Straw Building Passes Quake Test

After Pakistan was devastated by an earthquake in 2005, Darcey Donovan, an engineer in California, pursued designs for quake-resistant homes using local materials. The result was a straw-bale building. It withstood substantial shaking in tests at the University of Nevada, Reno. More on building resilient communities at DOT EARTH: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com More on this project at http://www.paksbab.org and http://www.unr.edu