11a – Another idea for a social center

This is another idea for a social center, a health center or a small school. Its design is based on straight lines making it suitable to be built with adobe bricks or compacted earth blocks (CEBs).

  

  

Four (4) individual buildings surround a central patio. This are can be closed off with gates or safety fences, making the whole complex very safe. 

   

 

The central patio can be covered with an open roof structure for shade and protection from the rain. People moving from one room to another do not have to feel exposed to the weather. A tree in the middle of the patio can provide additional shade. This creates a cooling effect for the whole complex.

  

 

There is more detail about this model at the mestiçagens blog. You may also download this model from Google 3D Warehouse with the Google SketchUp, which is free and easy to use.

11 – An idea for a social center

Traditional building techniques are well suited for residential buildings but can be very well applied to other buildings.

  

 

A social center, a health center, a small school, with multiple interior spaces can be built with the same materials and using the same techniques we use for a traditional dwelling, a rural dwelling. 

  

 

The dimensions can be decided depending on the local needs, according to the available materials, or depending on the building skills or needs of each community.

  

The example presented here was constructed as a small scale model and published in mestiçages, is only an idea, only a model.

  

This model is available at Google 3D Warehouse and may be freely used.

04c – More on natural ventilation

There is an interesting article on natural ventilation in residential dwellings published in mestiçagens, a Portuguese language blog.

  

The contents are similar to what has already been published here but it may still be of interest.

  

And so, here is the reference.

21a – More about adobe and rammed earth

Rammed earth is one construction technique that is experiencing a healthy rebirth all over the world.

  

  

Another well known construction technique, wattle and daub, has been used in the construction of low cost dwellings as well as not so low-cost buildings in many parts of the world. 

  

 

In an article I published in my mestiçagens blog about a year ago I mention a couple of Internet sites that, even though written in Portuguese, describe very clearly this technique.

 

One of these sites, Chácara da Boa Vista, describes the manufacture of adobe bricks. In the other site, howstuffworks, Fernando Bussoloti describes the rammed earth technique as well as other nature friendly construction methods and techniques.

22a - The manual CETA-RAM CEB press

It is not easy to find documentation about compressed earth block presses, manual or mechanical, but this one is a gem.

 

This is the CETA-RAM block press

 

Full documentation with drawings can be found at the following link:

 
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35985762/The%20CETA%20RAM%20Block%20Press.pdf

 

If for some reason you find that the link does not work, let me know. I have a copy of the pdf document I can send you.

 

63a – Value chains – another example, soap

Let us explore another value chain related to the manufacture of soap. The theme sounds a bit simplistic but I think it can be of value to our rural communities. 

  

Soap is made out of one or more oils or fats mixed with an alkaline chemical such as lye, also known as caustic soda. These oils and fats can be of animal or vegetable origin. And lye can be obtained from hardwood ashes when properly treated with rainwater.

 

All these ingredients can be obtained in our rural communities and the resulting soap can be sold in all sorts of market places. Homemade soap is highly valued by many people. 

 

An example of a value chain related to the manufacture of homemade soap could be like this:

• someone raises cattle, produces and sells animal waste to farmers
• this person sells cattle to the local slaughterhouse
• the butcher buys carcasses and sells meat
• the butcher has a lot of excess animal fat that people do not want
• a local person collects this animal fat to make tallow
• the local baker uses firewood to bake bread
• someone collects the ashes from the baker and other places
• these ashes are used in the community latrines
• with rainwater and ashes this person also makes lye
• someone uses tallow and lye to make homemade soap
• this person sells soap in the community and at the city market

Here we have a value chain, a sequence of activities that make use of existing resources, such as rainwater, ashes and tallow, to develop a new product, homemade soap, which in turn provides work for one or more people. This new product for this community, soap, has value. It has value to be bartered for other products and has value to generate monetary income when it is sold to other communities or at the nearby city market. 

 

In addition, certain local resources had no value or very limited value in the community, such as the case of ashes and unwanted animal fat, but now gained value for the local soap maker. Homemade soap is very valued by many people because it does not contain unwanted additives as is often the case with industrially manufactured soap.

 

Some of these activities may be performed by the same person in one community and by different people in another community. Each individual and each community will pick and choose what will make sense. Each one will choose what activities will be performed by one or more people. In some cases some experimentation will be necessary to find out what makes sense.  

 

It is very important to know what a community needs and consumes because that is what will sell. In some situations we may feel inclined to make what we know how to make, but that may not be what the community, the marketplace, needs or wants. Soap is always needed although there is already soap in the marketplace. But if this homemade soap is better, if it smells better, if it does not irritate the skin or if it will make the skin softer, this homemade soap will sell better than the commercially available soap. 

 

The price of the homemade soap is very important so it can compete with the commercially available soap. The price has to cover the cost of the raw materials, the manufacturing costs, and the distribution costs in order to generate profit. These costs will vary from community to community and from situation to situation. But with such low raw materials costs there is a lot of opportunity for doing business at a profit. 

 

A value chain is the sequence of various activities for the benefit of various participants.

 

In this series of blogs we will explore various manufacturing processes for lye, for tallow and for the manufacture of homemade soap. We are going to explore various recipes for making soap not only with animal fats but also vegetable oils such as peanuts, avocado, cashew, coconut and other plants that grow in our climate.

64 – Value chains – how they work

Let us now look at how a value chain actually works. 

  

A value chain is based on market demand. It is based on market demand at each level of the chain. Market demand is based on people willing to buy a product at a given price. We may have a good product but it may be too expensive, or nobody is willing to buy it because there is no need for it. Or there may be too many people already selling similar products or the same product. Or it may not be the right time of the year for that kind of product. All these factors influence market demand. 

Let us take our example of the peanut products value chain as outlined before:

• someone grows peanuts and sells for food
• someone buys some of the peanuts and makes cooking oil
• someone sells cooking oil locally
• someone sells cooking oil at the city market
• someone collects ash from fireplaces
• someone buys cooking oil and ash and sells soap
• someone buys the soap and runs a clothes washing business

Let us take peanuts as they come out of the ground. There may be a market demand for raw peanuts. And another market demand for cooked peanuts or for roasted peanuts. People who buy raw or roasted peanuts may be different people. And the demand may not be the same every month.

 

A value chain is formed by a sequence of activities. In this case the activities are selling and buying peanuts that provide revenue to the producer. But the activity may be variable or temporary and in this case the producer does not have a dependable source of income.

 

In large cities there may be a large demand for peanuts, but in a small community the demand may be small and the producer may need to plant very few peanuts or find buyers from other communities. Finding buyers requires knowing people.

And so an important activity for the producer is to find and maintain reliable buyers.

Another important activity is to produce good quality peanuts and on time for the market.

We want value chains that are dependable. We need to have a marketplace for our product and we need to know the marketplace for our product. And we want to create associations with other producers or with buyers who can help us and on whom we can depend.

In a small community the producer may have to plant peanuts and other produce because the local demand will be limited. But this can be a good thing. The farmer will then plant some peanuts, some potatoes, some corn, some other crop, and with all these products provide, on a regular basis, the community with the produce it needs.

 

In small communities a farmer may not be able to produce just one crop. The farmer may have to be good at many things.