121 | Buildings Made of Sky

King first became active in green building in the late 1970’s, but encountered challenges in finding the information he needed to work with innovative and natural building materials. King was also influenced by the design of the groundbreaking Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland, California: a 12-acre sustainable living demonstration site that welcomes nearly 200,000 visitors each year.

Through these two experiences, King decided to establish a central resource for information on green and natural building techniques: The Ecological Building Network, an organization dedicated to information gathering and sharing which also hosts the BuildWell conferences.

As a part of his advocacy, King is well known for spearheading multiple efforts to widen acceptance of natural building techniques into national and international code systems. He is the author of the ASTM international building standard for earthen construction, as well as the books “Buildings of Earth and Straw”, “Making Better Concrete”, and “Design of Straw Bale Buildings”.

King is an advisor to Serious Materials, Foundation Capital and GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. With his wife and partner, Sarah Weller King, he is also the founder of the Green Building Press – a press dedicated to green building. He contributes widely and frequently through papers, articles, conferences, books and journals.

His book “The New Carbon Architecture: Building to Cool the Planet” is a definitive guide to low-carbon and carbon-negative building materials and techniques. We were fortunate enough to have Bruce join us on our podcast, Social Design Insights, have a listen at the link above.