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Join the USGBC-NCC Monterey Bay Branch for a presentation on straw buildings and passive solar design with Daniel Silvernail, member of the Advisory Board of the California Straw Building Association.

Enjoy light refreshments at 5:30pm and mingle with the Monterey Bay green building community before the presentation begins at 6pm.

About the Speaker

Daniel Silvernail is an ecologist by education and architect by profession. In 1996 he was exposed to the California straw building movement and the use of straw bales as a building material. Offering environmentally-positive qualities including low embodied energy, super-insulation, and an alternative to the use of lumber he immediately was drawn into the movement, designing his first straw bale residential project in 1997 and accepting induction to the Advisory Board of CASBA (the California Straw Building Association) in 2003.

Over the years of educating both building professionals and laypersons to the ecological advantages of the technology, he realized that simply building with bales is only a single aspect of the picture if the building is to be successful from a sustainable perspective, that, as builders and designers, if we are not mindful of applying solar design principles we've really only delivered “half the goods” to the environment in terms of sustainable practice.

Tickets may be purchased at the door for $15, on a first come first serve basis.

Informal Carpool: Participants should arrive no later than 5 pm at one of these locations:

• Santa Cruz County Governmental Office Building, 701 Ocean Street, near the front doors at the visitor parking spaces
• Seaside Home Depot parking lot, near the Shell Station.

Learn more about USGBC-NCC Monterey Bay Branch.