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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Kristen interviews Mary Butler-Stonewall, founder of Architectural Environmental Survival Designs for Tomorrow. The conversation focuses on the critical need for building code reform to enhance sustainability and disaster prevention. Mary shares her lifelong mission to create structures that harmonize with nature, emphasizing the importance of innovative architectural practices that can withstand natural disasters. She discusses her work with impoverished communities, the impact of building codes on climate change, and the necessity for legislative changes to address health and safety issues in construction. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to support these vital reforms.
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Mary Butler-Stonewal (00:00)
we can’t afford to be building to be at war and conflict with nature. We need to learn how to build the flow with nature. Nature does it. You look at acorns, ⁓ seashells, bird’s nests, ⁓ beavers’ dens, ⁓ how bees will make their hives. Everybody else is building the flow with nature.nature comes and knocks them for a loop, they survive better than we do because we have built a flat wall and we’re impeding nature. So we have to constantly paint the building. We got to repair and put new shingles on the roof. All these things, the maintenance is tenfold of what it be if we were building a flow with nature. so I’m trying to create an F rating.
Kristen (02:26)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Mary Butler Stonewall. She has a very interesting organization. She’s the founder of Architectural Environmental Survival Designs for Tomorrow. They are one of the leading authorities in building code reform and disaster prevention. So we’re going to get all into sustainability today. That’s the focus of the conversation and I’m really excited about it. So thanks for being here, Mary.Mary Butler-Stonewal (02:49)
Thank you so much. Can you hear me okay?Kristen (02:52)
Yeah, sounds great.Yeah, so I would love for you to kind of first set the scene of building code reform and why it’s so important for the environment and just lay out exactly what it is so people know.
Mary Butler-Stonewal (03:07)
To look at or to say building code reform, we must first look at American history in of itself of like Tornado Alley. That for almost 300 years we’ve been rebuilding Tornado Alley, but no one has really changed building codes. Even to this day, you can build a $350,000 home, $400,000 home, not even have the insurance on it oranything and the very next day a tornado can come through and your home is lost. You have no recourse. You owe the bank for a home that you never spent one night in. And this is wrong. And we must implement new building codes because of this issue, as well as the fact of the devastation of carbon emissions and the waste that is created from each disaster year after year.
let alone the loss of natural resources that we’re using to keep rebuilding communities that should have been built to flow with nature, not to resist it. And this is what my mission is since I was five years old, is to bring forth the understanding of building code reform. Granted, as a five-year-old, I didn’t know that’s what the words would be needed to say what my project was. But it started as a five-year-old little girl asking, how
come, our homes are not our shelter when I was going through Tornado Alley as a five-year-old as an American nomad. I really wanted to know why our homes weren’t a shelter. They were just like an umbrella, because the wind can flip it the other way, just like an umbrella. So we’re just basically living in tents, even though this is supposed to be a structure that is long-lasting.
For me, building code reform is to make it to where we don’t have these problems and to bring in new codes instead of a resistance rating that we have in today’s society, wind resistant, snow resistant, earth resistant, water resistant, that we need to create a flow rating instead so we can say that it’s flow, that nature can flow past or around a structure or even through
Kristen (06:12)
Mmm. Right.Mary Butler-Stonewal (06:15)
if we’re trying to capture the wind and have wind generators within the structure so the winds can flow through it too. So self-sustainability of the structure at the same time being harmonious with nature and nature’s natural flow.Kristen (06:32)
I mean it’s so interesting and it’s even more interesting that this mission started at five years old and you’ve done such amazing work in your community and outside communities. I would love for you to talk about some of the work you’ve done. I know you’ve worked overseas a lot, what you’re up to and what you’re doing.Mary Butler-Stonewal (06:52)
Well, since 2009, I’ve been working with impoverished communities throughout Africa and some places in Asia, but mostly through Africa of impoverished areas, trying to help them understand how they can build the flow with nature, not to resist it. And this is like ⁓ building reverse leach fields here in the United States. If you have a sewer system on your property, you build a leach field that bleeds all your waste matter into a field.Well, in parts of Africa, they have the monsoons that will come through, and then it’s drought for three to six months, kind of like we have winter and summer here. But during that drought, more people die from starvation and lack of water. So what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to build reverse leach fields into the floodplains of Africa.
leach fields will leach the water out of the flood plains into man-made cisterns that would be located just outside of each community that needs that water supply to have their gardens and to drink. because they’re poor, we have to think about
How can we do it sustainably for them because they can’t afford all the machinery. They can dig the holes by hand, this, or the pits. And so we’re digging the pits. We’re firing the pits with clay. We line them with clay. Then we put brush and stuff in there and burn it to where it hardens the walls. And then we’re putting a layer on top like a roof on it.
And then we’re putting the sand and the clay and the coal and all that. So as the water comes in, it leaches through all that. So by the time it gets into the man-made cistern, it’s somewhat relatively clean water. So these are the kind of little things I’m doing for them, or houses that can collect water. Or if they don’t have a generator in their home, I tell them how they can take a card alternator and make a wind generator.
So repurposing materials as well as sustainable architecture in the sense of capturing the water and stuff. Because their main problems are that. They don’t have the resources to build the structures that I would like to implement. And that’s one of my biggest dreams is to actually build a community of at least 10 buildings that are self-sustaining and of themselves and 100 % based off of the
the flow rating that I’m trying to create. Because in reality, I could tell you and describe to you what I’m saying, but unless you could walk into that structure, you still wouldn’t fully understand or grasp. And if I could build a community of at least 10 homes, I feel it’s a lot like the old baseball movie. Build it and they will come.
And so I’ve been for years looking for investors to go forth and do this.
And I pay off the investors completely in full because my money’s on the back end. When the EF5 tornado comes through and my home is still standing, when the 7.9 earthquake hits and not one part of my building has twisted or broke, or when the hurricane comes and my building has not been flooded, that’s where my money is. And through building code reform, we can do this. And sadly,
Unless I go to the insurance companies, because they’re the ones that are more into the building code reforms than anyone, they’re tired. Like they said in California, they will not ⁓ insure people in California until they take care of the fire issues and do certain things to prevent fire. So the insurance companies possibly could help fund me do something like this to make that change. But other than that,
Everybody likes the cook and cutter mentality of build up, board up, tear down, rebuild. And we can’t keep doing this. That’s a come our forests aren’t growing back fast enough. that’s a come Portland cement on numerous occasions was fearful that they were going to run out of product. So we must address this because building codes affects every aspect of our lives. It affects our families.
It affects our ⁓ income. It affects our natural resources. It affects our insurance costs. It affects our economy. So building codes should be precedence in what we need to do and change in America more than anything else, I feel, to address ⁓ climate change.
People say climate change is natural, which it is, but because of inadequate building codes, climate change degradation is taking place. are degrading the natural climate process through our construction practices. Cities are supercharging the weather and then the lower outlying communities are suffering horrific tornadoes and other storms because of the
charged atmosphere from all the black tar and the glass in the buildings. People don’t realize these things because they’re not studying it like I have for years that we’re not building to flow correctly with nature that we’re causing this discrepancy.
Kristen (13:27)
Yeah, and I would love for you to go further into your flow rating and how you actually make these buildings so strong. What are the foundational practices you use?Mary Butler-Stonewal (13:42)
Well, give me one second here. I have to adjust myself.This is so I can use my hands. ⁓ Right now in building codes, everything is an R rating, which is resistance. Wind resistance, snow resistance, earth resistance. And this is not good. If you look up the word resistance, the two main words that come up, excuse me, my apologies, is war and conflict.
Kristen (13:57)
Yes.Mary Butler-Stonewal (14:20)
Andwe can’t afford to be building to be at war and conflict with nature. We need to learn how to build the flow with nature. Nature does it. You look at acorns, ⁓ seashells, bird’s nests, ⁓ beavers’ dens, ⁓ how bees will make their hives. Everybody else is building the flow with nature.
nature comes and knocks them for a loop, they survive better than we do because we have built a flat wall and we’re impeding nature. So we have to constantly paint the building. We got to repair and put new shingles on the roof. All these things, the maintenance is tenfold of what it be if we were building a flow with nature. so I’m trying to create an F rating.
And it basically says, if I can grab onto it with my fingers and pull on it, so can wind and water. And that is not building to flow with nature. That you got to be able to have that flow effect. you know, the pentagons, circles, ovals, you know, look at nature for its shapes, a shell shape. Imagine a hotel that was shaped like a shell and the pointed part was on the backside.
Kristen (16:09)
Yeah.Mary Butler-Stonewal (16:24)
of that structure and the round apart was in the front and it was a beautiful tall hotel and it was scalloped on the roof and let’s say ⁓ indoor pool with glass rooftop and everything so we’re not losing water through out of the pool from the sun taking the water out of the pool. So needless to say, when the tsunami comes in and hits that building it’s not going tocause a problem, it’s gonna flow around the building. And then because of the building being shell shaped, on the out going tide, which is the worst tide during a tsunami or a hurricane, when the tide’s going out, that’s when all the debris is coming out and it damages buildings and you see buildings taken right off their foundation. Well, because of the building being in that shape, it’s no different than the boulder you see in the river or stream.
Kristen (17:15)
rain.Mary Butler-Stonewal (17:23)
that creates its own barrier of water to make the debris go to one side or the other. All right, so that’s a perfect example. Or what I’m trying to implement into all residential homes is what I call a saddleback foundation system. saddleback foundation is where there’s a foundation put in the ground first. And it scalps much like my fingers.And then when you put the home in it, if an earthquake comes, what happens to the home? Nothing. Because the building in of itself is not tethered to the earth and going to get torn apart from the twisting of the earth. It actually is sitting in the saddle and just riding in the saddle. If a flood comes, the home can rise up out of that saddle and come back down. See? So now we’re not having our flooded basements. And then another thing we’re trying to
Kristen (18:07)
ThankMary Butler-Stonewal (18:20)
⁓ work with is trying to get people to think about putting their yards on the first floor of their homes and have an atrium, know, or sunroof that shines straight down through the home. So imagine now we’re in Alaska, we’re in a home that’s in a Saddleback Foundation. It’s kind of like shaped like an egg on its side. It’s got wind generators on either end. And it’s got the solar panels around the top. It’s got our sunroof right there that can gleam down.The first floor is your yard and garden area. So you can now put the miniature fruit trees and all that. Second floor is your living room, dining room, and your bedrooms if you want. Or you can go a third floor and put your bedrooms up there on the third floor. But needless to say, now this structure snow loads. Do we have to worry about it?
Do we have to worry about bears breaking into the home? No, it’s going to be so much harder for bears to break into your home when you’re not there. Earthquakes, we don’t have to worry about. ⁓ Permafrost, it will have a better survival rate ⁓ with the permafrost melting in that region. It’ll have a more survival rate than those that are square buildings that don’t do their weight correctly into the ground. And so they sink sideways. So they have problems with that up there.
But the snow load, and then think about the winter months, you can be picking an apple off your tree in the middle of winter. And same with those desert areas, same thing. Now we’re not losing all the water when we water our gardens. We’re not terraforming the planet and causing irreparable damage, terraforming a region that should have never been what it is, what we’re doing with it, putting in the green and stuff.
So these kind of things is what my company is about, is trying to create a sustainable structure in of itself. So it’s cleaning its own grain brown water. It’s creating its own natural grass, I mean gas. It’s also collecting its own solar and wind power and it’s correcting rainwater and dew. Now if a structure did that in of itself,
Then we’d have real sustainable architecture because just because a building says it’s green, it can still succumb to nature’s natural flow because it is still built to resist nature. So it’s still an eco disaster waiting to happen. And that’s what people don’t realize is our communities, ⁓ an average disaster, you can create over 70,000 cubic tons of waste that can’t be separated. And that is…
just excruciating when you think about how many disasters we’ve had just recently. ⁓ what I’ve been doing, I’ve been writing a paper right now on the ⁓ US refugee. ⁓ And I call it US state refugees. And that’s because each state, US citizens born and raised, are becoming refugees of natural disasters.
And we can start all the way back to New Orleans. People have not returned to New Orleans since the natural disasters have been hitting. There’s more people from New Orleans that haven’t returned. The ⁓ numbers are just ⁓ heartbreaking when you can think that over 22 million people were displaced due to hurricanes and wildfires in 2020.
22 million. All right, that is, but do you hear the news talking about this? Me as a building code reform specialist, it’s my number one priority to keep these numbers in place. That Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael caused over 1.4 million people to be displaced from North Carolina to Florida. Okay, so.
Who are the homeless that our government’s complaining about? Are they the people that are suffering these disasters? And it goes on, the numbers are just excruciating. Over 1.7 million from Hurricane Katrina, six million from Hurricane Wilhelmina that hit Florida.
You know, and think about how many cubic tons of waste each one of these cause on top of those homeless people. Where do we put it if we can’t
it because it’s so contaminated? Where are we putting this waste? Is it being buried in your backyard, in your community? So building code reform is a must. Building codes are the number one contributor to climate change degradation.
because the way we build is degrading our natural climate process. And so this is my number one goal, is to try to educate people about this. At the same time, try to change building codes. It’s not really ever been about making money. I have not made a dime since I started this pilgrimage. I have not made a dime off of my pilgrimage. I would love to be put into a paying position, don’t get me wrong, but this is a mission of the heart.
for all the world people, not just the United States. But I would love to do my part in the United States and find realtors that see what I’m seeing and are looking for that change and have been able to find it. This is my life mission.
Kristen (24:17)
so inspiring. I mean, what you’re doing, it’s not something that’s so crazy. can’t be adopted. mean, changing the shapes of the buildingskind of the foundation of it. It’s so smart. it’s, I mean, it’s such a great mission that you have and you’re doing such important work and probably saving so many lives and saving people’s livelihoods. We’re unfortunately reaching the end of our time, but I’m so happy you got to go into that.
in such depth because I think that a lot of people didn’t even know this existed and I think a lot of people are probably waking up like based on what you’ve said so I think it’s really
Tell everybody where to find you.
Mary Butler-Stonewal (24:58)
I am on LinkedIn as Mary. Yeah, I’mon LinkedIn under Mary Kate Butler and Stonewall. So it’ll say Mary Kate Butler Stonewall. And I got that nickname Stonewall because at 18 years old in 1983, I became the youngest general contracting foreman at only five foot five and 117 pounds. I was in charge of construction.
And I worked in the construction industry for over 20 years before I came forth with building code reform. After that little girl asked that silly question, how come our homes are in our shelter? So this, this is very passionate for me.
Kristen (25:28)
Wow.Wow.
Wow, yeah, so impressive.
So impressive, so inspiring. I think that you inspired so many people out there and you definitely have me looking at the way we build units a lot differently, is what I’ll say. mean, you’re just very inspiring. So thank you so much for being here.
Mary Butler-Stonewal (26:03)
In closing, I would like to bring to light that ⁓ I am Architectural Environmental Survival Designs Tomorrow, a disaster prevention consultant service for new construction and residential living for self sustainability. And when I say that, that has to do with things likethe methamphetamine contaminated property epidemic we had in the United States that lost its thunder because of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, we were talking about world, know, nationwide about the epidemic of methamphetamine contaminated properties. And my company has talked to every department of health in the United States from every major city. And they told me they have no jurisdiction on this.
And so as a contingency expert, I went and looked at paperwork and realized that if we could amend the lead-based paint loss to become the toxic paint loss due to the fact that paint can become impregnated with toxins during the duration or lifetime it’s on the surface, that the Department of Health said if I did that, then they would have the jurisdiction to address this problem.
So my plea to everybody out there is if you can, try to push legislation to change the lead-based paint laws to become the toxic paint laws so we can get a grip on the methamphetamine contaminated property issue throughout the United States. Thank you.
Kristen (27:42)
Amazing. Well, thank you again so much for being here. And I really encourage everyone to go check out Mary on LinkedIn. And so you can hear more about her mission and what the amazing work she’s doing here and abroad. And we hope that you learned a lot today and we hope you got some inspiration today. So thank you everybody for listening. We’ll see you next time.Mary Butler-Stonewal (28:02)
Have good day.
