Equity/Sustainability/Resilience: Building For the Future Fund

Building for the Future Fund at UC Davis will develop new house construction materials and technologies for equitable, sustainable, and resilient houses by re-engineering the 10,000-year-old natural approach of earthen masonry into an innovative technology for the house of the future: mortarless interlocking compressed and stabilized earth blocks. This Fund will support basic research, technology development, prototype construction, and field applications. Our research will also provide students with project-based training opportunities by partnering them with researchers, non-profit organizations, and state/federal agencies to develop community-driven solutions to homelessness, lack of affordable housing for low-income individuals, and new permanent housing for populations and communities displaced by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires. The most recent and innovative research findings will be transferred from the laboratory to real-world projects that will benefit disadvantaged, underrepresented, and underserved communities, which are also those most affected by climate change.

The house of the future developed through this fund’s support will be resilient to hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires; resistant to termites, pests, fungi, rot, and mold; affordable in terms of construction cost, maintenance effort, and operating energy, thus addressing the need for equitable home ownership; and sustainable, as the construction material is natural, locally available, abundant, with low embodied energy and carbon emission, and fully recyclable.

For more information:

• Wildfire Resistant Housing

• Affordable and Eco-Friendly Earthen Constructions