The Festival of Extreme Building in Partnership with Ramboll Whitbybird are about to undertake an experiment in sustainable construction technology in Birmingham city centre.

The challenge involves making a habitable dwelling on a budget of just £300.00 using compressed soil bricks manufactured on site, and roof tiles made from recycled rubber tyres.

Sitting alongside the high tech Micro Compact Home www.microcompacthome.com , the £300.00 house raises questions about how we can turn waste into energy, and to what extent the domestic building process can be reclaimed by the ordinary man in the street.

A range of partners will contribute to this exercise. Local developers/construction will provide a suitable sub soil for the brick making sourced by Ramboll Whitbybird. RWB are playing a big part in this project by working with FXB to create wall insulation panels using recycled paper and card board from their Birmingham office. Following their recent amalgamation with the Danish Consultants Ramboll Whitbybird were looking for a responsible method of re using their now out of date branded literature. Incorporating it into the £300.00 house provided the perfect solution whilst at the same time reiterating the company’s’ commitment to sustainability.

The presence of the highly engineered Micro Compact Home at the Festivals site provided a luxurious and sophisticated living environment for visitors to enjoy.

However, it also prompted project curator and artist/ builder, Dave Pollard to wonder what could be achieved on a minimal budget using creative thinking and freely available recycled materials.

The brick making will commence on site on Monday 20^th August and local businesses will be invited to send interested staff members to experience the making of soil rammed bricks in short workshop sessions at the Festival of Extreme Building.

We expect to have the building completed in time for the festivals finale in the last week of September.

For more information visit: http://www.festival-xtremebuilding.org.uk/