Joyce Plath is the only design professional that has extensive experience working specifically in papercrete. For the past five years, she has had to opportunity to explore a variety of papercrete applications, for in-fill and load bearing structures, floors, roofs, sound walls, and exterior and interior papercrete stucco finishes.

Joyce has also taught papercrete workshops through Humboldt State University, and recently collaborated with Barry Fuller of Living In Paper, including designing a demonstration building in Tempe, Arizona.

In the mountains of Trinity County, CA, Joyce Plath has been working with a crew for the past four summers on a series of building projects that include the rehabilitation of a log cabin, a gravity spring-fed water supply, a photovoltaic electrical system, and the construction of two papercrete buildings.

Unlike strawbale, papercrete can undergo wet/dry cycles repeatedly with no damage to the material, which makes it especially appropriate in the damp climates of the Pacific Northwest because it can absorb moisture with out developing mold or loosing it’s strength. It can be used for load bearing two story structures, insulates with an R value of 3 per inch, can hold screws, has outstanding acoustical properties.  It is far more ductile that concrete, an important safety feature in earthquake prone areas.  Because it is light weight and forgiving (windows can be cut out of a finished wall with a chainsaw) it lends it self well to inexperienced builders.  Papercrete blocks are easy to handle and place. Papercrete is made from recycled pulped paper, cement, fly ash, clay and sand.  It can be poured into adobe size forms or in place as either walls or floors.  Interior finishes can have additional local clay and ground gypsum board waste, while exterior stucco has six times as much clay and a small amount of lime in addition to the normal papercrete mixture.

"I had been mulling over what to build and how to build it for months before I met Joyce. It was going to be my first papercrete project so I wanted it to be unique but practical and beautiful but not overstated. She and I talked for a few hours about what my casita (little house) needed to convey, what its identity should be - not about functions or dimensions - but what people needed to feel when they saw it.

The next day I sat with her while she did the drawings. She took out a pencil and, without hesitation or ado, created an elegant, organic, peaceful modern design which incorporated my ideas and, happily beyond words, was easy to build.

We origially called the structure Paper Palace One, then Casita Bonita (the pretty little house), but both names eventually gave way to Plath Manor.

Kudos to Joyce and her firm for building on my vision and freeing me from the inclination to build something mundane."n-Barry J. Fulle

Papercrete Construction Links

Barry Fuller's website http://www.livinginpaper.com presents a comprehensive information on papercrete.

For more information on papercrete construction this site
is a valuable recourse.