The problem of toxic housing is often exclusive to the western industrialized world because only here has the housing industry become so addicted to chemistry as a solution to problems of fundamentally poor material quality and craftsmanship. But in less developed countries where the chemical industry is non-existent or not particularly advanced and where traditional housing has not been displaced by corporate mass housing development there simply are no chemically processed building products available and so no toxic housing problem -except where the outdoor environment has been made toxic by pollution. This fact has caused me to speculate that if there was a way to have homes made by traditional means and with indigenous materials in these countries and transported to the US it could offer a possible non-toxic housing solution. And since the US dollar tends to have very good buying power in these countries it could present a very economical solution as well. In theory, this would seem a practical idea. The concept of kit based housing is very old and common throughout much of the world. Many companies -at least within the industrial world- make and market kit housing to the world, though the economy once common to these in the west has been lost due to rising lumber costs, dwindling production volumes, and an obsession with over-complicated design.

But there seem to be a few complications with this idea. Ideally, what one would want is some kind of prefabricated kit housing akin to the classic Sears kit homes or -ideally- something even more sophisticated, easier to build, and easily packaged into shipping containers for global transport. But most non-industrial countries have no tradition of kit housing and when western influences are applied for the development of such products there it usually comes with the same tendency to resort to the cheats of chemistry and poor design that plagues such housing products made here. Also, traditional architecture and the materials they use are often evolved to suit very specific local climate conditions. This does not always translate to practical use elsewhere. Kit housing tends to favor materials like wood which have good potential for prefabrication. But the vast majority of traditional forms of architecture are earth masonry based, with lumber having a more incidental role. Still, the potential exists for this idea to be practical and has been something I've been looking into for some time.

Three types of traditional architecture offer good potential for this application; Japanese and Polynesian style wood framed housing and Russian 'dacha' wooden housing. The traditional houses of pre-industrial Japan were such a marvel of modular design that they have inspired many Modernist designers. Products of a practical evolution, craft guild nepotism, and standardization imposed by feudal rulers, the traditional wooden house of Japan exhibited many sophisticated features which today seem to be rather difficult for our 'high tech' civilization to realize. They employed systems of modular construction using nail-less joinery that retained full demountability. This was an important feature in an urban environment prone to catastrophic fires, affording people the chance to dismantle and remove their homes in advance of spreading fires given sufficient warning. They, of course, had their limits but proved a practical mass housing technology for some centuries -which is more than can be said of the construction methods commonly employed in US suburbs today. Alas, this form of architecture become an endangered species with the introduction of Western style industrialization and today few Japanese have the option for such homes. But the technology persists nonetheless, sheltered in the traditional architecture maintained by religious facilities. And, in fact, there is at least one immigrant Japanese craftsman in the US today who specializes in crafting traditional Japanese architecture, largely for a market of US based Buddhist communities.

traditional Japanese Architecture, Edo era or earlier, from transplanted structure at Pennsylvania arboretum

The inherent demountability and reliance on light structural systems and simple non-toxic materials common to this traditional architecture would make is a very strong candidate for a kit-housing product. And there are some 'modernized' versions of this which have developed into kit housing products in Japan, the A-Kit product mentioned in previous articles being an example of this. Unfortunately, the economic situation in Japan makes it untenable as a source of export housing. Almost all lumber used in construction in Japan today is imported from other countries -the US and Canada being leading suppliers. This combined with a very unfavorable exchnage rate makes any kit housing products from Japan extremely expensive. Thus as promising as this building technology may be for this idea, it can only be practical if it can be made somewhere else where lumber is more abundant and the exchnage rates more favorable.

indigenous Pacific architecture

Something close to this does in fact actually exist, farther south along the Pacific Rim. Traditional Japanese architecture is said to have its roots in the traditional architecture of the South Pacific, where similar pavilion structures based on less sophisticated yet still modular and demountable frame systems can be found. Blessed with mild climate, the architecture of the South Pacific functioned primarily as a shelter against rain and a raised platform to shelter against rising damp, insects, occassional flooding, and simply to provide a level surface. Thus evolved various pavilion-like structural systems which often needed no more than roof and raised floor, side walls and interior partitions usually temporary structures made of woven thatch or fabric. Demountability was a natural consequence of needing to use nail-less systems of joinery -due to a shortage of metals- and was very practical in an environment where humid conditions could lead to frequent replacement of rotted building components. What this architecture lacked in technical sophistication compared to much later Japanese construction methods, it made up for in artistic and decorative exuberance, particularly in cultures like that in Bali, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Influences from the Western industrialized world have threatened the traditional architecture here as elsewhere but the extreme cost of imported materials and machinery and their unsuitability in humid tropical climates has afforded more resistance to this influence. Consequently, the traditional forms of architecture have not only persisted to some degree, they have already developed into a practical export product.

Anasia kit housing

Two sources in this region of the world currently offer kit housing for export at a fairly modest price. One is the Anasia which offers a large variety of traditional (but updated for modern conveniences) Indonesian bungalow houses which are sold primarily to the island resort market. These homes offer an unlimited variety of sizes and layouts at a cost of around $60 per square foot imported to the US. This includes all structural and roofing materials in a single package and can also included a variety of hand made furniture and decorative items.

Tony's Bali-T, Double-T model on site in Bali

Next is Tony's Bali-T houses. These homes are a hybrid of Western design and indigenous Balinese building methods resulting in a product that seems like a cross between traditional Asian architecture and Modernist Scandinavian design. The homes are somewhat specialized in design, intended for use in a resort community in Bali marketed to Americans. But the homes are also offered for export as kit housing, costing roughly $10 more per square foot than the homes offered by Anasia Co. They offer the interesting feature of a nail-less joined structure entirely composed of plantation grown ironwood -one of the densest and strongest of all woods. Thus they employ a very minimalist structure based on simple massive components. Not only is this lumber chemical-free, it's almost impossible to treat with anything because its density makes it virtually impermeable. The three chief drawbacks with this product are that the houses are deliberately very small in size, though their design makes this space very efficient, they are difficult to insulate because of the very minimalist structure, and they do not include any roofing system so that different forms of roofing suited to different local climates can be employed. This further increases the cost by a varied amount.

Either of these products have good potential for non-toxic housing but they are still not as inexpensive as one would hope and their reliance on tropical hardwoods and limited insulation may greatly limit where they can be effectively used. I have been unable to get information about the performance of these tropical hardwoods in a desert or temperate climate. So these products may be limited to use -at least in the US- to Hawaii; the most expensive of the few low-pollution havens America has to offer.

typical Russian dacha cottages

Russian dacha architecture offers a possibility suited to a much wider spectrum of climates. A long tradition in Russia, particularly in the vicinity of Moscow, has been the idea of urban dwellers having small Summer vacation cabins on plots of land dedicated to the cultivation of gardens. This idea was particularly popular with the Soviet era authorities who considered it a virtue that all urban dwellers have experience with farming. Ultimately, the dacha became a key element of the contemporary Russian identity. In recent years, with the fall of the Soviet union resulting in great economic disruption, the dachas have found further value as the basis of individual subsistance farming. Traditional dacha homes were fairly small structures composed entirely of wood with the exception of a corrugated tin roof. No single style or method of construction predominates but, being built on the edge of wilderness, many forms similar to that of the classic Sears kit bungalows and later Scandinavian inspired kit vacation homes are common. Though I have not yet found information to confirm this, it seems very likely that many of these homes were, in fact, based on prefabricated housing products which may continue to be made to this day.

Recently, the creation of a new Russian nouveau riche has also resulted in the sad transformation of the traditional dacha into just another version of American suburban tract housing. New corporate developed dacha communities for yuppie Muscovites are rapidly springing up, complete with American style McMansions and insipid Western fantasy names. These are threatening not only tradition but the environment, repeating the blunders of uncontrolled ad-hoc American suburban development. Still, there remains a possibility that the traditional building technology persists and, if so, perhaps some kind of kit housing based on it. So far I have not found it.

China, Korea, and Vietnam also offer potential for some form of prefabricated housing based on traditional building methods. But there is much less a presence of the use of wood in these cultures' traditional architectures and much poorer survival of traditional architecture in the face of Western technology influence. No hint of any prefabricated housing products or structures that might even be adapted into that has been found from these areas. Mexico similarly has great potential as a source of low cost material and labor but has no indigenous housing technology suited to kit house applications. Many European countries, particularly in Scandinavia, have thriving kit housing industries and a much more cautious attitude about employing chemicals in lumber products but the relative strength of their economies makes these products far too expensive. Interestingly, Finland happens to be the preferred source of non-toxic high-tech engineered lumber for use by a few non-toxic building companies in Japan. There they use a sophisticated kiln processing method -similar to pressure cooking- which makes unadulterated lumber even more resilient and pest-resistant than the chemically treated lumber. Unfortunately, obtaining this lumber in the US seems to be impossible and it's far too expensive to import in small quantities.

Another idea that I have frequently considered is reverse engineering western kit housing products in order to make them non-toxic then having the components made to order in another country where the non-toxic materials are common and inexpensive. There are several such products that offer potential for this by virtue of a simple design, though legally I cannot discuss them in specific detail. Similarly, there are some generic plans for traditional camper trailers available which are lumber based and which could likewise be made exclusively non-toxic where that clean lumber is more common and inexpensive. The advantage with this idea is that a house made as a series of interconnected trailers would be very easy to transport from the manufacturing site by towing on its own wheels. Mexico seems a strong candidate for both these ideas but so far I have not found any companies in the country which can offer the building services. I had once found a company in Mexico which could make space frame components at drastically reduced prices compared to their counterparts in America and Europe but it disappeared -which illustrates the chief problem with working by proxy with companies in many countries.