Albezia Walls

[john the architect]

My friend Gary Young is famous for his albezia surboards, and he is now off advising a plantation owner on Oahu how to harvest his trees. Got me thinking about all the downed trees in Puna and how one could recycle that wood fiber.
So I designed a wall as part of a small 729sf house plan that would use albezia and cement to make thick poured-in-place walls for a solid and beautiful home. I also figured out how to make building blocks in a similar way, but my conclusion is to go PIP. It would be cheaper, faster, and easier to stage in the overall sequencing of construction tasks.
The house still needs an owner for it to be built on the lot in central HPP. I have a permit ready to start that can be customized for the buyer.
The albezia wall design an be incorporated into a reasonably simple house plan using the details that I have developed. I am licensed in Hawaii and will engineer and stamp the drawings. This won't be a solution for everyone, but if it fits your needs you can have the greenest and coolest walls on the island. There are some great tricks to enhance the look of the wall to be beautifully tropical.

John Maloney
310.562.0362
johnmaloney3@me.com
Hawaii Architect AR8082
www.jmagreenbuilding.com

[HI_Someday]

I'm not a resident (yet) so I can't help you there, but I was wondering if you built a proof-of-concept wall? Any pics you'd like to share? How are you incorporating the Albezia into the makeup of the wall? Interesting idea and I hope it works out for you.

[Peter Epperson]

Are you planning on using chopped albezia fibers mixed into the concrete, or would the albezia be formwork that becomes part of the finished wall?

[john the architect]

Plan to use chopped albezia fibers. Have friends who are experienced wood chippers so that should be covered. Yes, we will have several tests which I will mold in forms that can be recycled as decorative sculpture or architectural elements later. But only when the next step happens (need based).
Proof of concept will come when the small demonstration house finds a developer/buyer. The concept came from attempting to help someone wanting to build a new kind of wall, and then morphed into this when the circumstances (lack of material he planned to use, abundance of unwanted trees) were factored in.
I have the one acre HPP ripped lot, a building permit to erect a prefab structural core element (this is a key to keeping the physical demand on the new walls low) and the prefab steel part. Looking for someone wanting a ready-to-start small house project (this one goes from 729sf two bedroom and can expand in phases to over 4,033 sf and six bedrooms as a home and ohana. The new owner "tech investor" will take over this at my cost and the estimated $31k to complete the shell, and finishes to their taste and budget.


John Maloney
310.562.0362
johnmaloney3@me.com
Hawaii Architect AR8082
www.jmagreenbuilding.com