Waste and Water and Design
THE PROBLEM:
Every human poops. And pees. Billions of us. And what do we do with that?
Well, for the past 200 years or so, we send it down a pipe with a couple of gallons of perfectly good potable freshwater, and forget about it. Sewers, septic systems, let the city/county/septic professionals deal with any further process or problems.
But when freshwater is disappearing, and the infrastructure is cracking, what then?
WHO'S ALREADY ON IT:
A gorgeous building in Rhinebeck, NY, full of gardens inside and out, is actually a wastewater treatment system that mimics natural forms of waste transformation and water purification. It's the Living Building, built to replace an ancient, failing septic system at Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. It is the shining achievement and educational center for the Omega Center for Sustainable Living, which opened in 2009.
The sprawling camp in the woods outside Rhinebeck, NY, in the Hudson River Valley, first opened in the early 20th century as a Jewish studies summer camp, with water and waste utilities common at the time. Omega Institute purchased the land in the 1980s and renovated the aging buildings as a campus for retreats and classes in yoga, spirituality, sustainability, and human transformation. It updated the septic and plumbing systems, but the years of use took its toll. Thousands of people would pass through Omega every summer, participants and staff, doing their biological thing and flushing it all away without thought.
Disclosure: I was on staff at Omega in the summer of 1995, and met Skip Backus, then the Facilities Director. I didn't get to know him well, but it did sink in that he was working on ways to compost Omega's food waste more efficiently. Turns out he was also deeply involved in alternative energy, local agriculture, and water conservation. Skip eventually became Omega's CEO, and is now CEO Emeritus, having led the founding of the OCSL and the design and construction of the Living Building.
"In 2005, we realized that Omega's aging wastewater septic system would soon need to be replaced," the OCSL web site explains. "Instead of simply installing a new septic system, we wanted to create a different kind of water treatment system—one that would handle water not as waste, but as a precious resource.
The OCSL was founded within the overall building project as the educational organization bringing people to the site, to see in action how a non-industrial wastewater system could reclaim water using zero chemicals and less energy.
"We brainstormed with Omega teachers at the top of the environmental and sustainability fields and chose to build an Eco Machine™, a natural 'wastewater' treatment system that cleans water by mimicking the systems of the natural world," the site tells us.
This building and the ingenuity that built it is an inspiration to me. Share it among your network. We can deal with our sh*t in genius ways.
#Ground #water #soil #gardens #eduction #urbandesign
UPDATE: Check out this guy's earth house complex he built on his own from 2008-2023, near the CA-OR border. Lots of tips from him on how to get materials for free, and how to design for growing food and managing water.