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Life & Times Transcript

12/29/05

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

He's called an earth architect and his work is attracting attention from tourists, colleagues and especially prospective homeowners.

Gabi Craconas>> It's affordable for people who don't have any kind of like budgets for houses.

Saul Gonzalez>> Who can't afford this real estate market here.

Rusty Perez>> This is Southern California. Everything is so expensive. It's like a good way to go.

Val Zavala>> And then, it's the next big thing in homebuilding. This machine can build a house in twenty-four hours, but it doesn't do windows.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Welcome to this special edition of Life and Times. Homes are an integral part of southern California culture and tonight you'll meet people who are revolutionizing the idea of housing, beginning with a man who makes homes out of earth.

The person you are about to meet has an idea that could change the quality of life for millions of people around the world, people who live in shacks or huts or have no homes at all. The answer, as you'll see, could be right under our feet. Saul Gonzalez goes to a small desert town to meet an earth architect who's getting a lot of attention.

Saul Gonzalez>> This is where one out of every six human beings on earth lives, in squalid, ever-growing slums that stretch from Mexico City to Jakarta, Nairobi to Rio de Janeiro. Millions of other people, refugees from war and natural disasters, are even more destitute, living in teeming camps for years on end. Yet thousands of miles away from the refugee camps and shantytowns of the developing world in a rapidly suburbanizing Mojave Desert community of Hesperia, one architect experiments with ways to design and build decent, even beautiful, homes for the world's poorest people. His name is Nader Khalili.

Nader Khalili>> I think it's human rights. I think it should be part of our constitution of this country, as well as the United Nations, that human shelter is just a right, just like the human right for government, for freedom, for food. Human right for shelter.

Saul Gonzalez> The shelters that Khalili builds on his thirteen acre desert compound are simple yet elegant. They are structures that seem to echo the architecture of past centuries and civilizations, including Khalili's native Iran. What unites the architecture is what the buildings are all made out of, raw earth. To Khalili, it's the most abundant and egalitarian building material on the planet.

Nader Khalili>> One, of course, it's everywhere, available to everybody. It doesn't take rich or poor to have earth.

Saul Gonzalez>> The essence of Khalili's architecture is the simplicity itself. Make a hole and start packing the earth into long tubular sandbags which you then begin stacking together, attaching them with barbed wire. He calls the process Super Adobe Construction.

Nader Khalili>> You create these coils like ceramic coils. You make pots with coils. Same thing. Then you put earth in them, you tamp it after dampening it and you add like five to ten percent cement to it and it becomes very strong and permanent. You put them together, these coils, just like pots and then you create the spaces you want in different formations.

Saul Gonzalez>> Khalili says his architectural principles can be used to inexpensively build everything from spartan emergency shelters, say, for refugees to luxurious and ecologically sound single family homes.

Nader Khalili>> The plan is just like a clover leaf. It is four, you know, petals. Each one is a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom and an entrance.

Saul Gonzalez>> Like a proud father, Khalili shows off the features of one of his designs, a four hundred square foot home built for about ten thousand dollars.

Nader Khalili>> You are building something that is fireproof, healthy. Look at this paint on the wall. Milk and linseed oil and lime. Look at the way this place is cool. Here, it's a very good one to open up. Here is what's called wind-catcher. You catch the wind in the summer. It comes in.

Saul Gonzalez>> It's a chute. It's a wind chimney.

Nader Khalili>> Just like in a chimney. And on top of the wind, if you want it to be very fancy, you can put a sail to catch the wind and bring it down. Down here will be planters to get the moisture.

Saul Gonzalez>> You're cooling the house naturally. You don't need air conditioning.

Nader Khalili>> If you want it to be less cool, you close it. You know, you adjust it.

Saul Gonzalez>> Tired of the competitive rat race, Khalili who once designed skyscrapers walked away from a successful architectural career more than twenty-five years ago. He says philosophically his designs now are about rediscovering the architectural wisdom of the past and erasing the border between our built and un-built environments.

Nader Khalili>> We've lost this main essence of architecture that is really building in tune with nature. The architecture that we are creating is really trying to control nature, control the air conditioning, control the building, the concrete, steel, plastic, constantly to show this mastery.

Saul Gonzalez>> Khalili, who some in the design world see as a utopian dreamer, others a genius, has become something of an architectural guru over the last decade. Every year, thousands of people come to his Hesperia Research Center called Cal-Earth to listen to Khalili speak about architecture and its connection to social and human rights.

Nader Khalili>> "That's one of the reasons I believe so much homelessness exists in the world because half of the population of the world is pushed aside."

Saul Gonzalez>> Visitors also wander through Khalili's designs, including a small village of homes he and his assistants have created. Many come just to gawk and take pictures, but others are here because they actually want to build their own homes using Khalili's architectural principles. One reason, cost.

Rusty Perez>> I like the one they have, the two bedrooms and two baths, like this. I believe it's four hundred square feet.

Saul Gonzalez>> Rusty Perez and Gabi Craconas want to build one of Khalili's earthen homes on their property in San Diego County.

Gabi Craconas>> The price is really good and it's affordable for people who don't have any like budgets for houses, you know.

Saul Gonzalez>> Who can't afford this real estate market here in Southern California.

Rusty Perez>> In Southern California, everything is so expensive. It's like a good way to go. I mean, it's safe, it looks all right.

Iliona Outram>> "Even the floor is the same material. It's concrete."

Saul Gonzalez>> For some, a single visit here can turn into a passion for Khalili's architecture and philosophy and design. That's what happened to architect, Iliona Outram.

Iliona Outram>> "Sometimes all you need to do is mix the cement in, shovel of cement with a wheelbarrow."

Saul Gonzalez>> She came here from Britain fifteen years ago out of curiosity and hasn't left, becoming Khalili's architectural soul mate and wife.

Iliona Outram>> I was fortunate that I arrived just when he brought the first group of students to this land and every day seeing those ideas manifest by putting a shovel in the earth, creating a pile of earth and a hole, starting to build a dome, every day like that, you're seeing it unfold and that is what's kept me completely captivated day by day (laughter).

Saul Gonzalez>> You're still mesmerized.

Iliona Outram>> It's still mesmerizing. I don't have children, but I feel that every day it's like watching something grow and be born.

Saul Gonzalez>> Khalili's work has won international design awards and even the attention of NASA, which believes his construction principles could one day be used to build habitats on the moon and Mars. However, Khalili admits that he has yet to be accepted by most in the mainstream architectural community. He says he's sustained in his work by the words and ideas of the great thirteenth century Persian poet, Rumi.

Nader Khalili>> For me, as Rumi says, to have a quest is really the answer to all your desires, just to have it. The quest is this passion. It gives you so much energy and passion in your life.

Saul Gonzalez>> As he continues his quest, the challenge facing Khalili is convincing others he's found a way to offer shelter to the world's neediest. For Life and Times, I'm Saul Gonzalez.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Hena Cuevas>> The television show, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" promises a house in seven days, but what about twenty-four hours? We spoke with Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California who says a house a day may not be that far in the future.

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> We envision a system that can automatically build a full-scale house in about twenty-four hours with all the electrical and plumbing imbedded and even painted or wallpapered designed using computer technology.

Hena Cuevas>> When you hear about the claims of building a house in twenty-four hours, that just sounds amazing. Where did the idea come from?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Well, basically it was a sequence of events that led to this idea. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, like many houses, our house also got a crack in its wall. So I decided to get some plaster and putty knife and fill the big cracks that looked pretty bad. As I was doing that, it occurred to me that this simple tool, a trowel, had an excellent surface-forming capability.

Hena Cuevas>> From that do-it-yourself fix came this idea called contour crafting. With the help of USC's Information Sciences Institute, Khoshnevis has designed a device that he says will revolutionize construction.

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> This is the smallest scale contour crafting machine and it can make walls made with ceramic material.

Hena Cuevas>> The concept is similar to squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. The softened cement goes into the cylinder which then releases it into whatever shape has been programmed into the computer.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> It continues placing layer upon layer until a wall is built.

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Pieces in here are made out of concrete. This side is the smoother part. This side is the inner section of the wall. So the machine will lay two sections made out of concrete and then it fills the middle with a more runny, less viscous, kind of concrete.

Hena Cuevas>> And the wall will be about the same thickness as a regular wall is today?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Pretty much so.

Hena Cuevas>> Khoshnevis says the technology can be applied to residential construction, building homes in a day for one-fifth of the current cost, and it can do more than just walls. The entire electrical and plumbing systems are also put in by the machine.

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> The system does the automatic tiling, the flooring. It can do, for example, kitchen counters. It can build cabinets.

Hena Cuevas>> One of the things it can't do are windows and doors. Why?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> It will do window and door frames. But for certain things that are standard, factory-produced items, it really does not make sense to try to automate their fabrication. It takes about four to five minutes to hang a window or a door once you have a very accurate frame. This process, being really computer-driven, is very accurate.

Hena Cuevas>> But the process of finding the right material and its perfect consistency hasn't been easy. So what are some of the materials that you've been using because you have these different molds and some have worked and some haven't?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Right. Well, we've been trying different materials ranging from polymers, thermoplastics, masonry materials. You notice the parts that we've tried on that side really haven't performed very well, but the parts that we have built here on this side demonstrate a great performance.

Hena Cuevas>> So you mentioned this is the tallest forms that you have built so far?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> That is true. The lower one that we built has not been filled in order to demonstrate the structural integrity of the shell. The bigger one has been filled with structural concrete. We have tested that sort of wall under hydraulic pressures and checked the performance against the performance of conventionally built concrete walls and the performance of the contour crafted wall is pretty much similar.

Hena Cuevas>> One of the things that is of great interest in Southern California is, are these structures -- or will they be -- earthquake-safe?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Well, contour crafting is a fabrication process. It pretty much produces whatever has been designed and, if the design specifies a thicker wall, if it specifies a lot of reinforcement elements inside the wall, contour crafting just implements what has been designed. Therefore, it could build structurally very sound buildings.

Hena Cuevas>> Khoshnevis says the machine would be most beneficial for quick reconstruction after a natural disaster such as an earthquake. So far, the United States Army and NASA are some of the organizations that have expressed interest in the technology. Are you surprised at all of the attention that you've been receiving because there's been multiple publications that have talked about your new invention?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> I was kind of surprised, but to me, now it comes pretty naturally because homes are typically the biggest investment of every family, so people relate to this technology and to the promise that it has. Everybody, at least in the last three or four decades, has truly understood the potential of computers and what they can do. And now they see the computers for the first time are entering into a new domain which is near and dear to their hearts: their home.

Hena Cuevas>> Should construction workers be worried that they're going to be out of a job?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Well, I think there will be a transition. This thing is not going to happen overnight. I'm hoping that we'll start with emergency and low-income housing and gradually move into other applications. Typically when there is a technology that has breakthrough impact, it typically also has impact on the structure of the economy.

Hena Cuevas>> I'm sure there are a lot of skeptics. What do you tell them?

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Well, I would tell them that time will show, that this technology will be the winner. There's no question in my mind that this is going to happen.

Hena Cuevas>> Fascinating technology. Thank you very much, Dr. Khoshnevis, for sharing.

Behrokh Khoshnevis>> Thank you, Hena.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> If you've ever been shocked by your gas or your water bill, imagine the tens of thousands of dollars worth of energy that an office tower or a big store consumes. Well, that's why forward-looking architects are beginning to design Green Buildings. In fact, one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the country is in Santa Monica. As NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Kaye tells us, these buildings could impact our energy future if builders embrace them.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Think about what harms the environment and the culprits that most likely come to mind are factories, power plants and cars, all belching pollutants. What probably isn't thought of as an environmental menace are America's more than eighty million commercial and residential buildings.

Rob Watson>> Well, I believe that buildings are the worst thing that people do to the environment.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Rob Watson is a senior scientist with the environmental group, NRDC, the National Resources Defense Council.

Rob Watson>> Buildings use twice as much energy as cars and trucks. Seventy percent of the electricity in the United States is consumed by our homes and our office buildings.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Architects and builders, activists and government agencies are increasingly championing an alternative method of design and construction. It's an approach called Green Building. The essence of Green Building is creating structures that are far more efficient in their consumption of energy and water and less wasteful in their use of materials than conventional buildings. This place, the NRDC's west coast office in Santa Monica, California, is considered the greenest building in America.

Anjali Jaiswal>> There are no sacrifices with it. You know, I think that our approach with the building which I agree with -- and I wasn't part of that -- but it kind of has, you know, like all this high technology with it, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like a really welcoming kind of approach to it.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Opened in the fall of 2003, the fifteen thousand square foot structure consumes seventy percent less energy than a non-Green Building of equivalent size and function. Solar panels on the roof generate twenty percent of the building's electricity. Toilets use a gallon less water per flush than conventional ones. The floors are made of easily replenished woods like bamboo and poplar. Ample skylights direct sunshine deep into the building and reduce reliance on electrical lighting.

Rob Watson>> And all these combine to make a more comfortable, more effective way to operate and yet highly cost effective space.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Watson is especially fond of showing off the building's state of the art water recycling plant in the basement.

Rob Watson>> The biology is killed with ozone here.

Jeffrey Kaye>> It cleans the building's gray water. That's the water that comes from the sinks in the bathroom and kitchen as well as from captured rain water.

Rob Watson>> It's purified a number of times and disinfected a number of times, reverse osmosis. It's better than bottled water. It's better than tap water. I drink it all the time.

Jeffrey Kaye>> And despite the signs warning against drinking the recycled water because of municipal codes, Watson backs up his words with a swig.

Rob Watson>> It may not be legal, but it sure is good.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Environmental groups are not the only ones embracing Green design.

Dan Heinfeld>> We think it's a fabulous design tool, that Green architecture really leads itself to some very interesting architectural practices.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Dan Heinfeld is president of LPA, an architectural firm in Irvine, California which specializes in Green Building design.

[Film Clip]

Dan Heinfeld>> I'm dealing with my clients about energy use, the indoor environment that their employees and users are going to have and just how they sort of, you know, work within this space. I think those are much more tangible things to be talking about than creating great architecture on than sort of decorating the box.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Heinfeld's firm designed a Green Building for a company better known for its fuel-efficient cars. Toyota's 624,000 square foot sales office in Torrance, California is a Green giant. In fact, it's the largest Green Building complex in America. Its roof carpeted in solar panels generates enough electricity to power five hundred homes. The building uses reclaimed water for landscaping and for cooling and the material used to make the office complex comes largely from recycled automobiles. That includes steel in the building itself and lobby furniture made from old seatbelts. Heinfeld says the Toyota building demonstrates that Green Building principles are no longer experimental or avant-garde.

Dan Heinfeld>> We think those are the really powerful examples because it shows that it really can be done mainstream and can be done on any kind of project.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Green Building can often cost more than conventional construction. Solar panels and water purification systems, for instance, will increase builders' budgets, but proponents say that higher upfront costs will pay for themselves in the long run. A recent state of California study reported that two percent additional cost in a Green Building's design translates to savings of up to twenty percent in energy costs over the lifespan of the building.

In Santa Monica, Green Buildings range from the police headquarters to a low-income housing project which generates much of its power from solar energy. The city, in cooperation with the environmental group, Global Green, has also opened up a Green Building Resource Center. In it, homeowners can get information about a smorgasbord of Green Building products.

>> "These layers here? A glue binds them together and, if that glue contains a lot of formaldehyde, then you get an off-gassing from the floor."

Jeffrey Kaye>> Despite its growth, Green Building still meets resistance often from designers and contractors who are uncomfortable with changing their ways and are unfamiliar with Green Building practices and material such as those on display here.

>> "This one right here is a sorghum-based product."

Jeffrey Kaye>> That's been a frustration for Daniel McGee and Kathryn Lara who have been coming to the center for nearly a year as they remodel their house.

Daniel McGee>> I was probably struck by how in general the people we've talked to, particularly architects and contractors, know so little about this and what's available and the things that we can do. So part of the process has been trying to educate our architect and contractors to open up their eyes a little bit that a lot of the traditional materials they use, there are alternatives to them.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Looking ahead, the highest profile Green Building project in America promises to be Freedom Tower which is to be built on the former World Trade Center site in New York City. When finished, the more than seventeen hundred foot tall structure will include massive solar panels and its own wind farm on the upper floor. I'm Jeffrey Kaye for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> We don't really know what it is and it's hard to describe. All we know is that it's unusual and beautiful. It's at Materials and Application, a center for exploratory architecture in Silver Lake, and we sent our photographer there to capture it on video.

[Film Clip]

Benjamin Ball>> My name is Benjamin Ball. I'm with Ball-Nogues Architecture and Design and we started this project about a year ago. It's Mylar and it has a metallic gold coating on it and kind of an amber tint. It's reinforced with bundles of nylon to give it extra strength and also to prevent it from tearing.

[Film Clip]

Benjamin Ball>> It's really about a process and it's about a way of putting materials together and a way of assembling materials and a way of making a shape. I think also that the inspiration stems from the space that we're in. It really serves a purpose for this particular space, which is to shield you from the sun and to change the environment and the qualities of the light.

[Film Clip]

Benjamin Ball>> I think we've actually achieved something here where you don't need to have the framework of a gallery around it to know that you can appreciate it or know that you can experience it. The more people that come through from the community, the happier we'll be. I love to hear about people just discovering it as they're walking their dog down Silver Lake Boulevard. That's like one of the most rewarding things that could possibly happen for me.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Thanks for joining us for this special edition of Life and Times. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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