By SIMON COLLINS
Susi Newborn has one big worry about living in what may be the world's first dwelling made from phonebooks - mice could eat her out of house and home.
Ms Newborn, a founder of Greenpeace in Britain, lives on Waiheke Island with husband Luc Tutugoro and two children.
She wants
a house made of phonebooks to recycle a huge wasted resource. Auckland's 300,000 sets of three directories alone could make a wall 2.4m high and 5km long.
She and Mr Tutugoro have a spectacular site for the house on a spur next to a totara forest in the Awaawaroa eco-village - a community of 15 families at the far eastern end of Waiheke.
But she has nightmares about mice.
"There are a lot of field mice and rats around Waiheke," said Ms Newborn.
"If they got into the books - I don't know, make little nests and things - we'd have to make sure it was well-covered."
Her architects believe it will be. Auckland University architecture lecturer Garrick Tonks and masters student Li Sheng have designed a house based on the strength of the phonebooks.
"The method we adopted was to lay them up, much as we do with bricks," Dr Tonks said.
Each new layer of books will be glued to the one below, and the cover of each book will be folded back to form a continous sheath of hardened cardboard up both sides of the wall.
A reinforcing rod will be bored through the books, compressing them to strengthen them further.
Finally, an external cladding will be added with a drainage gap between it and the phonebooks.
Ms Newborn and Mr Tutugoro have asked for a pole house with an upper storey. The roof will stand on recycled phone-line poles.
They also want verandahs surrounding the house "to protect the books".
Dr Tonks says the "hefty" walls will be soundproof, particularly from exterior noise.
He is confident the home will be fireproof.
"It would be extremely difficult to burn the books once they are compressed like that. The thermal resistance is as good as a timber wall full of fibreglass."
BUILDING BLOCKS
* The Waiheke house will be built from about 4000 sets of the three Auckland directories.
* The number of phonebooks discarded in the city each year could build 75 such houses.
* Auckland's 300,000 sets could make a wall 2.4m high and 5km long.
Recyclers build house of books
By SIMON COLLINS
Susi Newborn has one big worry about living in what may be the world's first dwelling made from phonebooks - mice could eat her out of house and home.
Ms Newborn, a founder of Greenpeace in Britain, lives on Waiheke Island with husband Luc Tutugoro and two children.
She wants
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