Doug, Lacy, I’m the owner and operator of the Pet Health shop and we do safe, alternative food and treats and toys for doggies. And I am also the inventor of Flex. Shell architecture or flex shell core monolith, architecture that I hope will save the world because houses that won’t burn down or fall down and that anybody can build. I don’t have to pretend that makes my own, so it kind of started out yeah way back in 1993. I built my first rock walls, then or right.
Around the same time, I was helping my brother Joe, when we were building that first lightweight concrete house in Old, Messiah yeah, and that was an experimental structure. It came out really nice. You know it was basically doing the barrel vaults and square walls. You know which doing an alternative building material. You know Thomas Edison uh, you know who his main contribution is not the light bulbs and everything, but it is.
You know he invented this faster way to make cement, but he also invented this way of casting uh, concrete houses and one monolithic poor, but he had all kinds of different problems with it. You know they crack and they leak the great solid houses. Of course, except you know, concrete, is a problem because it’s a porous material, it cracks it degrades over time. Water gets into it, it freezes, it causes Progressive rust, and so I knew that I had to explore new materials and new methods. So I came up with this stay form method of using the block wire out of remesh, which reinforced the medium and it created a true stress skin.
So the surface shells could not cave inward or outwards. So I knew this would be a great roofing material as well. It solves a lot of problems and so then, all of a sudden, I found myself building these funnel columns, which is the the most logical way to connect up using an economical or economy of form, because, if you’re going to build something new, you know it’s going To be under a lot of scrutiny, you really have to build. It has to be many times stronger than anything else, or it’s, and the architecture itself. It creates these funnel shapes that create a roof, Gardens, and places to store water underneath it.
So my hope is is to be able to create training material to help other people build this way, build very sturdy shelters that are integrated into the natural environment. You know, leave the the natural ecosystems around you, because they provide help provide a lot of stability. All right, the idea here is to make a core monolith structure. It’S called a flex, shell, core monolith or core Pavilion construction, and so this gives it some earthquake stability of the main roof, and it’s designed to provide an insulated roof using thin shell material using a High Street composite. It’s many times stronger and it has the crack self healing.
Repairing thing so we’re combining uh uh, shell geometry, which is a kind of a geometry that um you know it. It maximizes the stability by using curves and and with the stress, skin geometry and doing column, design and column. Design is a way of creating stability and building with nature. So when you build this way, it naturally produces these uh roof Gardens that have about two or three hundred gallons in of stored water below the soil and so and you mount soil above it on support. Slats and uh it Wicks the water up.
So it maintains the perfect moisture in the soil without allowing evaporation so you’re collecting your water and using it right where you need it, and so you can grow a lot of food on the roof and, as you build into like a hillside, you make runoff Gardens As well so you create a garden environment, that’s integrated into the natural ecology and you have roof Gardens.
So the idea is, it implies that Independence, you can grow your own food. You can have your own water first and I just build The Pavilions, so you can build your walls anywhere on this on the flat smooth floor and uh and it stabilizes for earthquakes and for fires. So fires will have a hard time pushing in and burning your walls down, simply because of that curled Edge, because if there’s a hot fire coming, that’s a lot of rotation and so it’ll put that rotation back and push the fire away from your walls and uh. So yeah it doesn’t burn down, doesn’t fall down, and hopefully is it’s uh cheaper to frame [ Music ].
I’Ve noticed that uh. You know trying to get other people to work with me. Uh, it’s really challenging, but also you know. I mean if I hire another plaster plaster you know wants to apply it in the way that they’re familiar with and and even though I show them like hey. This is different.
It’S kind of like I mean this high strength stuff, it’s it’s kind of flows. It’S different: it’s not like a regular mortar. It moves like Silly Putty. It kind of it’s like a lava consistency, so you have to play it differently and uh yeah and I’ve just had. You know tremendous challenges: uh working with other people uh to follow the instructions on how to how to apply this, and but you know what so that’s brought me to the point of of a good.
What I I think is a good thing of of designing the whole system to be built by one person by myself and I’m and I’ve done that I’ve reduced the mix down to a six gallon mix, which is something that I can move bring to the place. The area that I’m Plastering and apply it myself before the plaster starts to move, and – and I realized that uh – that’s important – you know if I’m going to teach people how to do this. It’S really important that I refine the process to be a one person operation. My kids, you have really helped me, you know when you’re a little kid got you involved in it. It’S just uh something I want.
I think the most inspiring thing is to be able to create a home that will really last for future generations and a home that will provide water and food kind of on its own. The building system is my career. It’S it’s like my creative Endeavor and everything and the family has been a part of that and I’m going to let Gala here demonstrate uh connecting these two connecting the making this block and we’ll just go along here and and uh connect. This block together go ahead. Notice, she’s wearing her eye protection very important.
I feel like it’s so important to raise my kids. You know make sure they think about that. They can do anything that they want to do without having to just March the regular old path of do what it is. You’Re supposed to do to get approval from the outside. I really, I feel like that.
It’s important to encourage them, encourage people and kids to be who they are. You know maybe kind of driven by creativity, the desire to create something and to create and create and not just create for the sake of creating but it. But for me it’s about expressing Bounty and belonging and, and so it’s kind of a feeling, it’s kind of a feeling of of deep knowing of belonging in something larger than yourself. You know the solutions are here. We can solve this.
You know we can look at. What’s going on, you don’t have to just blindly go by what everybody else says that you’re supposed to do it hi, I’m Brenna Bruno Brown and I’m Gala’s mom. I was um married to Doug. We got married on the first day of spring and we came down to this place here. Doug and I are great friends – he’s an amazing artist, very eccentric and pretty interesting yeah.
It’S been great watching it come to frutation since I’ve known Doug since um 2000 and one so what kind of restaurant was it that you guys met at or was cooking at? It was a country Gourmet restaurant. I always help my dad with uh with his buildings. Mostly the bigger one that he’s that I think that was his first ever like project where it was just, he was kind of experimenting, and so I helped him a lot with that and like kind of got to see how much he’s um changed his system um. But yeah it was always really good.
I was lucky to have him. I definitely think he helped me with um being uh creative and that’s why I’m you know in a creative field of study and both my parents had a lot to do with how I am obviously that’s how everyone is but yeah. So I I give a lot of credit to my dad to how how creative I am, and I thank him, a lot for being able to expose me the things that aren’t of the usual sort like not every kid helps build like these kind of buildings and Uh yeah, so it’s definitely fun to be around but yeah hey Dad. Can I just dump this in the ground on the ground either that or make a treason? Oh, it’s a rednecks or black lives.
All right, I got kind of uh. I think I I got sick the other day with Kayla’s illness and chores. I mean chorus, I want haven’t called you Cora, yet you have. I have called you guys several times. I call you Max.
Thank you.
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