Ball State architecture professors and students are combining elbow grease, straw, recycled wood and fly ash to build an eco-lab to demonstrate how to live sustainably in the Midwest.

The eco-lab is being built at a Ball State field station on the Cooper-Skinner farm in northwest Muncie with an initial $10,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"We are tapping into waste stream resources and proposing they could be used to create high-quality affordable housing," said Timothy Gray, assistant professor of architecture. "It could lessen the stress on our timber and steel framing resources that are being rapidly depleted."

The eco-lab has three primary goals, Gray said. First, it is an immersive learning experience for the students enrolled in the class. In addition, it will serve as an ongoing research facility and to demonstrate how to build sustainable structures in the Midwest's climate.

The eco-lab is using straw bales as both the structure and insulation in the facility with different types of exterior wall sheathing.

"The goal is to monitor the performance of the bales in our climate by checking the moisture content in each of the separate types of exteriors," he said.

The building is also constructed with laminated veneer lumber (LVL) from recycled wood products for the rim joists and roof trusses. Floor joists and floor decking are made of products containing recycled content. Fly ash — the mineral residue from coal combustion — is being used as aggregate in concrete instead of crushed rock.

"We are using LVL and engineered trusses as the wood products not only because they contain recycled content but also because they are stronger and more uniform than milled lumber. And we are using fly ash because it is more durable in various weather conditions and less likely to crack," he said.

In April, Gray and John Motloch, professor of landscape architecture, will present project information and research to the EPA during a grant competition to obtain up to $75,000 in additional funding to expand the center.  

"This is a tiny project, but the idea is to frame the issues with much broader, even global, implications," Gray said.

The students working on the project consist of a core group who took an elective course in advanced architecture, third-year architecture students in the design studio and other university teams that are helping with construction.

Any groups or individuals interested in working with the current team in constructing or using the facility to advance research, please contact Gray at (317) 523-5757 or tcgray@bsu.edu.

By Jody Kress