Personal Background and Context My interest in building materials is the organic expression of my dual interests in building and political-economy. Longtime concerns with social change led me in the late seventies to search for practical skills that could help create a new world. Ecology and appropriate technology seemed crucial elements to creating not only healthy new economic relationships but also an economic basis for decentralized participatory politics. The building sector seemed to be the nexus for the most exciting of these green alternatives. Writers like John Todd (1994), Christopher Alexander (1979; 1977), Delores Hayden (1984) and Sim Van der Ryn (1986) were intellectual influences who dramatized the importance of design in general, and the built-environment in particular. My searching confirmed what Alexander said: that most architecture schools were not teaching the crucial design skills; and I chose to develop practical skills as a builder, augmented by informal education as a designer. I did a four-year carpentry apprenticeship, while taking side courses in passive solar design and energy-efficient building. At the same time I devoured as much literature as I could on vernacular design, eco-architecture, green planning, and appropriate technologyeven as I tried to keep up with general knowledge in green economics and political-economy. My practical work as a green carpenter and builderin Vancouver, Nova Scotia and Torontowas in itself an education on the need for a new relationship to materials. In our industrial economy, materials and resources are substantially undervalued; their market prices do not reflect their full-costs to society or nature. Although building is a relatively labour-intensive industry, materials are still far less expensive than labour, and in order to survive in a very competitive industry, there is always the temptation for the