Las Vegas Market Insider: Spreading the Sustainable World
| “By eliminating products and building practices that contribute to illness, designers can have an impact on the world.” Carol Baumgartel, ASID vice president of sales/marketing for Ameircan Clay Enterprises Inc.
The Las Vegas Market is the fastest-growing home furnishings market in the country. It is a showcase for the home hospitality and home contract furnishings industry.
The Las Vegas Market is held twice a year, and during the summer showcase this year American Clay’s own Carol Baumgartel not only attended the event, but an interview with her is featured in the Fall addition of the Las Vegas Market Insider on page 11 (and continues on page 25):
During Carol Baumgartel’s Brave New World presentation, she made it  clear that designers have an important task ahead of them. “Your job as designers, if you choose to accept it, is to really ask the questions,” she said, referring to questions about sustainable, environmentally friendly products. Baumgartel, ASID and vice president of sales/marketing for American Clay Enterprises Inc., helped educate everyone at her presentation, “Why Designers Are (and Should Be) at the Helm of Spreading the Sustainable Word,” about the many products available to the environmentally conscious consumer.“I want us to think about what we’re doing for our clients,” she said, beginning her presentation with pictures of traditional buildings made out of products such as adobe, rammed earth and bamboo. “People had a nontoxic environment. Modern building systems tend to seal us in. We’re trapped in these systems that don’t allow airflow or moisture in.” While Baumgartel doesn’t recommend going back to the days when humans lived in caves, she is an advocate of natural products. Her first experience with the healing powers of the natural world came when she was in the Peace Corps and witnessed a young woman get very badly burned by oil. “The local doctor came and applied an herb paste,” she explained. “She never had a single scar. My first thought was, ‘We don’t have anything like this!’” After she accidently poisoned herself and was cured by another natural remedy, Baumgartel really started to contemplate what this meant.” I started to realize there are things that people have been using for centuries that aren’t connected to modern medicine,” she said. “Things that are part of the natural world.”Then, when her son became ill as a result of working, he asked for her help. The two of them developed American Clay Enterprises, a natural alternative to the chemical-laden finishes he had been working with. ”We have to start thinking about not just a better income, but what future we are giving to our grandchildren,” she explained. “That’s what this is all about for me.” “Designers are the ones who have the opportunity to change what is being specified in the process, and that’s pretty amazing,” she said. For instance, products made with latex, like most paints, attract dust, pollen and dog hair. Clay products, however, are natural and repel those same allergens. “Clay creates a clean environment.” “One of the things you learn in the natural building industry is that you don’t have to use products that look like granola,” she said. “You don’t have to live in the 1970s again.” By using adobe; bamboo; structural insulated panels (SIPs), which come in a variety of materials but are very breathable and don’t emit gas; rammed earth, which is similar to adobe, but with very thick walls and extremely compressed dirt and clay; Papercrete, which is recycled paper with a little bit of cement; or one of many other sustainable, environmentally sound products available for structural building, consumers are helping both themselves and the earth. ”As designers, you really get to choose materials that will benefit the health of your customer,” Baumgartel said. “Sustainability is about the process of producing something that will be maintained indefinitely without any strain on the earth.” With naturally organic materials, there are no electro-magnetic fields in the house, and there is greater breathability, which is the ability of a building system to keep airflow moving through materials to facilitate the healthy process of controlling moisture and air-quality levels. However, it’s important to follow due-diligence processes and make sure the products being touted as “sustainable” or “environmentally friendly” really are natural and beneficial. For instance, while wood is a natural building product, most wood products are preserved with formaldehyde. Even most bamboo has formaldehyde bonders. “You, as designers, can change the world you live in by asking questions,” she said. |
