SBIR Phase II: Community-based Mobile Manufacturing of Structural Masonry Using Regional Materials

Access to quality building material is essential for rural socioeconomic developmentagricultural productivity and resilience against environmental disaster. This applicationis focused on developing and commercializing a Mobile Masonry Manufacturing Plant(MMMP) that enables rural communities to produce durable sustainable and valuablestructural earth masonry blocks from regionally sourced mineral soils and recycled brick and concrete. Local community members will be educated on the block manufacturingprocess through an inclusive apprenticeship program. When a sufficient number ofmasons have been trained to lay blocks local distribution of compressed earth blockscan become the backbone of a regional movement to support resilient sustainable andcost-effective building production. This extremely durable construction methodologywould be a strong social and economic force in rural redevelopment. The work outlined in this application has two principal objectives. The first is tocontinue the development at a laboratory scale of the first High Performance EarthBlock (HPEB) manufactured in the MMMP in order to standardize the production ofHPEB independent of the source of the raw materials. The second objective will be tooperate the MMMP in the field first in partnership with the Napa County ResourceConservation District on small scale projects followed by a mobilization to ParadiseCalifornia where 14000 homes were lost in the Camp Fire of 2018. The Paradiseproject will demonstrate how the combination of on-site manufacturing local skillstraining and masonry construction can rebuild the fabric and the spirit of a communityworking to pull itself together after disaster.