OBI SME Advisors

Use this form to submit Subject Matter Expert Suggestions

The approach of OBI is to integrate all known knowledge on regenerative construction, and make it available to everyone - open source and free of charge - to lower the barriers to affordable, ecological housing.

view responses

Subject Matter Adviser Qualifications and Agreement

The basic terms are that the Adviser agrees to provide technical expertise and public feedback on Open Building Institute designs. This is an unpaid, volunteer position dedicated to the common good. Our goal is to assemble significant expertise across about 100 technical areas of house construction, listed below.

• Technical subject matter expertise (SME) in an area relevant to autonomous housing technology, from structural, to utilities, to infrastructure, to build execution, to training curriculum, to build Enterprise development - focusing on a modular, incremental, open source.
• Availability for a minimum of 1 hour of review and consulting meetings with OBI staff every quarter

• Review consists of commenting or collaborating on conceptual and technical designs, either realtime via a meeting or off-line

• Interest in sharing knowledge in the public interest
• Adviser agrees not to introduce any confidential or privileged information that cannot be shared with a greater audience
• Advisers should have an interest in innovation, systems change, and 'hacking the system' to provide innovative, integrated solutions to pressing world issues
• Adviser understands that OSE is a nonprofit education organization, and that both OBI and OSE are completely open source - forever without exception. This is consistent with providing enabling tools and techniques to the world for regenerative development.
• Feedback from the SME adviser will be a matter of public record, unless explicitly requested otherwise by the Adviser.
• Given the open source nature of contributed designs and feedback - users are free to use the resulting creations in any manner that they see fit, consistent with the Open Source Hardware Definition. This includes using, distributing, modifying, or selling information or products
• All knowledge shared by advisor is open source or public domain, no exceptions
• OSE and OBI does not sign NDAs, but only FDAs (Full Disclosure Agreements)
• The term is for 2 years, where there is an option to renew your advisory role. Termination can happen unilaterally if the fit is not right or the role is not serving the mission of OBI

Top Technology Areas

Single reen check mark by the name indicates that the individual has been contacted, a second checkmark is that they responded, and a third checkmark is that they have agreed to serve as an OBI advisor. see OBI SME Log.

SME priorities are based on the priorities of the Nov 2016 builds. Here are known contacts, and other more general areas are to be crowdsourced.

• .Biogas, separating toilet - Dr. Thomas Culhane [1], the world's leading authority on temperate climate, home scale biodigesters.

• Request: a replicable temperate zone, 100% cooking-for-two biogas system, modularly expandable. Design evolution to aquaponics integration for urine. Design and productization assistance. Ozonator, sand filter, charcoal filter

• Ozonator - Stuart at Aquatic Eco/Pentair technical division - Just call and ask for Stewart in the Tech Support division when you get the advice tree on the phone…he's amazing.; Delozone.com
• PV - Dr. Joshua Pearce
• CEB, Soil Mixer - Powell and Sons have expertise in soil mixers. Invite them to an open source soil mixer design.
• Panel Framing System - [2] - physics to construction.
• BIM - Yorik, key FreeCAD developer and architect.
• Open Source Architecture - Paperhouses.

• Request: Collaboration on documentation and development platform, and publishing (Wired).

• Thermoelectric Generation - Thermalforce.de
• Natural Building - Dr. Owen Geiger, Ph.D.(in Social and Economic Development) [3], is the former Director of Builders Without Borders and Founder and Director of the Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building (www.grisb.org). He is an author, engineer and licensed contractor specializing in strawbale construction, earthbag and other types of sustainable building. His new Earthbag Building Guide and accompanying Basic Earthbag Building video are now available. He co-authored the Builders Without Borders Straw-Bale Construction Guides and contributed to Building Without Borders: Sustainable Construction for the Global Village. Dr. Geiger has consulted on numerous international housing projects and worked closely with Habitat for Humanity for seven years. He is also a correspondent for The Last Straw Journal and a Mother Earth News Green Homes Expert. Email: naturalhousesATgmail.com

• Area of request: code compliance of natural building, publishing venues, and collaboration with Habitat for Humanity for improving each other's house designs.

• Architecture - professional architect - Bob Berkebile
• WikiHouse
• Incremental Housing - Alejandro Aravena
• Cellulose Insulation - http://cmsgreen.com/, or Mark Bomberg, George Chrenka
• Edible Perennial Landscaping - Eric Toensmeier
• Silicate Mineral Paint - $20/ton for sodium silicate binder
• Continuous Lime Production - German AT paper -
• Urban Planning, House Infrastructure Systems - Mitch Joachim
• Architecture - Pragnya
• Autonomous House - Rachel Preston Prinz, architctural historian - [4]. Critique of Earthships.
• Hydraulic circuit design - Candidates - Brendan Casey [5].
• Pellet Burner - peeps that make the burner kit
• Heat Exchangers
• WebGL integration - Michel Dhoore
• Biogas - Keith Addison - Journeytoforever. L John Fry plus second guy f. Dan
• Autonomous House - Brenda+ Vale , The Autonomous House
• Hydraulics

• H&P Forum, founder
• James L. Johnson - Introduction to Fluid Power.

• EATON - hydraulic windmill design
• Eco-paints and finishes

Core Seed Home Technology

See Seed Eco-Home Features for a description of the technology embodied in the November 2016 build at the OBI/OSE headquarters. We are seeking subject matter expertise to opensource all of the following features. There are 3 levels to hardware opensourcing:

1. Open source of the design, using commercial, off-shelf, proprietary components. For example, open-sourcing design of the toilet using proprietary toilet, wood from the big box store, etc.
2. Open sourcing of the components used in the design. For example, not buying a commercial pellet burner, but building it from raw materials.
3. Open sourcimg the materials used - such as a process for melting scrap steel to make new steel that is used to build the stove. The materials opensourcing can occur at 2 levels: (1) involving materials recycled from the proverbial Man; (2) involving materials obtained directly from Mother Nature.

Materials Production Facility

See the infographic for all the technologies required for a full Open Source Materials Production Facility.