STRAW BALE BUILDING: Values, Ethics, and Building Codes

在当今世界的建筑成本不断上升，对森林砍伐和污染的关注，稻草包建筑技术正在从19世纪80年代的内布拉斯加州的历史根源中复兴。本研究将探讨建筑规范的作用，作为秸秆建筑运动所支持的生态价值观与建筑规范所依据的健康和安全价值观之间斗争的焦点。研究重点将是构建安全和健康的建筑环境的定义。将注意专业人员在寻求批准秸秆捆建筑的特定办公室阐明的规范性声明，关于秸秆捆建筑的哪些类型的数据被认为是重要的，以及这些数据以何种方式令人信服地表示。这项研究将涉及亚利桑那州和新墨西哥州的比较，在那里发生了最早的稻草包建筑创新和最早的代码通过，与代码在加州和得克萨斯州，早期的稻草包行动主义也发生。进一步的研究目标是了解：1）“绿色建筑”伦理的构建与作用（那些在建筑过程中以及在建筑产品中消耗更少的产品和更少的能源来保护环境的人）在当代稻草建筑运动背后的人和资源的异质网络中; 2）稻草人社区如何通过实际的建筑实践来表达这些道德规范。研究将使用参与者观察社区建设项目，开放式访谈和文件分析。参与者观察提供了必要的背景数据，以跟踪个人之间的未表达的知识的转移。照片将记录建筑施工和检查期间的工作实践。深入采访业主，建筑师，承包商和建筑官员将有助于引出价值观，道德判断和潜在的意义。文件材料将被分析，以跟踪通信模式和网络。对基层创新者和建筑法规官员的日常做法如何嵌入价值观进行定性审查，将利用建筑法规和草捆建筑技术标准化的斗争，揭示健康和安全建筑环境定义的构建和谈判，并确定成功和不成功的公民战略，以促进可持续做法。它还将促进对替代技术知识模型及其在传统和公司设计和开发背景之外的转移的理解，扩大和测试科学和技术研究的理论。调查结果将在一卷关于稻草捆运动的社会技术方面的书中的两章和期刊文章中传播。除了学术出版物，更广泛的受众将通过设计，建筑和工程杂志和史密森尼和绿色建筑出版物。

In today's world of rising building costs and concerns over deforestation and pollution the technique of building with straw bales is enjoying a renaissance from its historic roots in 1880s Nebraska. This study will explore the role of building codes as a focus of the struggle between the ecology-oriented values espoused by the Straw Bale Building Movement and the health and safety values which underlie building codes in general. The research focus will be on the construction of definitions of safe and healthy built environments. Attention will be given to the normative statements professionals articulate at the specific offices where approval of straw bale building has been sought, what kinds of data about straw bale building have been regarded as significant, and in what manner these data have convincingly been represented. The research will involve comparisons of Arizona and New Mexico, where much of the earliest straw bale building innovations took place and the earliest codes were passed, with codes in California and Texas where early straw bale activism also occurred. Further research objectives are to understand: 1) the construction and role of "green building" ethics (those oriented to preserving the environment by consuming fewer products and less energy in the building process as well as in the built product) in the heterogeneous network of people and resources underlying the contemporary Straw Bale Building Movement and 2) how the straw bale community expresses these ethics through actual building practices. Research will use participant observation at community building projects, and open-ended interviews, and document analysis. Participant observation provides the necessary contextual data to track the transfer of unarticulated knowledge between individuals. Photographs will document work practices during building construction and inspection. In-depth interviews with owner-builders, architects, contractors, and building officials will help elicit the values, ethical judgments and underlying meanings. Documentary materials will be analyzed to trace communication patterns and networks. Qualitative examination of the manner in which the everyday practices of grass-roots innovators and building code officers embed values will use the struggle over building codes and standardization of straw bale building techniques to reveal the construction and negotiation of definitions of a healthy and safe built environment and to identify successful and unsuccessful citizen strategies to foster sustainable practices. It will also advance understanding of models of alternative technical knowledge and its transfer outside conventional and corporate design and development contexts, expanding and testing theory from science and technology studies. Findings will be disseminated in two book chapters of a volume on the socio-technical aspects of the Straw Bale Movement and in journal articles. Beyond scholarly publications, wider audiences will be addressed through design, architecture and engineering journals and Smithsonian and green building publications.