macro-economic factors that are making natural materials more desirable. Green building assessment systems like LEED, for example, are evaluating buildings on the basis of life-cycle assessment (LCA) of their materials. Some governments are starting to insist that their buildings be LEED-certified, and so industry is expanding its investment in greener production. As LCA becomes the basis for the production of more and more materials in mainstream building, there will be a growing convergence of conventional and natural building. Growing popularity of natural building is also likely to encourage it to become more like mainstream building in some ways. Fewer and fewer builders should be forced to do their own earth mixing, construct their own forming systems, manufacture their own blocks and bricks, and improvise their own tools. The new infrastructures and technologies to support natural building need not dilute the self-help nature of many of these systems. They may, in fact, make building more accessible to average people. Some of these new infrastructures may in fact serve to support the community fabric since today a fair amount of natural building is carried on by enthusiastic individuals in remote areas. Especially if we start to be successful in greening cities, urban areas currently colonized by the automobile can be fertile sources of natural building materials. Another factor may be progress toward sustainability in the underdeveloped world where, in some cases, the renaissance of traditional building methods is already well advanced and which has influenced the movement in the richer countriesespecially in bamboo and various forms of earthen building (Kennedy, 2004). Finally, it must be recognized that the counter-cultural character of much of the natural building movement may be one of its greatest assets. It is a realm where people