Here are some of the green building exhibits featured at Greenspark:
- Strawbale Construction: Straw bales can be used to build houses, both as insulation and as weight-bearing walls.
- Cordwood Construction: Walls in this type of house are made of leftover log ends, used as bricks, and mortar.
- Earthship: This construction type allows for the creative reuse of used tires: they are filled with dirt and are used as bricks. The house is designed to capture all the water and to grow a bulk of the food for its residents.
- Papercrete: Paper pulp, which is created by soaking old newspapers, is mixed with cement, to pour light-weight yet durable forms.
- Structural Insulated Panels (SIP): This is a modern invention, where plywood, foam boards and sheetrock are sandwiched together. All you need to build a house is to connect four panels, and cut out doors and windows.
- Living Roof: See the anatomy of the living “green” roof.
- Trombe Wall Passive Solar Heating: there are many ways that passive solar heating can be accomplished; this exhibit will feature one method called the Trombe wall, where a thin vertical space produces a greenhouse effect to generate hot air even on the coldest winter days.