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Extreme Recycling - Cardboard Buildings 170

Posted by michael from the cut-along-the-dotted-line dept.
Xenographic writes: "Apparently, someone in the UK got the idea to build a school entirely out of cardboard and Westborough Primary School decided to implement it. The students are even recycling their trash to help construction!"
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Extreme Recycling - Cardboard Buildings More

Extreme Recycling - Cardboard Buildings

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  • I remember them programs in school where you would bring in your pop bottles and they would make them into the benches that were on the playground...... i assume they're the same kinda programs.

  • nothing new (Score:2, Informative)

    by blowhole ( 155935 )
    Both my elementary and high school had cardboard walls. It really sucked, unless you liked learning European History in Algebra class.
    • Sounds like your schools suffered a cheap conversion from that insane "open" concept that was popular in the 1960's. But the school the article is about doesn't just have cardboard internal walls -- the whole thing is mostly cardboard.

  • I can see the slogan now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Navius Eurisko ( 322438 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @12:52AM (#2396997)
    Cardboard buildings: not for the homeless anymore!
  • Using cardboard for structure in a building reminds me of the stuff packed in boxes last springtime during the flood. Water has an affinity to cardboard, soon to be followed by fungus (the fungus is among us,) cockroaches, rats, etc...

    Cardboard is a great way to recycle and support lower life forms.

    • Re:Cardboard and the food chain (Score:5, Informative)

      by Thomas M Hughes ( 463951 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @01:29AM (#2397094)
      It is suggested you read the article. The building has been treated for both water, and fire, and strength.

      The strength tests they used were the following: (1) The strongest man in Great Britain took a sledge hammer to one of the tubes. It was only slightly dented. I'd imagine Lumber acts the same way when he takes a sledge hammer to it. (2) They built a test bridge out of the material, and drove a 1 ton van onto it, which did not dent at all.

      The fire test involved taking a flame thrower to untreated and treated cardboard. The untreated burned pretty good, but the treated charred, but remained physically mostly in tact (similar to lumber). Don't expect it to survive burning jet fuel, but it should do okay.

      The water test involved the local fire department hosing the place down with fire hoses. The inside remained dry, with no leaks or damp spots.

      However, its life is only expected to be 20 years. Which really isn't that bad, for a recycable building.

  • Other Regs (Score:1, Troll)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 )
    I can see the anti-smoking regs right now...

    although this has become common in recent years

  • Well... (Score:2, Funny)

    by agusus ( 470745 )
    And look what happened to the pig who built his house out of sticks when the big bad wolf came by!
    • Modern Big Bad Wolves don't care about your fat and bones. They care that you die a horrible death and that your friends are scared. Guess which house will be the first.
  • So I'm guessing they don't have to worry at all about fire drills. If there's a fire, they all die anyways. No, Mrs. Peterson, we don't have fire exits because we don't want to give the children a false sense of safety.

  • Hrm.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bob McCown ( 8411 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @01:02AM (#2397020)
    Anybody notice the date on the article is 1 April 2000?
  • There has to be a problem with lightning and the building. In no way do I claim to be an engineer of any type; but if lightning strikes any part of the building, even if it is treated cardboard, would the lighting cause some, if not a lot, of damage. Causing even more damage than on a building make of traditional materials? Traditional materials don't stand up well on their own. Without some sort of protection, the cardboard will be in a lot of trouble.

    I'm curious to see what sort of solution the engineers have in tackling one of nature's most destructive forces: the thunderstorm.
  • is "01 April 2000"! :)

    I wonder why does /. recycle April Fool's day
    jokes (?) as news? :)

    Paul
  • An entire school made out of cardboard... can someone say 'fire hazard' ?
    • As you can see here [bbc.co.uk], it's not the entire school, just the "after school club". They also say something about why it's not more dangerous than to use wood as a building material.
  • Turning a hose on your school.

    "Attention students, school is cancelled because the classroom has melted."

    - JoeShmoe

  • Very dated (Score:3, Informative)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @01:09AM (#2397041)
    The press release is dated for April 1, 2000. The project is supposed to have been completed by March 2001.

    Try browsing through the parent site [cardboardschool.co.uk].

    Here is an article [bbc.co.uk] from the BBC about it dated March 21, 2001.

    • Here's another article [smh.com.au] about it, dated March this year. At the time, it was "nearing completion".

      "Cardboard tubes just like giant loo rolls support the cardboard panels that form the walls and roof," Dr Cripps says.

      Wow, free plumbing too. Hate to have a pipe burst though.
  • I wonder how something such as this would fair in Kansas weather. I doubt it could stand too severe of a straight line wind let alone a tornado. It would have to be a very dry climate to like Arizona. Even with all of the water resistant additives and materials it still couldn't be that water proof. Interesting though.
  • ...are nothing to sniff at, though given the state of some of our schools one has to wonder about the posible motives. Anyway for more info on a broad range of building techniques and other alternative stuff take a look at these guys: Centre for Alternative Technology [cat.org.uk]. They have some rather impressive buildings made from a range of materials. Including a Straw bale theater [cat.org.uk] and a new visitor center [cat.org.uk] made from rammed earth columns.

  • More cardboard buildings! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Minupla ( 62455 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `alpunim'> on Sunday October 07, 2001 @01:11AM (#2397049) Homepage Journal
    Check out this [tokyoclassified.com] page for more interesting info on using cardboard for buildings, including an Expo pavillion!
    • Yeah, there's a Japanese architect whose name I now forget that does a lot of work with cardboard. After the earthquake he came in and build lots shelters for the displaced people using cardboard tubes - even beer cases! There's an epoxy process that allows rain and other weather resistance, and it apparently holds up quite well...he's even built some [very expensive] homes out of cardboard...
    • I've been to the Hannover Expo 2000, and walked through this cardboard building. It was big, and sturdy enough to hold lots of people. And indeed compeltely recyclable.
  • Although not recycleable like cardboard, I have seen buildings built out of styrofoam (Billy's Black & Gold Bar in Sharon, Pa for example). The structure is still traditional (wood, I-beams, etc.), but the outside is styrofoam blocks. Styrofoam is an excellent insulator, extremely cheap, and if it is ever damaged, a block can be replaced. I'm supprised this construction does not appear on more buildings.

  • Just wait for the rainy days for school to be out! ;)
  • Cardboard walls? how is this different from the way public schools are build now?

    It was always fun trying to study english right next to a rather loud acting class.
  • After all, I once heard someone say

    Kenny's family is so poor they just put up their cardboard box for a second mortgage

    (and now an attempt to avoid the lameness filter. yeah, yeah, i could figure out how to do it exactly but i'm too lazy to read the code)

  • And end to grade school pollock jokes ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by OmegaDan ( 101255 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @01:44AM (#2397125) Homepage
    playground whispers of ...screen door on a submarine ... solar powered flashlight ... parachute that opens on impact ... all replaced by

    "Did you hear the one about the brits who made a cardboard school ?"
  • This will only encourage the children to use their boogers as some sort of crude paste to keep the inner walls together!

    Ever see in living color?
  • Eh? Perhaps you should pay attention to the date of that press release. Sheesh.

  • Fire Hazard: Least of the problems. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How many people live in wooden houses?

    Compressed cardboard is more dense than some types of wood. Also, it lacks a lot of the natural resins of say birch or pine. Pine tar is *very* flammable mind you.

    Have you ever tried burning heavy gauge cardboard or say a phonebook? it doesnt work very well unless you shred it.

    The parts of such a building vulnerable to flame are the honeycomb wafers used for insulation. Of course, most materials become somewhat flammable if you make them thin enough.

    That was why asbestos seemed like such a good deal. Any ways the point is moot, shredded cardboard is *commonly* used as insulation these days. Its a whole lot easer to work with than fiberglass.

  • Problems in the Cardboard Age (Score:5, Funny)

    by pbryan ( 83482 ) <email@pbryan.net> on Sunday October 07, 2001 @02:38AM (#2397200) Homepage
    "I see you've been sent to the my office for the fourth time this month."

    Jimmy continued silently staring at the cardboard floor, kicking impatiently at the corrogated ridges under his feet showing through after three months of moderate traffic.

    "Jimmy?"

    Jimmy looked up, feigning a look of innocence.

    "You know matches, lighters and magnifying glasses were banned after we lost the North wing."

  • Pictures of the completed building (Score:4, Informative)

    by inio ( 26835 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @02:43AM (#2397201) Homepage
    can be found at http://www.cardboardschool.co.uk/content/projim01. htm [cardboardschool.co.uk]. This includes construction photos and some detail shots of the more interesting parts.

    Of particular interest to the masses is this http://www.cardboardschool.co.uk/content/siteim/Au gust_03.htm [cardboardschool.co.uk] picture, showing the front of the completed building.
    • Yar. It's lovely that there are folks interested in recycled/recyclable buildings, but it seems a pity that they had to build such an aesthetically bleah structure for children to play in. Would've been nice if a parallel team had investigated innovative uses of recycled material for interior design. I mean, it doesn't exactly radiate a message of nurturing love.

      • Absolutely! Now if we can only get Harvey Nik's interested in this, we would at last have somewhere to feel unguilty!

        I mean, at long last, we could go shopping in our 3 litre intercooled turbocharged Japanese four-wheel-drives to actively support the use of renewable resources!

        Now that would just be the coolest thing for we ABC1s to do, wouldn't it? I mean, it's even better than voting for Tony's NewLabour!

  • will all be fire retardant

    Come on, it's not "fire retardant" it's "thermally challenged".

    Not very PC if you ask me =P
  • you know the soundtrack for baldur's gate II? well i am playing the sequel. which really has nothing to do with anything. except: the soundtrack.

    the soundtrack plays constantly, really heady sweeping "end-of-the-world"symphonic stuff. plays when you are paused. it was playing when i took a break and decided to check out /. it might be this soundtrack that compelled me to actually take the notion of a press board school a matter worthy of comment.

    there is nothing crazy or edgy about useing processed paper as a building material. i think it's a capitol idea.

  • In the 50's, France, under the pressure of the baby boom, build schools out of steel and... plaster and other supposed to be non inflammable, to be quickly available and cheap. The so called "Lycées Pailleron". As the building got older, some of the materials degraded and became toxic and inflammable. In 1971, one of the school caught fire. The fire spread so fast that the children had no chances excaping. There were ~100 dead. During the 80's it happened a second time, and some less dangerous accident later, the french goverment decided to destroy the old schools and to build the school in concrete.

    Such schools might be cheap building, but in the long run they have heavy maintenance... And might also become dangerous if not permanently monitored.

    Make your choice !
  • A similarly "alternative materials" idea is straw-bale construction. First heard about this in San Francisco/Berkeley areas; apparently it has some government support even. Here is a good page [doe.gov] with some pictures, plans, history and thermal/etc. data even.
  • So, this is what happens when all the public funds get shelled out for countrywide CCTV video surveillance.

  • I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your [school] down.
  • "Well," said the wolf " then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down and ate the little pig.
  • Hey they've got Blue Peter on the case ...
  • Did anyone else catch the date of that article? Do they observe April Fools day in the UK?

  • Lets hope the big bad wolf doesnt come around.
  • Did anyone catch the April 1st 2000 date?

    This is an april fools, and an OLD one too!
  • I've got my threading set to drop all the 'anonymous coward' posts, and yet *still* I see 80%-90% of the replies to this story being nothing but crude jokes about melting rooms, arson, and the Three Little Pigs.

    You guys call yourself forward thinking? Sure, if it was something about TiVo, or the latest Quake knockoff, I'm sure you'd be all over it, but try to stretch your minds a little.

    Yes, it's cardboard. And as I seem to have to point out to every single person who makes a rudimentary crack about cardboard melting when it gets wet: Milk cartons are made out of cardboard. They hold liquid for weeks at a time! This is not rocket science, people. It's design science.

    I have been looking at cardboard as a building material since about 1990. It works. It's cheap. It can be made to withstand many of the stresses of the environment. (My design professor, Harold Cohen, built untreated cardboard domes in the 1960's that sat out for a year in the rain and snow of Southern Illinois. They didn't melt. They worked just fine.)

    I've worked with friends to design low-cost emergency shelters for disaster relief and the homeless. And just like all of you, most of them couldn't get past the idea of cardboard melting. So I went with a corrugated plastic material, made just like cardboard, but made from milk-bottle HDPE type-2 plastic. Totally recyclable, and totally waterproof. (Once again, designed to hold milk for weeks, just like the cardboard cartons. :-) ) You can find images of the dome-building party we held at my house in 1998 here [sculptors.com] and can see some of the results. This dome was about 12' in diameter and 5' high at the center. It was a 1/2 to 1/3 scale model of what we'd deploy to disaster victims or the homeless. The total cost of materials was about US $50.

    Standard building materials for housing cost about US $110 per square foot of area covered. This corrugated plastic drops the price down to US $0.50-$1.00 per square foot covered. If you use cardboard, that price falls another order of magnitude to about US $0.05-$0.10 per square foot covered. So you see, it's not just eco-friendly, and it's not just recyclable. It's also up to 1100 times cheaper than doing it the old-fashioned way. So even if it did wear out after 3 months, as one pundit wrote in these comments, you could keep replacing the building for about 400 years for the same cost. Which is far more than a standard school will last.

    -Pat

    • But what about the cost of the construction workers? The building materials are usually not the largest cost for the construction of a building. Given this is specialized construction, I am sure the number of construction companies able to build these structures are few and expensive. Would the school district want to pay to have the schools torn down and rebuilt every 20 years?

      That's assuming that they last 20 years. What are they doing to resist being damaged due to vandalism? The biggest problem will not be the weather, but juvenille delinquents scarring the external shell causing water to enter and weaken the structure. A Polish friend of mine said that at one time vehicles in his country had bodies made of heavy cardboard/pressboard coated with enamel paint. It was ok until the paint cracked and water seeped in and caused it to rot and smell. He said he once saw a guy get so mad at his rotting car that he put his fists and feet through it and ripped it apart.

  • The basic truth about building is that walls are cheap. Architectural details cost. Systems (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) cost. Windows cost. But big flat walls are cheap. This is why alternative building systems don't get very far. They address the wrong problem.
  • Although the initial date is (perhaps unfortunately) April Fool's, the BBC article [bbc.co.uk] is genuine. That said, it would have been quite funny if it were an April Fool - quite elaborate, and very convincing. Oh, well - it's real, how boring.
  • I recall seeing a special on tv in school once as a young lad in the mid 80's where a man out in the desert of the states made his whole house out of aluminum cans and tires. apparently it was really good at insulating.

    at the time, I was just amazed that he washed so many cans, and didn't crush them all up in the process.
  • More kids blathering on about the benefits of recycling. "Look Mom, I recycled my juice box! Don't throw away those toilet paper rolls, it's bad for the Earth!"
  • This all looks interesting, but the picture I don't get is the mock-up of the interior. Looks good as a completely hollow interior, but why is there a gigantic kid walking around on top of two tin cans? Is this going to be some sort of circus classroom where kids learn stilt techniques?
  • Buckminster Fuller obtained a patent [bfi.org] for paperboard domes in 1959. These domes were extensively tested by the U.S. Marines and won architecture awards around the globe. This method of architecture is sound and worthy of support. I am surprised that only one [slashdot.org] slashdot comment mentions the history of paperboard / cardboard architecture.
  • Alternate building materials are common in the SouthWest US. The grand-daddy of them all is, of course, adobe, which is basically bricks made from sun-dried mud (maybe some straw added). I've also seen plastic flying saucer homes, straw homes, newspaper homes, rubber tire homes, garbage homes and airblown insulation homes, among others. The problem these homes have generally isn't durability or safety; it's licensing. Even adobe, which has been commonly used for centuries in the SouthWest, took years to win approval from local US approving agencies. The woman who built the straw house fought tooth-and-nail for years to get approval, before she finally convinced the permit people that her house wasn't a fire hazard.

  • The Derrick Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good (among other things)

    How can the kids expect to learn if the building can't even support their weight?
  • Cardboad building... Paper areoplanes...

    -Paul
    www.lpbk.net [lpbk.net] - It might be in bad taste, but come on... how many of you thought it too?

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