House 97: The Buck House, original home of the Center.
Campus Center for Appropriate Technology in California is a live-in demonstration home and educational
center for appropriate technology and resource conservation.
This home based center is located on the Humboldt State University Campus in Arcata, California. Motivated by an approach of "education by example," CCAT offers tours, workshops, and opportunities for hands-on involvement to university students and the general public.
CCAT began in 1978 when a group of students, with the support of faculty and community members, renovated a dilapidated house on the university campus and initiated an experiment that continues today. CCAT works with fifteen HSU classes a year to incorporate new appropriate technologies into this living laboratory in sustainability.
The Campus Center for Appropriate Technology uses less than five percent of the energy consumed by the average U.S. house, produces almost no waste, and serves as a national model for appropriate technology.
Just as important as what the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology does, is how it is done. Three students live in the house and direct the program for one-year periods. Eighteen student employees keep operations going. Being directed, staffed, and funded by students makes CCAT a place where young adults become leaders; it nurtures creativity and hones professional and technical skills. CCAT helps to infuse their local university community with a practical idealism and a desire to serve the global community.
In 2007, the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology began rebuilding in a new location, offering another generation of students the opportunity to develop skills that lead to a greener future at the hands-on environmental learning center and demonstration home for sustainability projects.
A variety of university course students spend classroom time at CCAT, where students learn about everything from renewable energy to organic agriculture to green construction and design. Little by little, workers are reshaping the yard into a miniature eco-topia. “We joke that this is our little patch of South America or Southeast Asia,” Hart says, standing in the terraced gardens behind the home. The area used to be a bramble patch of invasive plants and weeds. As well as common fruits and vegetables, the garden includes edible native plants, herbs and wildflowers.The recently installed solar panels should provide all of the home’s electricity, and a solar hot water heating system will not only provide hot tap water but also warm the house in winter by circulating the sun-warmed H2O through radiant concrete floors on the ground level. The concrete floors themselves are a thing of beauty, covered in a swirl of natural pigments made from iron sulfate and coffee topped with a soy-based sealant. The energy efficient home’s walls are filled with blown-in cellulose—made from shredded recycled newspaper—rather than industrial fiberglass.
Future projects include the installation of a rainwater collector to gather and store runoff from the roof, which will be used to quench the gardens.For more information about the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology. Or stop by any Friday, volunteer day, to participate in the ongoing reconstruction effort.
