The Fiber

Buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) is native to Africa and Asia. Starting in the 1930s, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service seeded it deliberately across the Sonoran Desert to feed cattle who'd largely eradicated native grasses, and for erosion control on the overgrazed rangeland. It was a short-sighted, profit-oriented fix that, like the "urban renewal" of the 1960s and 70s, created a really huge problem.

Buffelgrass thrives in the heat and outcompetes native plants like saguaros, palo verdes, ironwoods, creosotes, and mesquites for water. It's highly flammable, and, unlike desert natives, it resprouts fast after fire. Millions of dollars are spent each year just trying to slow the spread, but the best way to stop it is also the cheapest: by hand.

That's also how we make it a resource.

We're not inventing anything new — sun-dried earth mixed with fiber has been used here for 4,000 years, and worldwide for over 10,000. But buffelgrass gives adobe some superpowers. Full-length stalks laid with mud into oversized molds makes a brick with great tensile strength, which standard adobe lacks. Not only that, these really big bricks are much easier than regular bricks to assemble, and require a whole lot less expertise.

Once it's out of the ground and worked into bricks, what's not to love?