http : / / www . treehugger . com / green - architecture / open - building - institute - offer - free - eco - building - toolkit . htmlOpen Building Institute to offer free " eco - building toolkit " CC BY 2 . 0 Open Building Institute Marcin Jakubowski has been described by Sami as awesome , and he is , going from studying fusion energy to designing incredible tools that you can build yourself . He ’ s back in the news with his new Kickstarter to raise $ 80 K for an open - source eco - building tool kit . This will , as best as I can understand , be used to develop a program to enable the construction of a 700 square foot starter home that can be built by anyone in about five days . It ’ s “ loaded with ecological features ” . The Kickstarter funds will not be used to build the prototype , but to “ fund the necessary steps to make our building system widely replicable ” Including : Further development of all the system components , so that each is a fully engineered and documented module - usable in any model of a Starter Home . The goal by July 2018 is to develop all the modules necessary to build a Living Building Challenge compliant home , at a reasonable cost . Open Building Institute / CC BY 2 . 0 There are many things about this project and about the Open Building Institute that I do not understand , starting with the name . Open Building was a term first used by John Habraken decades ago to describe “ the idea of distinct Levels of intervention in the built environment , such as those represented by ' support ' and ' infill ', or by urban design and architecture . ” There is already an open building movement and open building org . Stewart Brand talked about it and Tedd Benson uses “ open built ” principles in his prefabs . Open Building Institute / CC BY 2 . 0 I don ’ t understand the use of the term Modular ; that has a very clear meaning in the architectural world , namely as a type of prefabricated modules that are complete elements including structure , services and finishes . I don ’ t understand why they talk about doors and windows and wall panels being modules when everyone else would call them components , panels , or for that matter , doors and windows . Open Building Institute / CC BY 2 . 0 I don ’ t understand the heating system in the Seed house . I can ’ t understand why in this day and age anyone would build a house with a pellet stove heating hot water that warms a radiant floor . Pellets used to be considered a green source of energy , when they were made from sawdust and waste wood . Now , because of silly bio - energy rules , they are made from virgin wood and shipped long distances . And we have written a number of times about the problems with radiant floors , which as Alex Wilson has noted , are terrific in really leaky , poorly insulated buildings , but overkill everywhere else . Surely a building that small could be insulated really well and not need so much technology and fuel . And while we are talking about pellets , I don ’ t understand how they are going for Living Building Challenge certification , which clearly notes in their energy petal : Burning wood , trash or pellets releases particulates and carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ) into the atmosphere and often strains local supplies of sustainably harvested biomass while robbing the soil of much - needed nutrient recycling . The effects of these energy sources on regional and planetary health are becoming increasingly evident through climate change , the most worrisome major global trend attributed to human activity . Open Building Institute / CC BY 2 . 0 I don ’ t understand why they compare the price of their house to an average builder house , saying it costs a tenth as much , when the builder house includes land . This distortion has been the bane of everyone promoting every new building idea ever , that and the fact that when you build yourself there is still an opportunity cost of labor , nothing is free . Open Building Institute / CC BY 2 . 0 I don ’ t understand “ being able to source most of your building materials from 50 miles around your build site . This is exactly what we ’ re aiming for with a solar - powered Materials Production Facility capable of producing compressed earth blocks , lumber , insulation , paint , glazing , and lime concrete — from local soil , limestone , hay and trees — using open source machines . ” Open Building Institute / CC BY 2 . 0 I get making the compressed earth blocks , these are brilliant and easy to imagine making locally . But are we really talking about making a continuous supply of wood pellets to keep warm ? Casting our own glass ? Cooking lime to make our own cement ? I know that Marcin Jakubowski has designed machines that do much of this , but does it make any sense in the modern world ? Does it scale ? © Thomas ThwaitesDoes it not remind you of Thomas Thwaites ’ attempt to build a toaster from scratch , where he concluded : “ My attempt to make a toaster has shown me just how reliant we all are on everyone else in the world . Though there is a romance in that idea of self - sufficiency and living off the land , there ' s also absurdity . There is no turning back the clock to simpler times . ” Open Building Institute / Screen captureIt must be me . Marcin Jakubowski killed at TED . He and Catarina Mota are brilliant people , and have a team of advisors that can ’ t be beat , including some known to TreeHugger like Bob Berkebile , Alastair Parvin and Mitchell Joachim . People come from miles around to learn from them . But I look at this Kickstarter again and again and I still just don ’ t understand what they are trying to do and why . Related on TreeHugger . com : AWESOME : Global Village Construction Set - All You Need to Build a Civilization ( Video ) Open Building Romantic tiny forest home built in 6 weeks for $ 4 , 000 Tags : Green Building | Kickstarter