Sustainable building & design with Tony Brown | Cody Lundin’s Keep Your Ass Alive Ep 7

Cody interviews Tony Brown, Founder of the Ecosa Institute. They talk about building a more self-reliant, sustainable home, power grid vulnerabilities, saving money, the strength of the tribe, and how to keep zombies out of your house. Miss this episode and twiddle your thumbs in the dark during a grid-down scenario because you thought you had it all figured out.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Wheel people, real skills giving a lot of vital advice with somewhere with a high desert.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Hey, welcome to another episode of Keep Your Ass Alive. I'm your host, Cody Lundine, and I have a very special guest, Tony Brown. And what we're going to do with Tony, the reason I asked Tony to be here around our crackling campfire, we're going to have a campfire talk, is Tony's a literally a master of sustainable design. I would call him an icon. He might smirk or roll his eyes at that, but I wouldn't. He's been doing this for a long time. Well, this is a survival show, so why in the hell am I having some guy talk about sustainable design? Well, if something is not sustainable, that means there's an endpoint. And that endpoint in the field could be death, right? So we're all living one way or another in a shelter. Even if you're in your van listening to this podcast in a parking lot, you're still in a shelter. So what Tony's a master at is taking shelters and making them sustainable within the bioregion they're sitting at. And what that means, and we'll talk to him about that, is you're going to last longer in plain terms, right? If something is sustainable, it means it's going to last longer and have an enduring quality. This is a survival show. We're talking about sustainable design because it matters. It matters to long term long-term and sometimes short-term survival. So, Tony, welcome to Keep Your Ass Alive.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

So you've been an architect for a long, long time. I want to know what your passion was to get into architecture and how long you've been doing it.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Well, um, it's a long story. Um, well, I grew up in London, so obviously I was surrounded by a lot of incredible buildings, all the way from you know the Tower of London to uh the Shard, you know, the new buildings. And um that sort of seeped into my uh consciousness, not uh not uh purposefully, but just by being there. And then um I also my dad ran pubs, and I grew up in pubs, which was kind of an interesting experience. A lot of architects said the most difficult things to design are churches and pubs because they all have atmosphere. And uh so one of the ones I remember, which was really amazing, was uh a pub called the the Duke of Grafton, and it was on a road called Euston Road, but it was a Victorian pub, so it had uh etched glass, it had it had uh stained glass skylights, it had um it had a mural on a mirror all the way around the bar that was like uh a mural of a um uh a river with herons and and uh all sorts of uh creatures in it. And I was really young, I was just you know, still in school and I had to come in through. But when everybody left, it was so quiet down there. I'd go and I'd just look at all these pictures on the wall. So then um I went into the Air Force uh because it was required, you had a two-year um requirement for national service, and then when I came out, I wasn't sure what I was gonna do. Um, but my father had a friend who was an architect, and so I went to work for him, and I really got to enjoy it because it's a combination of art, science, technology. You know, it's actually a combination of everything if you think about it. Um and so for me, my brain is one that keeps jumping around from all sorts of things. It sort of was a kind of way of synthesizing ideas I'd had. So that was really the catalyst for me getting into architecture. And then, of course, I went to school and got a degree.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

How long have you been an architect?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Well, my degree is in the 1950s, uh 53, I think it was, when I got my degree.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

I was really stoned in math class. What is that in what is that in yours? You've been an architect for 60 plus years then? Yeah. Damn. Yeah, it's a long time. So we both know I'm not an architect, and you know that because you are, but I've known you for a long time. There's a lot of architects in town and elsewhere that design unsustainable crap. Oh, yeah. What got you into sustainable design?

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Well, when I ended up coming to the US, um I worked in uh Berkeley for some famous architects, and I got kind of frustrated because they, you know, in my opinion, they're just making the slums of the future. And um, and then I saw an exhibit in Berkeley Art Museum for uh uh an architect called Paolo Solari, and he was designing these amazing um three-dimensional cities, and it happened that they were offering workshops. So I this was my epiphany moment. I sort of go, I gotta go see what this is about. So I signed up for a workshop. Um that was in 1971, I think it was.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

And you saw it in Berkeley, but was it an ad in Berkeley? And you and he was in Arizona with the workshop, or was he in Berkeley?

SPEAKER_02 6:05

No, he was in Berkeley for this big exhibit where it had these incredible models of urban design. And so I signed up for the workshop, ended up coming to Arizona, which is how I got here, and um uh it was just amazing. Um, we talked about sustainability all the time, about why cities aren't working, why we needed a totally different model for urban design, um, how we could solve uh sprawl land use, water use, uh food systems. Um and we we we discussed this, you know, on this construction site because it was also a construction site where they were trying to build an arcology, which is a combination of architecture and ecology.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Arcology.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Yeah. And so the the place that I went to was called Archasante. And um it was an attempt to build a prototype of this big idea about three-dimensional cities. And so um I was there for uh uh six weeks. I got there and he said, Oh, you're an architect, build this, and I never built anything in my life, and so I ended up figuring out how to build this uh roof on a uh octagonal structure, and uh and I I really felt like there was a sense of purpose being there. Whereas in all the architecture offices I'd worked in, it was just like, how can we make more money? How can we get more projects? It wasn't anything about why we are doing this, it's always about um how. And I thought, well, we need to start talking about why we're doing all this stuff. So anyway, I was so enthused about being there that I um I went back to Berkeley and then wrote and said, Hey, I'd like to come out and be permanent there and help you build this thing. So uh eventually they said yes, because I had a wife and a child at the time, and um it wasn't really set up, it was more a construction site than anything else. But anyway, I came back in 1972 and then ended up staying there for 13 years, which was way longer than I'd ever planned staying anywhere. Wow. So we uh had to teach people every six weeks who came in how to build these giant concrete structures.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

And what do you mean by that every six weeks? Was there little tribes of students that would come in on a rotating basis then?

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah, yeah. Every six weeks there'd be a new cohort coming in.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Now the 70s are that's when this stuff was hip. Yeah, right. Everyone's, you know, solar and whatever. So I, you know, we'll talk a lot later about what's quote unquote hip now, but what was it like then with that particular green movement? Was there a high level of passion from the general public to get back to the land and do something sustainable?

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Yeah, because the 70s were really uh time when um, you know, Earth Day started. Well uh, you know, and all everybody was really conscious about the whole idea of uh sustainability, recycling, all this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

What the hell happened?

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah, that's what I keep asking myself.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Um so every six weeks a new tribe would come in. Yeah. And you know, uh Arcosante is still there, by the way, in the same location where you helped build it, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

And then what happened with uh because 13 years is a long time there.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah, well, I I um I I'd taken a uh a year off from construction to do uh uh the idea of making a coast, I mean Arcasante, a um uh art center. And so I'd been working on that for a year. Um Solery had said, yes, that's fine, that's a good idea. And then after a year and a half, uh we had a meeting about what I was doing and how I was trying to do this, and then he said, Well, I don't want you to do this anymore. And um, so I said, Okay, well, why is that? And he said, Because you might be too successful, and I thought, what the hell? That's crazy. Um, what he meant was it was gonna take energy away from the construction uh by bringing arts into the community there. And my argument was no, it's not, it's gonna actually bring more energy, it's gonna be you know, bring publicity, it's gonna bring people. But he was adamant, so I said, okay. And then uh six weeks later we were gone. Wow. So uh we moved to Prescott because Prescott was the closest town and we were totally broke. Um it wasn't it wasn't a paying, well, it was paid a little bit minimum wage, I think it was. And um so anyway, I I knocked around in Prescott for a while, um, trying to figure out what to do. And uh I always had this idea of getting into education because at Arcusanti had been teaching people how to pour concrete, how to build forms, how to do all this stuff, but also getting involved in Solery's philosophy because he was a philosopher as well as an architect. And so I did a whole bunch of things. I wrote for a magazine for a while until it folded, then I uh uh I did some illustrations, I got jobs doing illustrations, and then um I finally decided uh with the art director of the magazine that folded that we'd start up a graphic design company. So then I did that, and then I um you know we built I built the whole thing up because my partner bailed after a year, so I was left with that. Um so then I built it up and built it up. We got the hospital as a client, we got Prescott College as a client, and that allowed me some uh room to be able to try something new. So I um I went to Prescott College and I said, look, I I'm into this sustainability stuff. Um, I'd like to design a class to do to teach students sustainable design. And it took them a year of debate and do we want to do this or not? Maybe, maybe not. Um so finally they did. I had a friend who was also an architect, a woman called Patty Olsen. And so we together taught the first class, and then um and then we built it up to five classes, which was great. You know, it covered a whole bigger range of subjects, including urban design. Then Prescott College went through a financial crisis, and they came to me and said, okay, we're canceling the sustainability class classes. So um I thought, screw it, I'll start my own school. Um, if they're not going to be smart enough to know this is an important subject, I'll start my own school and we can uh teach whatever we want. So I started uh uh a school called the Kosar Institute, and um we put a board together and uh we talked about how to raise money, how to do uh a whole bunch of um publicity and all that stuff, and then one day one of our board members said, you know, I think we've talked enough. Why don't you just put out a website and see what happens? So we did that, and for the first uh semester in 2000, we got eight students and you were there. No, we got more than that, we got 11 students, and we did that first semester at Arcasante. I mean, even though I've left, I didn't burn any bridges, so you know we still had a relationship.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

I remember that class.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah. Um so that's where it started, and then we've been running semester classes for pretty much the last uh 18 years, and then I got involved with being becoming part of Prescott College, um, which was seemed like a good idea at the time. Um, so I became a adjunct professor at Prescott College. We, as part of the deal, um the money we had uh went into uh Prescott College, plus 65 acres of land in the Granite Dells went into Prescott College. As it turned out, uh fortunately, we had a very tight agreement with Prescott College, and that agreement had an escape clause. So first semester at Prescott College was great, 16 weeks, great students, second semester was great, a bunch of students, but then COVID hit in the middle of it, and they said, No, we're not gonna allow you to do 16-week programs anymore. You have to do these four-week blocks. And to be honest, four-week blocks to understand a subject like sustainable design is just not enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Um You're on your own again now and Ocosa's based in Denver, then.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah, we're on our own. So I'm getting up there in years, so I can't be as energetic as I was in the beginning. And so I have this amazing woman called Cynthia Fishman. She was an alumni in 2017, I think it was, or maybe before. And she's got so much energy, she's passionate about the program. She's really over the last, she's worked for free over the last uh three months, three or four months. Um we've got a board together that's a dynamite board. We're planning on starting again next year with the semester programs.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yeah, and I want to talk to you more about ECOSA. Um, this podcast, Keep Your Ass Alive, is about all things self-reliant. You agreed to be here because of sustainable design. In the context of self-reliance slash survival, because they can be a hair width away. Why is sustainable design important?

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Well, if you want to look at the big picture, we're just killing ourselves as a as a species. I mean, we're destroying the land, we've got climate changes going on, we're still pumping massive amounts of carb dioxide into the air. Um, we're we're doing these things with agricultural farming that's destroying waterways. Um if you go through the whole list, it's just incredibly uh stupid.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Why do you think we keep crapping where we sleep?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Um lack of education, I think, is one thing. Politicians that use it as a lever to maintain power. Um it's it's a very complex subject. There's lots of reasons why these things happen, but generally uh I think if you look at the polling, the majority of Americans are worried about climate change, for example. But they don't know what to do about it. They have no, you know, they have no knowledge to say you can do this, and then what happens is everybody says, oh, recycle, um, don't waste water, don't do these things, don't uh but it's really the corporations telling you to do that, so they can't take responsibility. They they're putting the responsibility on the individual instead of themselves. Um it's a great way of uh uh saying it's not our fault.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Absolving responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Now, for those that don't know, Tony and a gentleman named Rob Israel, a long time ago, what was that? When did ECOSA start? Late 90s, mid-90s?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

It was 1996 when we go to a non-profit.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

1996. Tony and Rob uh brought me into an office and we talked about similar to a college program called Orientation at a college that's in town where they take the students out for a few weeks in the backcountry. And you wanted me to essentially thump design students to take them out for three days so that in a survival situation per se with limited gear, so they would understand the true dynamics of what is needed as opposed to what is wanted. And and and we did that for many, many, many years. So I've known Tony for many years and taken out many, many, many ECOSA students into the field. And I have a high respect for you, and it's a real privilege to have you here because you've never improved. You've held to your vision, you've held on to it, you've just told us two or three or four failures. Most people will go, screw this, I'm gonna go back and work at the big box door. Not you. So I respect you highly for starting out with something that was a trend or phase, or whatever you want to call it in the 70s, and it's sure not now. Because it's like swimming upstream to get people to understand sustainability is important. All Indigenous peoples knew that sustainability was important or they died. So, right off the bat, I want to say thank you and hundreds of other students and the information. Hopefully, those get out in this podcast podcast for being you and not folding and always swimming upstream and never giving up. Thank you. Yeah, because well, yeah, thank you. Because that's too rare nowadays. Now, regarding energy efficience and sustainability, when I used to talk to Acosta students, I make money as a professional survival instructor. And I had this thing back in my head a long time ago that money was evil, and it certainly can be used for that. But if I don't make a living doing what I'm doing, then I will be working at the big box store or whatever. So as much as it horrified some ECOSA students, I would always say, look, you need to make money doing your passion, or the passion is a hobby. It won't be a profession. And one of the things I like to tell ECOSA students, and unfortunately, it's people associate value with how much money am I saving? So, regarding energy efficiency and sustainability, for all you out there that might be going, what in the hell are we talking about sustainable design for? We're going to try to save you money if you don't care about living longer for sustainable design. And that's what it'll do. So Regarding energy efficient energy efficiency and sustainability in that context, what are the biggest mistakes that architects make designing a home?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Orientation. If you go to any subdivision, I will guarantee you that they're lined up in all sorts of directions. Well, if you want to have a building be uh energy efficient, you need to be aware of where the sun is. So you really need buildings to be uh basically, if you look at it simplistically, a rectangle with the long side being east-west, uh, because then the south side is access to solar energy. Um, and because the sun moves the way it does, you can actually control when that sun comes in and when it doesn't come in.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

And that's called passive solar design.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Passive solar design, yeah. So uh most designers, particularly developers, if they're housing developers, they don't do that because they want everything to be in different orientations. So they actually uh those houses are not initially able to take advantage of the sun. They just have to put in energy to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

So they have to be on the grid. The sun is free energy.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

So they're ignoring orientation, ignoring that free energy. Right. And we could talk about over, I don't know how deeply we get into pastel design, but if you don't get what he just said, if you know how to orient your house in the right direction, assuming you're a a new builder, it'll save you money. Again, I'm pulling things back to like, because that's what people seem to respond to nowadays. Money, money, money. And a pat and a self-reliant home could potentially save your life and a hell of a lot of money over the years. So orientation. Um, how much energy does the United States of America use to maintain room temperature?

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Well, 75% of America's electricity goes into houses. So just maintaining houses with appliances, lighting, some heating, uh, cooking, all those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

So 75% of the entire grid budget goes into running a home. Because that home probably sucks as far as self-reliance.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Yeah, because in the 50s we built homes as cheaply as we could, and uh insulation wasn't an issue because energy was abundant and cheap, and you could just pump as much energy as you wanted into a house. So all that old housing stock in the night from the 1950s, maybe some of the 60s, well, probably the 60s too, and even 70s, uh, are not designed to be uh well insulated, to be able to um use the solar energy that just uh heat sucks, basically.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Right. Now it takes a lot of money to knock something down and build something back up again. What's your opinion? If someone has one of those homes, what's the cheapest, easiest thing they can do to try to regulate room temperature and use less grid power as far as thermoregulation and heating and cooling?

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Right. Well, the simplest thing you can possibly do is to cork every gap in the around windows, around doors, around electric boxes. That stops the infiltration of outside air coming in. Um it's not, you know, it's not a solution to the whole thing, but then going in and re-insulating, re-insulating all the attics, the walls, so on.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

So R me R factor in insulation, does the R mean resistance to airflow? Is that what it means?

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Resistance to heat.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

Resistance to heat. So caulk the windows, whatever, get rid of the gaps, and then add insulation are probably the easiest and slash cheapest ways that someone can retrofit a home to use less grid power.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Right. Anything else? Um well, obviously if you put in solar panels and produce your own electricity, that's gonna be What do you think about single-pane windows suck, correct? Oh yeah. If you can afford it, replacing windows. The problem is a lot of the early houses uh uh sort of beginning to dilapidate, and so they tend to be owned by people with less money, and so it's harder to get those how those people to spend that kind of money. Sure. But yeah. But generally, if you want to, if you can put in new windows, there are some programs, I believe, where you can get new windows at cost or low if you're in a low-income bracket. Um, but that's a really good way of doing it. Windows are basically a big hole in the wall. I mean, they they have no value in terms of resisting heat. Is it like R2 or something for a double pane window? Well, for a double pane, it's probably more like uh like an R3 or four. A triple pane window is is the best you can get. And that's not really very high. It's equivalent to an R5, I think something like that. Um, it if you're gonna get into that, it gets a little tricky because the window industry uses a metric that's different to R values. They use a thing which is a reciprocal of R values called U values. And I think the reason they did that is because it looks better on their on their uh brochures, because um the the lower the number, the better the window. Got it. So if you have a high U value, it means your window sucks, basically.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

But it looks good to the people who don't understand the innuendo. Through the ECOSA Institute, because I've been a student in that too, not taking the classes at the ECOSA Institute, but learning from the students, projects, et cetera, and and helping and teaching and learning from them in the field. OCOSA tries to take design and nature and make them as one. Why is it important for sustainable design to pay attention to nature?

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Well, apart from our own survival, it's really um interesting that since the uh 1970s, more and more research has been done on humans and nature and what nature does to us. Nature has a huge psychological impact on humans. Um, there's now studies showing if you walk in the woods for an hour, your blood pressure goes down, uh, stress hormones dissipate, uh trees are putting what's called terpenes into the air, which affect your well-being. Um, so just uh from walking in a wood, you can get um a feeling of much more uh psychological peace. Um there's a study done by a guy called Ulrich, which was done in the, I believe, 1970s, where he uh used a hospital where they were doing um surgery the same surgeries on one wing. It was um I can't remember what it was, like spleen or something like that. Um and they did studies where the rooms that looked out on nature and there were rooms that looked out on a brick wall, and they discovered that the people with a view of nature healed faster, required less medicine, and were actually discharged early. Wow. So what year?

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Was it the 70s?

SPEAKER_02 30:21

70. I can't remember exactly. I should have looked this all up before.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

No, it's fine, but that's we've known about this for decades.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, uh architects that specialize in hospitals, not all of them, but some of them are aware of this and are beginning to bring this knowledge into their design work. But you know, if you live in an apartment and all you look out on is is um brick walls or roofs, um, it can be really depressing. Yeah, and I think you know that uh um we we we have a problem, we have a psychology problem, we have depression, we have suicide, it's all getting bigger. Um and I think a lot of that is because of the conditions that we live in. And in fact, it's been also another study show that if you have green space in your neighborhood, crime goes down, school scores go up.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Um for those that don't know, what's green space mean?

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Green space is even if it's a mini park with some trees and a bench to sit on, um even uh verges that are being planted so that they're green with with plants. Um we we evolved in an environment of plants. Um sometimes we forget that, but our brain is wired to be comfortable in that kind of environment. So um we've forgotten about that, and so we've just really thrown that out as a as a factor in human health.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

As far as designing with nature, psychology is huge in survival as well. There's got to be some thermoregulatory benefits of understanding what bioregion that house is sitting in, as far as orientation, which hemisphere, uh thermal mass, insulation, if you're in Minnesota, as you're as opposed to Florida. What are the, to me, like the big three were one you said orientation, which way is your house facing, because you know my homestead's off grid. The other is insulation, get as much as you can afford, because it keeps the cocoa hot and the and the Kool-Aid cold. And the other is thermal mass, if we're doing passive solar, to absorb that solar radiation, to re-radiate out. Are those the big three, or would you add something to that for someone who's like really interested in designing something that's sustainable for their bioregion?

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah. Um, well, look at it this way. So um power goes out, you have no way of cooking. So you can go out into your backyard and you can build a fire. Um, you can cook your food over that. So uh the water system collapses. Um, what are you going to do? Well, hopefully you have tanks that you've put into your house that collect rain water from the roof, that you can use uh for a garden or you can use for drinking water if that happens. But the most important thing that I think a lot of people don't understand, you have to know how to grow food. Because if the food supply disappears, what are you gonna do? If you're living in New York in an apartment, there's no food, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna survive? Um, and you know, unless you know at least the basics, like how do you grow a vegetable garden, for example? Obviously, you're not gonna be able to grow um wheat and oats and stuff, but you can at least survive on enough food to keep you going. Um, and of course, if you have water tanks, then you have water to actually um water your garden. Um, that's necessary only in a dry climate like Arizona, but if you're living somewhere like Portland, you you don't need the water because it comes out of the sky. Um a friend of mine in Tucson, um, Brad Lancaster, um, is amazing. He survives totally on water that comes out of the sky, and they have like uh 10 inches a year, and he manages to collect enough to uh survive in in Tucson, in the middle of the city, and to grow food.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Um that's that's an accomplishment, isn't it? Yeah, it's a do you know what his square footage is of collection and how many tanks he has, the gallon capacity he has?

SPEAKER_02 35:12

He has about a a thousand gallons um in a concrete um septic tank, and then he has um uh another whole tank by he lives in a converted garage actually, and uh it's a smaller tank, but um it's enough for him to survive on.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

But with the gardening too?

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Yeah, the the septic tank water thing is for the garden.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Got it. And one of my questions for you is you know, was the homeowner making their home self-reliant? You talked about water tanks, rain catchment, whatever. If someone listening to this podcast is on the grid, which most of them will be, right? We don't have the luxury of going off on 40 acres and having cheap and whatever else we might have. What can barring building codes and HOA agreements and all the other rules that get thrown in the way? What are some of the things someone can do to make their home more self-reliant? You said maybe water tanks with roof catchment, you've mentioned photolytic panels, which could be probably grid tie-in, right, with maybe a separate battery bank for if the grid was gone. We've mentioned caulking around windows, any big spaces. We've mentioned maybe adding some insulation, replacing windows if they're single pane, if we have the money to double pane. What else can a conventional homeowner do to make their home more resilient in a time of change, to make it more self-reliant?

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Okay. Um, I'm gonna change the subject a little bit. So we have evolved ECOSA from sustainability to regenerative. In other words, we're trying now to look at how can we make regenerative design. And what regenerative design is, it's about how do you create uh a design that's going to evolve, that's gonna continue to grow and continue to change.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

Based on what factors?

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Based on, well, several factors. Uh, for example, sustainability is really great, but it's only, I think, the beginning. Sustainability is about sustaining what we have. Um regenerative is about how do you take what we have and make it richer and make it more productive, make it more um um, I don't know what else, but make it more of what it is. Um and that relies on a thing called community. Um, so if you want to be self-reliant, say in a city or in a town, I don't know if you could do this in a city, you need to have a uh uh community that can work together. For example, if I grow tons of tomatoes, my friend across the street is growing tons of cucumbers, and my friend uh blockaway is growing eggplants. We get together, we exchange them. I've got so many of these, you want some of these, you want some of that. So we instead of relying on a um an agricultural technology, we are and uh supply chain that comes from China or India or Mexico or wherever, we create systems within our own communities so collectively we become uh regenerative. We we regenerate our own um agriculture. We have skills in one neighborhood if you went and cataloged them all that are just amazing. We've got plumbers, we've got computer programmers, we've got all these people, but we never connect. You know, we're always in our own single-family houses and so on. Um so how does design work to improve that? Well, creating public spaces and creating community spaces where people can gather and uh exchange ideas, exchange food, uh, like the farmers market idea. But you could extend it to be um exchanging tools, exchanging um you know skills, you could have exchanging all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

So it sounds tribal like that's been done for tens of thousands of years.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

That's how we used to do it, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

We used to do it that way, and you know, that uh instead of having to hire someone to do child care, uh, you know, the older people in the tribe would look after the kids. Um now we stick them all into uh separate categories that you know the old people go into these uh what do they call 55 plus communities, no kids. Um kids go into you know some other school. Um so what we're doing is we're actually segregating our society, one by wealth, two by uh color, basically. I mean, we're still doing that. Um and three, we're we're doing it by age, or we're segregating people by age, which is a tragedy because um kids and old people get on really well. Um uh Pam, my wife, she used to take uh uh her students in fifth grade to the VA, and they would sit for a whole hour with um veterans, and they got on like a house on fire.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

So the kids learned about what the veterans were, and the veterans were all energized by you know the kids. And and we've basically eliminated that from our society, which is insane. Um so there is a you know, there's a movement called co-housing, which is sort of based on the idea that if you can build a community that has multiple ages, that you know, when the parents go out to work, the older people can that are retired, could look after the kids. Um, and you have a public space in the center where everybody communicates and gets to know each other. And uh so building those physical structures can help make uh a community work much, much better than it has been.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

It's funny that everything you're talking about, I just from traveling and going and you know, seeing tribal people, it's like you said, it's what we've been doing, and we've gotten away from that.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

So it's what we've been doing for thousands of years, and it's uh it's a bummer. We've got away from that so much.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

And now it's even worse because we're all on our phones. And I I mean I sometimes it drives me nuts. I walk around the square sometimes, and everybody's on a freaking phone.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Um Well, they're being social, Tony. They're on social media. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Yep. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

I have another. Um how could the United States or any place make energy efficient sustainable design, whatever you want to call it, a normal practice supported by building codes? I know that's a massive question, but and you said lack of education is part of the issue, but it's a pain in the ass to try to do alternative building things in a traditional building code. How do you what's it gonna take? How many rolls of toilet paper are we gonna go through? Because we tend to react to something only after there's a crisis, which is not good survival training. Survival trainers mitigate pain. You know, we don't wait till we're in pain and then try to deal with it. Do you have any ideas for softening up the building codes, for lack of a better word, to make uh the what you're doing a more normal practice?

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Um yeah, I mean, alternative materials are always a problem to get uh accepted. Alternative materials are materials that try to be lower energy than um standard materials. Um The problem is not only regulation, but it's also the building industry. The building industry hates any kind of risk. Quite rationally, actually, because they don't want to build with something they're not familiar with in case something happens that they don't understand. So, and the other aspect of any kind of uh new material is that because it's not vast quantities, it tends to be more expensive. So that's another barrier to using new materials and new techniques. Um I think um the building departments are becoming are coming around to alternatives. Um the big issue is codes that are standard for everywhere. So you go to the uh international building codes and it it gives you the same stuff whether you're living in Africa or um Prescott.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

So there's no thought of bioregion for where the milk is. Which negates everything we've been talking about essentially.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Yeah, to a large degree.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

So is one of the first problems just because as a survival instructor, I'm not gonna tell someone in Bemidji, Minnesota they're gonna have a different survival strategy in the wintertime than someone in Tucson, Arizona in January. So bioregional is key, especially with primitive living skills where you're choosing out wood to make a certain fire by friction. That seems like a big duh to me. Why in the hell are we not paying attention to the outdoor environment of where this box called the house goes still? Why are we not paying attention to that?

SPEAKER_02 45:52

We're not paying attention because we don't we don't actually um see nature anymore. The people that are making all these rules live in cities. They're not aware of the nuances of bioregionalism. They don't understand that uh building a house in in Minnesota and building a house in Arizona are two totally different things. Um because we've come up with this standard model, stick frame, stucco, or wood siding, um you know tiles for the roof, um, and then pump in energy. So why would we want to do anything different in Minnesota than we do in Arizona? If you look at it from a uh sustainable point of view, is you know, you'd probably use Adobe in Arizona, especially in the desert areas, because it's a it's a traditional material, it works really well in very hot, dry climates. In Minnesota, massive insulation would be what you want to do. So you maybe do double stud walls and put in massive amounts of insulation. Um so there's a whole different um approach to architecture depending on which region you're living in. And you know, what we've been doing is we've been hiring people from um you know East Coast big architects to do buildings in Phoenix. And uh the prime example is the uh a federal courthouse in Phoenix. It's like a fing greenhouse. Um and then they try and cool it, you know, and I they're using sustainable ways of cooling it, um, which is like misting the big interior spaces, which it was built improperly to begin with. Yeah, because the guy didn't understand the climate.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

He's in the dozen, yeah. Unfortunately, I've I've been in that building and felt the the ramifications of that poor design.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

So um from a grid-down survival aspect, because you you know what I do, I love survival skills. Meaning the home is now without power, in your opinion, what are the most vulnerable aspects of a home in a grid-down situation? Maybe it's an obvious question, but very rarely do we have a chance to ask an architect who's been involved in sustainable regenerative design for decades, grid down what's going to hurt the most to the occupants?

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Well, it depends what your energy system is, one. Um so if you've got a uh gas stove, it's probably got an electronic uh ignition system. Um you can probably still heat and cook with that electric stove, you're done. Uh you can't cook anything, uh, you can't boil water, you can't do any of that. But vulnerability is um say the power goes out in Phoenix for three days. Uh it's 110 outside. If your building is not insulated, you're gonna cook, basically. Um so uh, and the big issue in Phoenix is is the temperature going down enough at light to be able to cool off your building at night time. Because then you could open your windows at night, let the cooler air come in, uh, close them in the day, keep that cool in if you've got some mass in your building.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

Well, there's so much thermal mass in the city, they're losing that, aren't they? Yeah, it's not really cooling down at night anymore.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Yeah, that's the big issue. And it's something, again, it's like taking a mallet and hitting yourself on the head. You know, let's get rid of nature, put in a parking lot, uh, and increase the temperature like 20 degrees. Um and you know, Phoenix is basically like a pancake, so it's just basically a giant solar collector. And then we pump in masses of energy to try and cool the whole thing off.

SPEAKER_03 50:20

Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

It is, it's self-defeating, is it's it's it's just not making any sense anymore. But um, so I think you know, it depends a bit on your climate. I mean, if it's in Minnesota, sure, you your heat goes away, grid goes down, um you're gonna freeze. So again, unless your house is designed for that climate, um you're gonna be at risk.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

So thermogulation, water, essentially later on, food, you know, um we know the dangers of that. Most homes are notoriously on grid. Now, here's a a fun question. I can't wait to hear what you'll say about it. If you were to design a house to survive a zombie apocalypse, and I know there's variables in zombies, at least they're all dead, we have that. How would you design a house to survive the zombie apocalypse? And we're assuming that the traditional zombies can run fast or just waddle slow, but they're not like in a climb up, you're just like the zombies that are historically on TV. How would you do that?

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Well, it depends how long the apocalypse is happening. So if it's a fairly short apocalypse, um, it wouldn't be too hard. You just need well reinforced uh windows and doors. Um because I believe zombies pile up and mesh in windows. Um but if it goes on for a very long time, um you probably need to build in um some kind of uh weapons to uh to mow down the um zombies. You need somewhere to get out of the house, underground, come up somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Without them knowing about it. So like maybe like in the base of a bush or something like that. Yeah. Hogan's hero style or whatever, the tree stump that comes up.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, obviously eventually your supplies are going to run out, and so you'd have to uh be able to get out to scavenge for supplies. Um you know, I I'm of the opinion that people that are going into survival shelters are nuts, because if there's an atomic bomb apocalypse, um, you come out, there's nothing here. What are you gonna do? You have no food, you have no water, it's all radioactive. It's like um and so you know a zombie apocalypse. If it were to happen, I don't know if there is any scientific evidence that the zombies are well there are actually zombie uh caterpillars and uh zombie ants as well. Really? Yeah, there's there's a fungus that goes into them and then controls how they uh how they operate.

SPEAKER_03 53:34

You're kidding. No.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

No. So and anyway, so it's a possibility, but uh you know, I think once society is completely collapsed, uh, the only way to survive is in small groups, um, with as many different skills as you can possibly get together. So all your students would be pretty well um situated because they could just head out into the wilderness and survive.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

They have that skill plus what they came to the table with. So a couple different skill sets.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Going back to the tribe.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

Yeah. So I mean, we've we've got to acknowledge that we are a tribal culture. Um and and I think that's part of the problem is uh when we say, oh no, everybody's the same, it's not true. We we do have different cultures. It doesn't mean that we have to fight each other, it just means if we acknowledge that we are a tribal culture, how do we bridge the gaps between those tribes? You know, um, and of course, uh native cultures knew how to do that. They had all the tribes who come together to do a powwow, for example, in Arizona, um, so that um you know you get to know the other is not the enemy. And I'm afraid we're in a situation where we see the other as the enemy, not as a different valid tribe that we could communicate with.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Amen. God. Um I have a couple more questions for you. There's a lot of greenwash out there, as you know. Are there any new products regal regarding alternative energy that you think are worthwhile talking about on this podcast?

SPEAKER_02 55:27

Well, it depends whether you mean um centralized energy or distributed energy. Um, distributed energy is much more uh resilient. Um, centralized energy is um vulnerable to attack, if you would. Um the utilities want centralized energy because they can control it and they can charge it for it. Um that's why it's difficult sometimes to get permits to put on solar panels on your houses. Um and um but a distributed system, for example, would be like a whole neighborhood with solar panels connected to a mini-grid. So one person's panels go out, it doesn't affect the whole grid. It can actually draw energy from the whole grid until they get repaired. Um so having that small scale uh is much more resilient. And if you look at nature and evolution, you can see that diversity is a real um survival skill. Diversity means that um if one thing fails, something else can take its place.

SPEAKER_03 56:48

Well, how about since I know people that probably would listen to this are more kind of at least off the grid in their head? Um, something individualized. I mean, we have the photovoltaics, they're archival, they've been around a long time. And I just didn't know that, you know, I know you can get the batteries and the solar panels where you can have your own little uh thing going for, you know, at least electrical power. I didn't know if there was any new gadgets or gizmos out there that you thought were worth a damn as far as people taking back their power, whether it's something new about water collection or electrical energy or anything, because you've had your pulse on this for several decades. Or should we just stick to the standards at this point in time that a lot of us know about with a few Google searches, photovoltaics, etc.?

SPEAKER_02 57:34

Yeah, well, there are some things that people are researching, and there's some breakthroughs, for example, in battery storage, that could mean that you know you could collect enough energy uh and store it for like a whole year. Wow. Um so there's a battery technology is really booming right now because um because of electric vehicles and uh also because the grid is gradually turning to sustainables, and that means that they're not constant in terms of their generation. So, like photovoltaic doesn't actually um create energy during the night, although there are some new panels that will actually create energy from moonlight.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

You're kidding me. How new are those panels?

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Huh?

SPEAKER_03 58:28

How new are those panels?

SPEAKER_02 58:30

Oh, they're really new. I don't even think they're on the market yet. Wow. I mean it's a research project in a laboratory. Um so there are there's that, there's things like uh windows that will actually create electricity. Um the glass is um also a photovoltaic. Um so you could have a whole glass wall which would produce all the electricity you needed. Um so there's you know that the research is ongoing. The the big challenge for all this research is how do you scale it and get it into the market at a price people can actually afford. And so that's the that's for me is one of the big challenges for anybody looking at new forms of energy. Um and of course, nuclear is coming back, um, which in my day and age was like uh you know something everybody was uh protesting against. Um but apparently these new mini nuclear plants are much safer, um, so you could have mini neighborhood nuclear plants. Um but they they're more at new at a neighborhood scale or larger scale. And the reason they're coming online is because of all the AI stuff, all these new gigantic um computer places that have been being built to house all the uh equipment for um the internet and AI. They suck out vast amounts of water, vast amounts of energy. So now they're looking at uh using atomic energy to produce all their electricity. And um so Google, I believe, is using nuclear energy and uh I think Microsoft is too.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

How can people find out more about the ECOSA Institute if they wanted to check out a class or at least look and see what they're about?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Um it's simple. Website is ECOSA.org. So E-S E C O S A. And uh it's got a lot of information on that as to uh what we teach and why we're teaching it. Um we have um we're offering a 16-week program, but we will be offering shorter programs in the summer next year. Um and uh the the center itself is moving to Denver, so it will be in Colorado, but we are actually planning on the first two weeks being here in Arizona. So you will still train here in Arizona, yeah, and you'll train with Cody London, so that's a big reason to come.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

A big reason to come. So Cosa.org. Yeah, right? So I want to do one more thing on this show. We do a segment called Make Tony Twitter. And we have two Tonies here, but that's the Tony I want to focus on now. And what I have here is this invisible magic joke book that's bound to be funny because it says funny jokes. Yes, yes. And sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, hopefully. So, what I want this Tony to do is write down on this piece of paper how many jokes with this pen, just a number, how many jokes do you think I'm gonna need to tell that Tony to make him titter? Don't tell him, just write down a number. Now, these are quality jokes in this book that says funny jokes. Okay, so Tony, guess Tony. Tony Brown has a number. Okay. Tony, are you ready to titter? I am ready. Okay. So, what I'm gonna do, you the viewing audience at home, you can guess just like Tony Brown did. I'm gonna randomly take this funny joke book and open it up and read Tony a joke. And uh, we got a number here from Tony Brown. So here we go. Let's see how many jokes it takes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Make it good.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:49

It'll be good. Cow, what did the vet say about your rash? Pig. Just gave me some oinkment and I feel better already.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

Okay, that's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Okay, so let me find another one.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Mildly funny, but not yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

Sports reporter. What do you get if your receivers don't lift weights during Monday or Friday practices? Football coach. Weekends. We like I get it. Yeah, not funny. Okay, I got a good one. Chester. What are you doing? Lester, I'm making a long distance call to myself. Chester, won't that cost a lot of money? Lester, nope. I'm calling collect. Oh, okay. Did that count or not? No. Okay, let's let's do it again. Patient. I'm not feeling well, and I'm really concerned. Doctor, don't worry. I've had the same illness myself. Patient, yeah, but you didn't have the same doctor. Okay, that was pretty good. We got it. And the last one I was laughing at your failure, so that doesn't come. So what was that? Four? Four. So Tony was getting some five. So Tony! So that's Mc Tony Tinner and put that away. The reason Tony Brown is on this show is sustainability of regenerative design will keep us alive longer. Keep your ass alive is a show about self-reliance and doing more with less. When you can have a structure or a building that works in harmony with nature, you are doing more with less because nature is that big battery we can all draw from, not just for our psychological health, but you know, free energy, free power from the sun, catching rain. It's not a bunch of hippie BS. If you want to live longer, you're all living in a home, most of you, make it as self-reliant as possible. It's important. Tony, it's a real privilege to have you. You're in I really respect you as a person and following your heart all this time and teaching the thousands of students that I know you've taught. Thank you for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

You're welcome. It's great being here.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

Awesome. So that's it for this episode of Keep Your Ass Alive. You can give us a comment, or if you have a question we may answer on the show, you can email us at keepyourassalive at gmail.com. Stay safe. See you next time. Hey campers, so that's it for this episode of Keep Your Ass Alive. Tune in next time and we'll talk to people just like you about survival advice to whatever floats your boat. Wanna watch the only survival show on Earth? Created, hosted, and produced by a real survival instructor? Check out the survival show with Cody Landine at thesurvivalshow.com. Want to take your learning to the next level? Please visit my average. Living Skills School at www.codylundine.com. We offer field courses in modern outdoor survival, primitive living skills, or urban preparedness to enhance your self reliance, confidence, and safety in the city or the wilderness.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

Visit www.codylundine.com today.