As graduates of NAAB-accredited architecture schools, we at The Last Straw editorial collective can say first and that the system needs work. Across our collective we have alumni from some of the most hands-on academic programs in the U.S. like Auburn University’s Rural Studio, and still we found our education lacking many of the basic values that are found in natural building. For us, meeting people in person and finding mentors was key to understanding the ethos of natural building and to begin to think more critically about how and why buildings are built. How did we get to this place where such universally valuable information only exists outside the classroom? In this issue we’ve searched for the answers.
We begin by looking backwards. Ian Svilokos explores the lost connection to nature that colonization took from many areas around the world. Kenny Fallon Jr. looks at the history of alternative building through the intersections of, among other things, design relevancy, student activism, and post-modern values. We then turn our gaze to the natural building revival that officially began three decades ago, where a do-it-yourself model dominated. This DIY model often took the form of learning while simultaneously teaching others who know just a bit less than you. This is the paradigm the legendary Michael G. Smith recounts from the ‘80s that the young roving builder Chae Perez and recent Community Rebuilds apprentices found themselves in as well. Mateo Salinas Clarke, Nicolas Keller, and Ace McArleton are a few of those working to provide better opportunities for making a career in construction with natural materials, to change this paradigm.
Natural building is not just a set of building methods in the back-pocket of a construction industry aiming for infinite growth. It’s a way of approaching building and living that recognizes earthly bounds. It offers real answers for a healthy, circular, and regenerative construction economy. It holds space for conversations about maintenance over impermeability, and critically demands ethical labor practices. It can start as a lesson in construction, but taken to its conclusion, it proposes a different world and makes one more likely. We cannot create a world in harmony with each other and the Earth if we don’t learn together. So welcome back to school! As we write this, climate crisis and fascist repression continue to tear apart lives and homes across the world. Hurricanes Helene and Milton ripped through the East Coast and inland Appalachia. The ongoing genocide across Palestine and Lebanon has leveled miles of homes, hospitals, and schools. American disaster capitalists, police forces, and Israeli occupation forces are a few of those that see profitable redevelopment opportunities in crises they create or deepen. Nowhere is there the blank slate they hope for. As capitalists tear the world apart, how we choose to rebuild is an essential question for all of us to be prepared for, not just designers and builders.
