The Novo Airao Brick-Making Project

With the influx of native people into urban areas comes the need for more housing. This housing needs to be durable, energy-efficient, low-cost, and environmentally sustainable. In order to accomplish all these requirements on a limited budget, NCA would like to help by supplying brick-making machinery to local contractors to make construction of these homes a reality.

Brick-making machines would provide a viable alternative to conventional timber frame construction. Instead of harvesting precious rainforest timber for construction, the brick-making machinery is designed to use locally available products such as clay and sawdust to produce high-quality, long-lasting bricks.

Brick based construction is not only environmentally sound but is also consistent with ancient cultural practices. Sun dried blocks, or "adobes", have been the building blocks of many civilizations dating back to the earliest known dwellings. Mud bricks that are dried in the sun are still being made around the world today. Improvements to these ancient techniques, such as the "pressed earth block" are available. This technique combines a block mold with the compacting of lightly moistened earth materials into a hardened mass.

The brick based construction system would improve peoples’ self-sufficiency by training and employing them to produce the bricks, teaching them how to build with them, and perhaps even establishing a cottage industry where the bricks could be manufactured, sold, and distributed.

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