>

His two latest postings are about the Creative Company Conference (CCC) that took place this week in Amsterdam/NL. Since there are too many conferences these days and simply too few hours/day to allocate I do more than appreciate if people do openly share there reflections in public! Thanks for this, Erik!

• Pumas, Planets and Pens: How Cues in the Environment Influence Consumer Choice
  While I haven’t read the whole story yet I think the insights indicate at least that also in marketing forces are shifting from problems as puzzles to problems as paradoxes
  (tags: marketing conext research consumer_behaviour behaviour consumerbehaviour)
• NussbaumOnDesign Innovation at General Motors: Is Pontiac The Next BMW?
  How naive is this? Come on Bruce Nussbaum! Unfortunately Diego Rodriguez view: http://tinyurl.com/2y2xm4 is not much more sophisticated either; I’ll give up here … At least another case for blog buddy shoulder clapping ;-)
  (tags: Nussbaum businessweek metacool marketing automotive automotiveindustry)

I get regularly asked by people from outside the design (management) community what can design actually do for them and their business. My spontaneous answer for sure is: A lot! - However the tricky part begins right after when it comes to explaining why and how ;-)

Therefore as part of my design management lecturing activities and inspired by Roger Martin’s thinking I try to give my audiences an answer to the question above by starting with a broader illustration what makes Design (Thinking) different from Business (Thinking). Wait, wait this is not a question of black/white, right/wrong, better/worse, but rather an issue of ‘context’ in which problems occur.

Without going into details here I do start my workshops by presenting my audiences different approaches on how to perceive and understand problems on a general scale. From this level at the two ends of a spectrum you can perceive a problem as something that has one, single solution (a Puzzle) while at the other side problems are paradoxes with multiple possible options. The tendency to see problems as puzzles is more likely to be found in business schools while designers somehow unconsciously accept paradoxes as a natural part of their problem solving process.

While this might sound reasonable on paper audiences are indeed interested to see what ‘overcoming paradoxes’ means in terms of design solutions. Well not surprisingly I do show some great everyday examples (no iPhones, iPods, etc. ;-) like for example Orikaso tableware. Fortunately over at Core77 today I’ve found another great YouTube video that shows what you can do with design as a tool to solve paradoxes. Watching this reminds me on how puzzle driven I am too often ;-) Simplicity rules!

• Radical Design, Radical Results ? HBS Working Knowledge
  It’s fascinating to see the self-refering attitude of the Italians in general and Verganti in particular. On the other hand he did ‘publish into action’ what I’ve found as ‘too simple textbook application’. So sometimes it just takes a simple ‘go for it’!
  (tags: design hbs innovation strategy furniture italy clusters)

I've admired rammed earth homes for a long time, even though they're not really appropriate for the climate I live in. It's just that rammed earth walls are mesmerizing to look at. I get lost staring at the different layers of soil, in varying subtle shades of earth tone, flowing gracefully along along a wall. To my eye, rammed earth walls epitomize the very essence of natural beauty.

I can't think of any rammed earth builder that does it better than Terra Firma Builders Ltd. They have a way of crafting the most gracefully curved walls. Their designs blend with the surrounding landscape. Inside, massive earthen walls and sturdy timbers comfortably intertwine with delicate, artistic finishing. It's a totally unique aesthetic.










Terra Firma's website is fantastic. There's a wealth of images of their work in their portfolio. There's also a great explanation of why rammed earth is an effective, sustainable building solution.

Probably the most interesting thing I found on their site is that they use an unusual insulated rammed earth wall approach called SIREWALL (SIRE = Stabilized Insulated Rammed Earth). SIREWALL was developed by Meyer Krayenhoff, an environmental builder of over thirty years, who also founded Terra Firma. Here's an explanation from the SIREWALL site:

Stabilized, Insulated, Rammed Earth (SIRE) walls are made using rebar and insulation enveloped with the mass of 14 – 20 inches of rammed earth. This combination, along with SIREWALL®’s system for quality control and soil blending, builds walls that exceed current standards for energy efficiency and compressive strength. SIREWALL’s customizable forms refined over the last fifteen years by SIREWALL’s expert builders, work seamlessly with unique designs and modern finishes that have timeless appeal.

I always thought that would work. We've seen that concept applied to concrete walls, so why not rammed earth too? Actually, reading their FAQ, and noting that they're in Canada and do their building in British Columbia, I've learned that rammed earth can be a solution for climates other than hot, arid deserts, especially with the SIREWALL approach in place.

Note that Terra Firma builds complete homes only on their home turf. But they will build walls elsewhere, and let your builder finish the house. They also train and certify builders in the SIREWALL system, and offer design and consulting services. Wherever you are, whatever type of rammed earth project you might be considering, I think these would be the people to talk to.

I have new hope of living in a rammed earth house yet!

Image credits - Terra Firma site

APOCALYPSE is a new company founded by industrial designers Petra Lilja and Jenny Nordberg. Based in Malmö, Sweden, they are designing sustainable products and services. The first product, The Soap is made from recycled cooking oil from the numerous Falafel stands around Malmö.
“We look at waste as materials with a history and with a potential new life as a new product�, says Jenny Nordberg. The method of Apocalypse takes the complete life cycle of a product in consideration. “In The Soap we combine the old tradition of making cold processed soap with the use of a modern waste material of our home town�, says Petra Lilja.

The sound track for the release of The Soap is composed by artist Andres Corazon who turned the oil barrels into oil drums.

Here’s the link to the soundtrack. You should definitely listen to it.
andres-corazon-apocalypso-now

Finally a picture from the APOCALYPSE lab!

Ping Intressant.se

Andra bloggar om: hållbar design, malmö, design, falafel

Its time to wrap up our series on pref-fab house building in Sweden. In previous entries we've looked at how the houses are put together, and the products and technology that have enabled the technique. Today we are going to look at the last part of the process: delivery and installation at the site.



As we've hinted at before the panelized method used by the Swedes requires less shipping than a modular technique. Where modular requires a separate truck/trailer for each module box with panelized a few trucks can usually deliver all the parts. All the wall and floor panels can be loaded on one truck, roof trusses and roofing materials on another. Its a denser method of transport compared to the hollow box of modular construction. Remember, Ikea ships their goods flat-packed because it avoids shipping air!



The parts arrive at the site and are craned into place, carpenter fastening the wall panels as they are off-loaded. This is important! They are not stacking them on site to be handled again when they are installed. The come off the truck and into their final resting place in one step. When the ground floor walls are up, then the drywall for the ceilings and wall patches is placed on the floor before the second floor framing goes on. The drywall is delivered with the rest of the panels from the factory, so there is no separate order of materials, and no unloading and carrying of drywall into the house. They leverage the crane for this. Here is a time lapse installation video made by Scott. As you will see the entire house goes up in one day.



Another common technique is the crane enabled delivery truck. This is a flat bed deliver truck which includes a relatively small crane for unloading the panels. We've seen similar equipment in the US. Often lumber yards will have a small lift arm on a flat bed truck for lifting drywall or lumber to a convenient spot on a construction site. Scale that up and you have the Swedish house delivery truck. Often the controls are wireless allowing the operator to get a better view of the load and place it with more ease. These trucks are commonly owned by the factory, which if you remember from earlier posts owns the entire process at the site. So unlike a lumber delivery truck in the US, the truck is not running to the next delivery. It can remain on site and assist with the remaining lifting work - this may mean spending a day at the site, vs unloading in an hour or two and disappearing. This can mean a lot to the speed of construction overall, and it is certainly convenient for delivery and assembly to be unified. Otherwise the builder must have his own equipment on site to handle the panels after delivery. That all adds extra steps which erodes the efficiency of the process.





While the house walls are going in on another part of the site the roof will be assembled. The trusses come off the truck and are placed onto a steel jig which has been previously set up to match the top plates of the walls. Roof sheathing goes on, pre-sided end panels go on, and the roof is shingled. This all happens just a few feet above the ground instead of an entire story up. This makes it easier for the workers to get on and off the roof, and carrying materials up is also much easier. From here the roof assembly is craned to the flat bed, carried over to the house, and craned in place.



It all happens very quickly, and everything that has gone before was designed to make this field install as fast and as systematic as possible. Remember this is not a curiosity there. This method has completely replaced the site based construction we do here in the US. This is the way the commercial house builders work in Sweden.



Now that the house is together what is left to do? The joints between panels must be finished and sealed on the outside, and drywalled on the inside. Ceiling drywall must be installed, and wires pulled through the conduits. Connections must be made for plumbing and electrical services, and the HVAC system connections as well. Windows and hardware must be adjusted, and the house made clean for the buyer. Buyers often add sweat equity to finish houses. Painting is common. Floor finishes sometimes as well. Plumbing fixtures as explained before are often installed like appliances after the fact.

One more entry to wrap up the series - we'll look at a range of Swedish house vendors.

Thanks to Scott for photos and video.
Previously:
Letters from Sweden - plumbing the prefab
Letters from Sweden - wiring zen
Letters from Sweden - a windows tale
Letters from Sweden - panel building in Sweden vs the USA
Letters from Sweden - Europe is different, Sweden is not, sort of..
Letters from Sweden - land of modern, land of prefab
Letters from Sweden - conversations with an expatriate builder

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