Making Houses Out of Seaweed
Written by Dena DaSilva
This could be a landmark event, especially for the people living in the Caribbean who have found Sargassum taking over their beloved beaches. Sargassum is a type of brown seaweed with berrylike air-filled bulbs. These gas-filled bladders are known as pneumatocysts and provide buoyancy to the plant. This is why sargassum forms in masses and floats (think “Sargasso Sea”) and therefore why it easily invades the beach in large quantities.
We may have some help and a way to make a dent in this seaweed invasion! A Mexican landscape architect, businessman, and now inventor, Omar Vázquez Sánchez has just constructed his first house ever made of seaweed! Vázquez Sánchez is the owner of Blue Green Mexico agricultural nursery in Puerto Morelos. He's always been interested in how he can make a difference, a social impact, by helping people and the environment. He explained, “I woke up in the middle of the night one night with this idea to use the overload of seaweed washing up on our beaches to make a brick and build many houses to one day help the people of Quintana Roo."
The authorities in this state of Quintana Roo and many scientists have been trying to find ways to rid of the influx of this seaweed in an environmentally safe way. They never imagined that someone would come up with such an incredible idea. We think so too!
We went to see Omar’s house, a “prototype” so-to-speak, that he calls Angelita in honor of his late mother. He said he needed a place for an office on site of his plant nursery in Puerto Morelos and decided to make an exact replica of the home he grew up in in Guadalajara, Mexico. I asked Omar how long it took to create the sargasso brick and how many iterations before getting it just right. He said, “it took about 10-12 days to get the brick just right.” He continued, “these bricks are constructed out of 60% sargassum and 40% organic materials like adobe and clay. There is no cement nor metal rods and these organic bricks are functional and thermal, much like adobe but cost about 50% less than adobe bricks.”
The technique Omar used is similar to making adobe bricks, which he learned growing up as a child and says, “these bricks are also very hard and resistant to hurricanes.” He continued, “when we finally got the brick just right, I realized I’d left them outside uncovered and it poured down rain like crazy that night. When I returned to my nursery, the bricks were all completely intact and not at all harmed.” That’s when he knew he’d perfected a sturdy brick, ready for home construction!
The Angelita is a lovely rustic-looking 40-square meter home that bears the same brown-red color you would recognize from an adobe house. Inside, the home was fresh and cool and there was no sargasso smell at all. Omar explained that this is because they stomp on the sargasso (barefooted by the way!) and then dry it out completely before utilizing the material in the brick.
The news of this amazing creation is spreading fast around the world as Sargassum is wreaking havoc in many areas other than ours like the islands of the French Riviera, Colombia, Dominican Republic, the United States, and many other Caribbean islands.
Now, after successfully constructing a home, Vázquez Sánchez will construct ten more to donate to families in need. One has already been constructed and donated to a young couple with six children from Leona Vicario whose home was lost in a fire recently rendering them homeless. The unveiling and donation ceremony was held in Leona Vicario on Saturday, January 19 this year. The event was a big success, garnering press coverage from major TV outlets like Televisa and TV Azteca.
In addition to donating homes to those in need, Omar also mentioned that a hotel in Tulum has announced they’ll be using his bricks to construct a new eco hotel. The use of these sargasso bricks in real estate can create something special in this region. What a profitable and a good way to counteract the sargassum problem forming along the coast.
The Tulum hotel will require thousands of sargasso bricks and therefore Omar has already built a facility in Mahahual to house his inventory. The bricks are all made by hand and he’s hired a team at the facility to create a consistent mixture to withstand the elements of nature. The mixture goes through a waterproofing process to ensure strength and resistance.
The government of Quintana Roo along with companies in Puerto Morelos, Tulum, and Puerto Aventuras, have expressed interest in these future construction and real estate projects. “We can say that it’s a cost-effective material, environmentally friendly, and will help to counteract the presence of marine waste on the coast,” says Vázquez Sánchez.
The ingenuity of this incredible Mexican inventor may transform a problem area into one of opportunity!
