Interview with

Anthony Dente of Verdant Structural Engineers

What is the most exciting aspect of working with natural materials and what may be considered traditional building methods?

It’s fun. I mean, it’s exciting. It’s always exciting to work on a project and on a problem that is understudied or needs answers. And also one that has potential to make real change in the world.

The longer answer is it’s easy in my profession to find yourself working on things that have been done 100 times, 100,000 times. But these materials, they are understudied, they are underused, while they have great potential and great history. And so it always feels good to do something that’s making a difference and can help progress a whole field.

What changes have you seen in the market forces and public interest around natural construction materials over the course of the last 15 years you’ve been in the arena?

Two major changes took place. One, when I first moved to California about 15 years ago to study straw bale engineering with my business partner, Kevin Donahue, we were all looking at straw for obvious reasons at the time. It’s low toxicity. It being a waste product, its natural nature.

And then all of a sudden, the word carbon started showing up. And now it seems to be the only thing that’s being talked about, or at least certainly the first thing that’s being talked about.

So the carbon biogenic nature and the carbon storing nature of these materials has really taken the center stage. And also, there was a lot more, the natural building organizations, the natural building gatherings, there still is a lot of community based, more hand built organic frameworks, but the conventional world is eager. And so we’re seeing a lot more prefabrication and other tweaks that make the systems a little more palatable to conventional contractors than was going on when I first started it.

Listen to full interview below

Interview Links:
https://newsociety.com/books/e/essential-cob-construction
https://verdantpanel.com/
https://newsociety.com/books/s/straw-bale-building-details

To contact Anthony please visit his website at Verdant Structural Engineers

(images courtesy of Verdant Structural Engineers)