# MAINFRANK > We test, seed and grow regenerative ideas. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Green School Chair URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/green-school-chair/ Last updated: 2026-09-20T02:43:02.000Z ### Spec Kind: object The Green School Chair is designed by Bronwen Main and made by BYO Living from agroforestry rattan grown in Kalimantan. The cushions are cut from recycled fabric and filled with upcycled denim waste, zipped so the covers come off for washing. Prototyped in 2025 and refined in trial at the school, the chair is now in production as a run of fifty. In Kalimantan, rattan is farmed inside standing forest. Dayak farmers have run a rice and rattan rotation for centuries, a practice reaching back more than four hundred years along the Mahakam river: a cleared plot grows rice for a season or two with rattan seedlings planted among the crop, and when the farmer moves on, the young palms are left to climb up through the returning forest, becoming a kebun rotan, a rattan garden.\[^1\] These gardens read as forest by most measures that matter. Studies of rattan agroforests in Katingan record tree diversity approaching natural forest, with farmers managing the canopy deliberately for the climb, keeping trees whose crown form and branch strength suit the cane.\[^2\] A rattan harvest is an argument for keeping the canopy standing. The gardens are under pressure. Comparing land uses in East Kalimantan, oil palm out-earns everything else per hectare and rattan gardens come second, though measured as return on a farmer's labour the rattan is the more attractive crop.\[^3\] Years of low cane prices have left many gardens barely managed.\[^2\] Researchers describe the gardens as a low-carbon growth option for the region, and warn that the knowledge needed to run them is passing away with the older generation.\[^4\] Buying cane from these gardens is a vote in that contest. Every chair pays a grower to keep a piece of forest working, which is the quiet argument woven into this one. ### Threads [Green School BiRD Lab](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/green-school-bird-lab/) [Agroforestry Furniture](https://www.mainfrank.com/agroforestry-furniture/) (Bronwen's furniture lineage) [Stand Trees](https://www.mainfrank.com/stand-trees/) (provenance) ### Sources [Pambudhi, Belcher, Levang and Dewi (2004), Rattan gardens of Kalimantan: resilience and evolution in a managed non-timber forest product system](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32967598?ref=mainfrank.com) [Rotinsulu (2014), The potential of rubber agroforestry for rattan cultivation in Katingan Regency](https://agrivita.ub.ac.id/index.php/agrivita/article/view/356?ref=mainfrank.com) [Belcher, Rujehan, Imang and Achdiawan (2004), Rattan, rubber, or oil palm: cultural and financial considerations for farmers in Kalimantan](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297676389?ref=mainfrank.com) [World Agroforestry Centre (2013), Rattan futures in Katingan: why do smallholders abandon or keep their gardens?](https://www.landscapealliance.org/publications/sea/Publications/files/workingpaper/WP0179-13.pdf?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Credits Design: Bronwen Main Fabrication: BYO Living ### Contact Interested in the chair? Write to [bronwen@mainfrank.com](mailto:bronwen@mainfrank.com). ![Green School Chair](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V08785-7.jpg) Detail ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/leaf-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/sketch_chair_technical.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/chair_ray-traced.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/leaf-2.png) ### Byproduct URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/byproduct/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T06:48:11.000Z ### Spec Kind: materials R&D Led by: Gracie O'Malley Welby Status: incubating Byproduct develops new building products from the waste and by-products of agricultural, industrial, and commercial processes. We take consistent feedstock from other people's operations and press it into construction materials that are visually compelling, structurally sound, and replace harmful business-as-usual products. The compressed earth block is the first off the rig, with more behind it. The model is research, develop, sell, then scale, through licensing, growth, or investment, whichever pathway lets an environmentally beneficial product displace one that harms. Led by Gracie O'Malley-Welby and incubating inside MAIN&FRANK. ### Threads [Spoils](https://www.mainfrank.com/spoils/) (the waste stream next door) ### Contact Interested in the materials? Write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ### MENO:ZERO URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/meno-zero/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T07:26:28.000Z ### Spec Kind: systems planning for a zero-waste island Status: Ongoing Collaboration: Joost Bakker Gili Meno is a coral island in Lombok Strait. Sandy soil, salt lake, fringing reef. Within living memory tourism narrowed the economy to one income and undermined the water quality that keeps the reef alive while keeping the island in a fragile dependence on the mainland for food, freshwater and energy. MENO:ZERO is not just an idea for a sustainable island — it is a prototype for how we can build regenerative places all over the world. Healthy, self-sufficient communities living in harmony with nature, creating energy from the Sun, regenerating soil and creating zero new waste. Nature enhancing society and society enhancing nature. MENO:ZERO reads the island as a single metabolism. Sixteen projects feed each other: organic waste becomes soil for the nursery, the nursery feeds the food forest, the farm feeds the school and restaurants, the school produces students who steward the systems. Waste plastic becomes fuel through pyrolysis. Horse manure becomes substrate for mushrooms. Glass becomes construction sand. The whole sits inside the figure of the zero, the closed loop: energy and material flow inward, are transformed, and flow outward without becoming waste. The aim is to flip a tourism economy that extracts from place into something regenerative. The island's isolation is the design opportunity. Close the loops and nothing needs to leave. Every new person that arrives brings more to feed the systems. Globally, we are consuming resources as though there are 1.7 planet Earths. Industrial agriculture is depleting nutrients from our soil and food, causing us to be overfed and under-nourished. Over 1/3rd of all construction materials are wasted, and many that are not wasted are destined for landfill. Our over reliance on fossil fuels and a culture of consumption is driving biodiversity collapse and climate change. Big change starts with small steps. Follow along as we prototype the solutions for this incredible place. ### Threads [BiRD Lab, Green School Bali](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/green-school-bird-lab/) (the project that brought us to Indonesia) [Byproduct](https://www.mainfrank.com/byproduct/) (the thesis that waste is feedstock, tested at island scale) ### Contact Most of our projects begin as conversations. If something here has started one, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/islandplan.png) Island Plan ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/climate.png) Climate ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07257-1.jpg) A government flat-pack kit home for post-2018 earthquake disaster relief ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07288-1.jpg) Architecture ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07340-1.jpg) Traditional Cow Dung floor mix pressed into bricks ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07377-1.jpg) Roman Concrete Test ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07866-1.jpg) Making biochar: soil superfood ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07920-1.jpg) Mr. Biochar ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/04_07927-1.jpg) Abandoned earthquake damaged structures ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/system-map.png) Systems Flow Concept ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V00070-1.jpg) Cow shelter that harvests dung to create methane and fertiliser ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V00100-1.jpg) Waste pickers and delivery off the island ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V00150-1.jpg) Hugelkultur beds - prototype test 1 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V00152-1.jpg) Hugelkultur beds - prototype test 1 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V08094-1.jpg) Traditional coconut palm leaf thatch weaver ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V08189-1.jpg) Teaching kids at the local school to make Da Vinci Bridges with Bamboo ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V09922-1.jpg) Rinjani Volcano ### ### Stand Trees URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/stand-trees/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T06:06:32.000Z ### Spec Kind: agroforestry marketplace Status: incubating A marketplace and provenance map for trees grown in agroforestry systems, so a tree's whole story travels with its timber: where it grew, what grew beside it, who tended it, and what its harvest made room for. Stand is a centralised marketplace that provides regionally dispersed, small growers and millers the opportunities of a larger market. Stand aims to solve key pain points in the growth of agroforestry as a timber supply in Australia. [View a mockup of the provenance tracker and map here. ](https://standtrees.com/?ref=mainfrank.com) ## Threads [Agroforestry Furniture](https://www.mainfrank.com/agroforestry-furniture/) (the first live test) [The Making of Material](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/the-making-of-material/) (our documentary about agroforestry timbers) ## Contact If you grow, specify or make with timber, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ### Flourish URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/flourish/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T11:12:30.000Z ### Spec Kind: public art Client: City of Melbourne Completed: 2025 “Flourish” was a public art initiative using hemp-based design to create vibrant, biodiverse green spaces in cities. The installation featured native plantings which cultivated thriving ecosystems, enhanced public spaces and supported local wildlife. By harnessing the natural properties of hemp, Flourish crafted durable and regenerative public design that acted as a catalyst for vibrant ecosystems within city landscapes. This installation was a celebration of the innovative use of natural materials, specifically hemp and biochar. The biochar was combined with a BPA-free bio-epoxy resin, to create a BPA free, UV-resistant epoxy resin, which was then applied to the hemp board. Biochar is a charcoal-like, carbon-rich substance produced from heating organic matter (biomass) in a low-oxygen environment, a process called pyrolysis. The production of biochar utilized organic waste materials, providing a practical solution for waste management and resource recovery. In Victoria, households throw away about 250,000 tonnes of food each year, enough to fill Melbourne's Eureka Tower. The project was situated in line of sight from the tower, to help viewers build a visual understanding of the scale of the waste, and problem we face. The hemp, which was grown in Australia, is among the fastest-growing plants on the planet. It is recognized as the strongest natural material available, reaching maturity in just 120 days. Hemp produces three to four times more usable fibre per hectare annually than forests, and it thrives without the need for pesticides or herbicides. While trees take 20 to 80 years to mature, hemp does so in just 3 to 4 months. Industrial hemp sequesters between 8 to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare during its growth cycle. In comparison, forests typically capture only 2 to 6 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year, influenced by factors such as growth age, climate, and species. Public art can play a vital role in environmental repair. Through the use of hemp, this project contributed directly to soil replenishment, carbon sequestration, and the restoration of microbial life. Rather than relying on traditional, static public art installations, Flourish reimagined urban design as a dynamic, living canvas that evolved organically over time. Designed as a living installation, it continued to grow throughout the exhibition season. With special thanks to the design and build team: Lachlan Chapman & Adam Schroder ## Credits Design: Bronwen Main Fabrication: Bronwen Main and Lachlan Chapman Photography: Michael Pham ### Contact Most of our projects begin as conversations. If something here has started one, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MST001-Hemp-Sculpture-036-MichaelPham-WebRes.jpg) Photo: Michael Pham ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MST001-Hemp-Sculpture-014-MichaelPham-WebRes.jpg) Photo: Michael Pham ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MST001-Hemp-Sculpture-059-MichaelPham-WebRes.jpg) Photo: Michael Pham ### Agroforestry Furniture Collection URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/agroforestry-furniture/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T07:01:46.000Z ### Spec Kind: furniture Design: Bronwen Main, with Mark Tuckey Imagine if all construction timbers in Australia were grown in a way that regenerated degraded farm soils, improved livestock health, provided biodiversity habitat for endangered species and shaped resilient, beautiful landscapes that stitched together bioregional communities. The Making Of Material explores this possibility through a collection of furniture pieces made from agroforestry timber, designed by Bronwen Main in collaboration with Mark Tuckey and documentary short film by Grace Moore, that captures both process and philosophy. Over 20% of agricultural land in Australia is affected by salting or other forms of degradation that compromise its use for growing crops and livestock grazing. Much of this land could be remediated by planting native trees, providing supplementary income streams for farmers in the form of valuable timbers and flowers, while providing additional benefits including reducing livestock deaths by sheltering from exposure to sun and wind, improving soil health by holding more water in the landscape and increasing biologically beneficial insect and bird populations, enhancing biodiversity and creating beautiful aesthetic environments across regional Australia. Leading farmers in the Otway Agroforestry Network have spent 35 years testing methods for planting, managing and monitoring tree plantings interspersed with livestock agriculture. This project was about testing the quality of timber for furniture and carving a premium market pathway for the timbers, an important step in proving the business model of agroforestry to unlock more trees on farms. Bronwen's design can be found here: [Horizon Table](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/horizon-table?ref=mainfrank.com) [Filed Coffee Table](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/field-coffee-table?ref=mainfrank.com) [Bloom Coffee Table](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/bloom-coffee-table?ref=mainfrank.com) [Main Chair](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/main-chair?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Threads [The Making of Material ](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/the-making-of-material/)(documentary on the agroforestry growers [Stand Trees](https://www.mainfrank.com/stand-trees/) (the marketplace this run seeded) [Green School Chair](https://www.mainfrank.com/green-school-chair/) (the same argument for Indonesian forests) ### Contact Most of our projects begin as conversations. If something here has started one, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ![Agroforestry Furniture](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/still-02-2.webp) ![Agroforestry Furniture](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/still-04-2.webp) ![Agroforestry Furniture](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/still-05-2.webp) ![Agroforestry Furniture](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/still-08-2.webp) ### Green School Bali: Biomimicry for Regenerative Design Lab URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/green-school-bird-lab/ Last updated: 2026-09-06T01:38:14.000Z ### Spec Kind: learning lab Place: Sibang Kaja, Bali, Indonesia Status: in progress Collaborator: IBUKU The BiRD Lab is the world's first K-12 programme that treats 3.8 billion years of evolution as a curriculum. Inaugurated at Green School Bali in Spring 2026, it starts from a flat provocation: conventional schooling used to be the safe choice. Now it is the risk. BiRD is not a room. It is a pedagogical operating system built on four lenses: Sensing, Seeking, Shaping, Storytelling. Sensing and Seeking train students in transcontextual, ecosystems-based thinking. Shaping is where biomimicry enters: nature as model, mentor, and measure, students designing products, processes, and places that don't just reduce harm but participate in life. Storytelling closes the loop, because a regenerative idea that can't travel is just a hobby. The architecture of the Lab itself is the first lesson. Designed in collaboration with IBUKU and built from bamboo on the Green School campus, the building doesn't illustrate regenerative principles, it performs them. The structure sits within the flows of a Balinese river valley, open to the living systems it asks students to learn from, with walls made from agricultural biproducts that sequester carbon and absorb pollution. The building is not a container for a regenerative curriculum. It is the curriculum's first artefact: proof that architecture can be a living system rather than an object that merely houses one. Every material choice, every spatial decision, every relationship between structure and site is legible to the students working inside it. The pedagogy and the building share the same logic: dissolve the boundary between the made thing and the living world it belongs to. The deeper architecture of the programme mirrors the physical one. It cultivates bio-empathy, reciprocity, and long-term thinking, positioning education not as preparation for the world but as participation in it. Learning in service of Life, with a capital L. Not sustainability as endpoint, but reciprocity as relational practice. It's already producing real work. Middle schoolers used the BiRD methodology to design and build a campus rewilding project, subdividing a barren plot into nine micro-habitats (aquatic, pollinator, rotting log, rock pile, underground, bug house), consulting empathy maps that included past, present, and future generations alongside the more-than-human world. The programme challenges unexamined assumptions about who knowledge belongs to, what a school is designed to serve, and whether the learning environment itself can be a living system rather than a container for content. Can a school be regenerative, not simply sustainable? Can a learning environment change our relationship with place? Watch this space for more updates as the construction and program progress. ### Credits Client: Green School Bali Program: Andy Middleton, Denise de Luca, Dr Benjamin Freud Design Collaborator: IBUKU Builder: Bamboo Pure ### Contact Most of our projects begin as conversations. If something here has started one, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/A3-100.jpg) Section. Drawn by Sree Arun for MAIN&FRANK. ![Green School BiRD Lab](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/Green-school-site-blessing-1.jpg) Site blessing ![Green School BiRD Lab](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V00346-1.jpg) ![Green School BiRD Lab](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V00422-1.jpg) ![Green School BiRD Lab](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V08384-1.jpg) ![Green School BiRD Lab](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/Green-School-Overall-Plan_250604-1.jpg) Plan. Drawn by Sree Arun for MAIN&FRANK. ### Lia's House URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/lias-butterfly-house/ Last updated: 2026-08-13T04:04:09.000Z ### Spec Kind: ecosystem house With: Joost Bakker Completed: 2024 Joost is a tireless innovator. He has a way of inventing things that seem completely mad until you realise they make perfect sense and in fact, it might be everyone else who is mad for making buildings as though we had a spare planet in our back pocket. Joost stoked me to imagine what the world might be like if every new home created rewilding habitat, sequestered carbon dioxide, was resistant to bushfire, and provided enough energy, food and water to support a family while generating zero waste. This home is a fundamental rethinking of how we construct buildings to create a future where the creation of human habitats heals us and heals our planet. The green roof is a wicking bed, holding 50mm of water in the base to ensure plants always have enough water to thrive, as well as insulating the building thermally and acoustically. This means the roof detains stormwater, reducing flood risk and relieving pressure from the civic stormwater system. Water is the best insulator, providing acoustic and thermal benefits. The soil roof protects the building from radiant heat and embers in a bushfire. The house remains remarkably cool on the hottest of summer days. The house is built upside down — the weight of the soil on the roof acts as a ballast, removing the need to pin the building down with concrete footings, saving cost and C02 emissions. Money that would normally go to concrete in the ground can go toward soil and plants for the roof. The construction site is a garden from day 3. The walls and ceilings are made from the world's most wasted resource, straw, compressed into hard panels. As well as insulating the home thermally and acoustically, these straw panels are completely non-toxic, VOC-free, compostable at end-of-life and lock up over 22,000kg of C02 in the walls and ceilings. They also protect the home from bushfire and dampen external sound. The standard external wall panels conform to industry standard 1200mm centres, meaning zero offcuts, reducing construction waste and making installation very rapid. Offcuts from internal wall linings and ceilings are made from straw and are used in the compost. There was no site skip bin on this build and no waste taken to landfill. The facade is coated with a cork-based product made from the leftover cork in the production of wine bottle corks. With the addition of lime and diatamaceous earth, the facade is naturally anti-fungal and mould resistant, while being completely natural and toxin-free. This is the first 100% Australian-grown hemp kitchen. Industrial hemp grows up to 4 metres tall in just 90 days, making it a great rotational crop for farmers. It sequesters carbon-dioxide faster than any other plant we grow and creates the strongest of plant fibres, making it ideal for high performance boards. I hope the growth of this industry helps use preserve more forests for biodiversity and ecosystem services. The checkered splashbacks are made by Lachlan Chapman from broken skateboards. ### Credits Design: Joost Bakker & Frank Burridge Engineering: TGA Engineers Built: Outlook Building Services, Joost Bakker Rocks & hardscaping: R&A Bibo Off-grid electrical: YB Electrical Vermiculture septic: WormWorx Photography: Frank Burridge Energy: off-grid solar with nickel-iron battery storage Water: off-grid capture from rooftop Blackwater: off-grid vermiculture system that feeds nutrients back into the garden ### Contact Most of our projects begin as conversations. If something here has started one, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I06875-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I06858-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I06897-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I06918-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/B001747-R1-30-30-web-2.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/241031_JOOST_GW_1101.jpg) 100% Australian Grown Hemp Kitchen. Photo: Josh Robenstone ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/000036-copy-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/000047-copy-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/WhatsApp-Image-2024-10-21-at-12.56.01_150273e2-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/mblk-2.jpg) Plan ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/mblk-elev-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/mblk-sec-2.jpg) ![Lia's Butterfly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/99mblk-section-1-web-4.jpg) Section. Drawn by Sree Arun for MAIN&FRANK. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/B001747-R1-27-27-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/000031.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/000009.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/000005.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/000030.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/20231020_123732-1.jpg) ### Shelly House URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/shelly-house/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T12:49:41.000Z ### Spec Kind: home, adaptive reuse Completed: 2023 While many 50-year old houses are demolished for the convenience of a fresh start, the retention of 80% of the existing building fabric was a sensitive use of resources to add another 50+ years to the life of this building. The aim was to preserve the physical traces of memories attached to the building while updating the plan to stay relevant to an evolving family over three generations with the addition of a kids room and a bathroom, and a renovation of the kitchen, main bathroom and deck. Adapting an existing building is the most resourceful option when it is available, extending a building's life, amortizing it's original embodied impact over a longer timespan, embedding intergenerational memory into a place and fostering connectedness and continuity. Precise interventions and small extensions transform the existing plan into expansive and warm spaces. The design interventions celebrate the relaxed mid-century modernist architecture. The island-cupboards delineate areas and provide functional storage while blending the spaces together at the edges into a larger whole, increasing the sense of spaciousness in what is a relatively small floor plan. The new sliding door to the outdoor living area was made with an incision into what was a solid wall. The children love opening both sliding doors to run around the corner of the building like a racing track. This undercover outdoor living area is used for play, barbecueing and dumping all the stuff that comes back from a trip to the beach or a dive. The removal of the front and rear fences is a small but radical act, softening the edge with the street and inviting wildlife to wander into the garden to graze, lounge and roam freely without barrier. ### Threads [Park Drive](https://www.mainfrank.com/park-drive/) (keeping the fabric, again) ### Credits Design: Frank Burridge Built: Owner Photography: Frank Burridge & Bronwen Main ### Contact Most of our projects begin as conversations. If something here has started one, write to [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com). ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05959-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/existing-facade-2.png) The house as found ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05520-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05567-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05842-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05875-2-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05703-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05657-2-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05792-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05625-2-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05673-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05491-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05498-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05512-2-3.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35_6-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35_7-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35_8-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35_9-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35_10-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35-11-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/PSX_20240623_134737-copy-2.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35wsr-01-2.png) Existing plan ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35wsr-02-2.png) New plan ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/axo-3.jpg) Axonometric ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/35WSR_MAP-2.jpg) Map ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05367-1.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7I05849-2-1.jpg) ![Shelly House](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/arrangement-diagram-1.jpg) ### About Us URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/information/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T06:39:53.000Z ### The Practice MAIN&FRANK is an architecture practice led by Frank Burridge and Bronwen Main. We design buildings, places and things that leave their surroundings better off: through the materials they use, the habitat they support and the everyday life they make possible. We take four or five commissions a year so we can stay directly involved. The people you meet at the first meeting are the people who carry your project through. ### How we work **We stay close.** You work directly with both of us. We listen carefully, communicate clearly and keep the project moving without waiting to be chased. **The budget is part of the design.** We establish a working budget early and use it to guide decisions throughout. When something needs to change, we explain the implications and explore the alternatives with you. **We make each decision work harder.** A room can serve several purposes. An existing structure can earn another life. A simpler construction method can reduce both waste and cost. We look for these opportunities before asking you to compromise. **We know what unfamiliar materials require.** Our experience includes straw, hemp, bamboo, biochar, limecrete, salvaged timber and recovered plastic board. We bring design, documentation, approvals and construction knowledge to deciding where—and whether—they belong in your project. ### Beyond the building A building changes more than its site. Its materials connect it to farms, forests, factories and waste streams. Its roof changes where water goes. Its planting influences what can live there. We look for decisions whose benefits reach beyond the original brief: a planted roof that also becomes habitat and a place to learn; a material grown in a farming system that rebuilds soil; a building that can change use without being demolished. These relationships are part of the design from the beginning. ### Who we work with We work with schools, households, businesses, communities, artists and makers, on projects ranging from a piece of furniture to a whole site. You do not need a finished brief or an interest in unusual materials. We begin with what you want to make possible, what matters about the place and what you can invest. The strongest projects grow from honest conversations, curiosity and a willingness to work through decisions together. ### People **Frank Burridge — co-founding director** Frank grew up in Tasmania and studied philosophy before architecture. He connects the larger questions of a project with the work needed to deliver it: documentation, consultant coordination, budgets, authority approvals and construction. [frank@mainfrank.com](mailto:frank@mainfrank.com) **Bronwen Main — co-founding director and creative lead** Bronwen brings an artist’s eye, warmth and a strong sense of space. She leads the creative direction, shaping how each project feels and how people inhabit it. Her practice extends across architecture, public art and furniture, including work with hemp, biochar and agroforestry timber. [bronwen@mainfrank.com](mailto:bronwen@mainfrank.com) ### Contact Most of our projects begin with a conversation. Tell us what you are thinking about—even if it is still taking shape. We will talk it through and suggest a useful next step. [Thinking about a project?](https://www.mainfrank.com/working-with-us/) ### Library URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/library/ Last updated: 2026-08-09T14:53:48.000Z _No content available._ ### Shop URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/shop/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T20:48:09.000Z Coming soon ### Testing, seeding, growing URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/tsg/ Last updated: 2026-08-10T03:19:06.000Z _No content available._ ### The Making of Material Documentary URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/the-making-of-material/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T07:32:39.000Z Kind: documentary A 13-minute documentary short film directed by Grace Moore, following agroforestry timber from paddock to workshop to furniture. Premiered at Melbourne Design Week 2025, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria at Mark Tuckey's Thornbury workshop. In the foothills of the Otway Ranges, Andrew and Jill Stewart have spent thirty years turning a degraded sheep farm into something else. Yan Yan Gurt West was 3 percent woody vegetation when they started. It is 18 percent now: 55,000 trees planted across 230 hectares, 113 bird species recorded, carbon neutral without reducing a single lamb turned off. Andrew won the Bob Hawke Landcare Award for the work. Agroforestry scientist Rowan Reid helped them begin. The film traces what happens when timber from those trees enters Mark Tuckey's workshop and becomes a three-piece furniture collection designed by Bronwen Main. It is interested in provenance as a design question: where a tree grew, what grew beside it, who tended it, and what its harvest made room for. The furniture carries that story with it, tree to board to room. Imagine if all construction timbers in Australia were grown this way. Regenerating degraded farm soils, improving livestock health, providing biodiversity habitat, shaping resilient landscapes that stitch together bioregional communities. The Making of Material explores that possibility through objects you can sit on. . ## Credits Director and producer: Grace Moore DOP: Alexander Naughton Drone cinematography: Ayuka Shirao ACs: Rachel Kemp, Josh Fahmi Sound: Riley Achen-Donnelly Art director: Tatjana Melchiorre Furniture designer: Bronwen Main Editor: Grace Moore Colourist: Ted Deacey Composer: Peter Corrigan Stills photographer: Lilli Waters, Artbox Black Participants: Bronwen Main, Andrew Stewart, Jill Stewart, Kristy Stewart, Rowan Reid, David Schofield, Frank Burridge Clients: Mark Tuckey and Main Studio Presented by the National Gallery of Victoria for Melbourne Design Week Thank-you to the Stewart family, Rowan Reid, Otway Agroforestry Network, Zachary Bradtke, Michael McMahon, George Howson. ## Threads [Agroforestry Furniture](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/agroforestry-furniture/) (the collection the film follows) [Stand Trees ](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/stand-trees/)(the centralised marketplace platform for decentralised growers) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MakingOf_Online_Graded_Mixed_1080.00_08_32_09.Still016.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MakingOf_Online_Graded_Mixed_1080.00_11_01_05.Still012.webp) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MakingOf_Online_Graded_Mixed_1080.00_01_17_07.Still022.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/MakingOf_Online_Graded_Mixed_1080.00_07_38_24.Still018.webp) ### MENO:ZERO Nursery URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/meno-zero-nursery/ Last updated: 2026-09-20T02:41:41.000Z ## Spec Type: Plant Propagation Nursery Status: Underway Our first building on Gili Meno: a place to grow seedlings. Once sourced and sprouted the first time, non-GMO seeds can be collected from the the next harvests, cultivated and redistributed, creating a positive feedback loop: each harvest brings back more seed, making more nutrient-dense non-GMO food growth possible on the island. The beginning of a trophic cascade. This was our first time working with traditional bamboo craftsman from Lombok. We wanted to understand how they worked: their way of detailing joins, hanging doors, resolving junctions. Inspired by Ruskin's account of stonemasons in *The Stones of Venice*, we provided simple dimensioned schematics of the frame and member sizes, and left the detailing up to the craftsmen to express their skill and fraternity with the material. We learned from watching them. ## Credits Designed: Frank Burridge Built: Pak Amat and team ## Threads [MENO:ZERO](https://www.mainfrank.com/meno-zero/) \- part of this family of projects on the regenerative island ## Contact ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V09914-2.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V09898-2.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V09867-3.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V09899-2.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/A7V09905-2.jpg) ### Enquiry URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/enquiry/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T06:20:51.000Z ## Thinking about a project? ## **Contact and location** 1. \*Name 2. \*Email 3. Phone (optional) 4. How did you hear about us? ...2 ## **What are you hoping to do, and where?** 1. \*Where is the project? *Suburb or town, and country* 2. \*What kind of project is it? ...2 3. \*Do you have the site? 4. Has any work been done on the project already? ...2 ## **Money and time** 1. Any timing we should know about? ...4 2. When would you like to be on site? *Within 6 months / 6 to 12 months / 1 to 2 years / no fixed date* 3. Do you have a budget in mind? ...2 4. Who else is part of the decision? ...4 ## **Open** 1. What made you get in touch with us in particular? ...3 2. Tell us about the project. As much or as little as you like. ...6 3. What would you like this project to regenerate? ...6 ### Hawley Beach: Private Client Dashboard URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/hawley-beach-client-dashboard/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:52:00.000Z _This page is for subscribers on the Hawley Beach: Private Client Dashboard tier only._ ### Intergenerational Cottage URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/intergenerational-cottage/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T10:30:48.000Z Australian families are increasingly choosing to live together in multi-generational configurations. Whether the cause is convenience, necessity, or a choice to combat the rootlessness of modern life, we see this as a shift away from the nuclear family and toward more intentional modes of living. This house participates in a quiet but nationwide urban growth pattern. The project is a renovation and extension of a charming cottage on a steeply sloping site in Hobart, Tasmania. The family was looking for a strategy to allow for downsizing while also keeping the house open and adaptable to future family living configurations. We split the 4-bedroom, 2-storey cottage into 2 self-contained 2-bedroom flats and added a garden studio — a vertical duplex-and-a-half. This strategy has allowed for a range of family living configurations across three generations, absorbing all of life’s big changes: downsizing, upsizing, interstate moves, itinerant children, new grandchildren and retirement, as well as accommodating extended family and guests. The key is getting the level of together-apart-ness just right so that we can care for one another and feel connected without co-habitants getting in each other’s hair — separate entries but a communal garden, the option to effortlessly share a meal or retreat to a private deck to enjoy solitude. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/20BATH_PLAN.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/Bath_01.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/Bath_04.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/Bath_05.jpg) ### Bay Road: Private Client Dashboard URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/bay-road-private-client-dashboard/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T00:40:25.000Z _This page is for subscribers on the Bay Road: Private Client Dashboard tier only._ ### Circular Solutions for Zero-Waste Sets in Film Productions URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/circular-solutions-for-zero-waste-sets-in-film-productions/ Last updated: 2026-09-20T02:49:19.000Z The average tentpole film production sends around 40 tonnes of material to landfill. Most of it is set construction waste: plywood, MDF, cement sheet, foam, particle board. Built in weeks, used for months, gone in a day. The trees that became those panels took 15 to 20 years to grow. That ratio of process-time to useful-time tells you everything about where the opportunity sits. We were engaged by the production teams at Docklands Studios to consult on reducing the waste footprint of a Melbourne production. The brief was straightforward: find ways to divert set construction waste from landfill without adding cost, time or commercial risk to the production. The intervention redesigned how materials moved through a film production—procurement, construction, sorting, recovery and reuse—not the set as a designed object. The production generated 42.56 metric tonnes of mixed demolition material across fourteen skip bins. Under standard practice, nearly all of it would have gone to landfill. We introduced the production team to Smart Recycling in Dandenong, a local business that accepts mixed construction waste and processes it through mechanical and manual sorting into soil, compost, mulch, crushed brick and biofuel. Smart Recycling achieved a 95% resource recovery rate on All Her Fault's waste stream. The cost of sending skip bins there was roughly half the cost of sending them to a tip. That matters. Sustainability that costs more is sustainability that doesn't get adopted. The second line of work was more speculative and, we think, more consequential. Flats are the base building block of every film set: three sheets of 4mm plywood nailed to timber battens, finished with paint and plaster, braced and propped. After the shoot, they're demolished and binned. The surface finishes (nails, glue, plaster, paint) make separation and recycling impractical, so the whole assembly ends up as waste. We prototyped a circular alternative using Saveboard, a flat-faced panel product made from post-consumer and post-industrial plastic waste. The feedstock is largely Tetrapak cartons: layers of cardboard, plastic and aluminium bonded in a way that makes them effectively unrecyclable through conventional streams. Saveboard shreds and presses this material into construction-grade panels. At end of life, the panels go back to the factory in NSW to be shredded and re-pressed into new boards. A genuinely closed loop. We built two test flats with McCormack's in Melbourne. The first had issues with dimensional consistency and board length. The second was square, smooth, clean-joined and moveable by two people. It performed. Saveboard can accept boards that have been painted, glued and plastered for reprocessing, meaning only minor changes to end-of-life handling. The one constraint is metal fixings: no screws or nails can go back into the press, which opens a question about composite plastic nails as a replacement. The embodied carbon numbers are stark. Based on the 11 tonnes of timber products used on All Her Fault, replacing plywood panels with Saveboard and recycling them at end of life would avoid approximately 15,054 kg CO₂-eq, compared to 5,890 kg avoided under typical plywood-to-landfill practice. That is 2.6 times better. What surprised us most was the response from the crew. Art directors, set builders, the whole production team were ready for this conversation. They wanted alternatives to foam rocks, MDF and single-use timber. The constraint was never willingness. It was access to technical knowledge, tested alternatives and local suppliers who could service production timelines. That is where practices like ours can unlock new potentials. Not as auditors or certifiers, but as the link between material innovation and the people who actually build things. The film industry constructs and demolishes at a scale and speed that most sectors never encounter. It is a live laboratory for circular construction, if someone is willing to do the fieldwork. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-01-160514.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-01-160559.png) Typical Timber Flat ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-01-160625-1.png) Test 100% Circular Saveboard Flat ## Posts ### Beyond the architect’s design authority URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/beyond-the-architects-design-authority/ Last updated: 2026-09-20T02:55:56.000Z When Thomas Essex-Plath turns his writerly attention on something, no matter how humble or small the subject may be, he illuminates its connections in ways that make you see how they are actually part of big things like culture, the social fabric, and the daily reconstitution of status quos. Understanding how small things were different (or not different) in historical moments always gives me the sense that things don't have to be the way they are - they have already been otherwise. Then, understanding the history of how things came to be the way they are usually provides some important detail on how to remake them otherwise. To me, this capacity to imagine things differently, and then make them that way, is the fundamental capacity of design. I love conversing with Thomas because I usually come away with a new historical perspective on something detailed but big. It's an honour to have Thomas think and write about what we've been up to in our practice recently, and what is on the horizon, and to have these small undertakings connected to bigger things. Thank you Thomas, and thank you to About: for publishing the article on your platform. [Essay / Main&FrankMain&Frank work across materials, waste and production systems, exploring how architects can regain agency beyond individual buildings![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)About | The Global Architecture PlatforfmAuthorThomas Essex-Plath![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/thumbnail/about_0_Earl_Carter_woodleigh_futures_studio_mcildowie_partners_3_03b79c0542-a6e900dc-b168-4e61-95ec-98c54d74335a.jpg)](https://aboutplatform.com/focus-on/beyond-the-architect-s-design-authority-main-and-frank?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Why we build with agricultural residues URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/why-we-build-with-agricultural-residues/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T23:49:39.000Z The construction sector is responsible for 39% of global greenhouse gas emissions (King and Magwood, 2022). A growing number of practices respond to this by specifying timber. The logic is straightforward: trees absorb carbon, wood stores it in the building, and the forest regrows. We think the logic has a timing problem. Softwood forests take 45 to 180 years to regrow after harvest (Pittau et al., 2018), and plantation softwoods 20-30 years. Rice and wheat straw regrows in a single season. When Pittau modelled five wall systems using dynamic life cycle assessment, the timber frame option took 79 to 101 years to reach negative net radiative forcing - that is, to actually reduce the energy imbalance in the atmosphere that's causing global warming. The straw wall made an impact almost immediately. The straw wall got there almost immediately. A 2025 Munich case study on a school retrofit measured the difference directly: over a 50-year building life, straw insulation delivered 13.5 times the climate relief of wood-fibre insulation from an 80-year rotation forest (Santamaría-Herrera, Otaegi and Rodríguez-Vidal, 2025). Even cutting the rotation to 60 years, straw was still nearly fivefold ahead. Standard LCA methods hide this. The static approaches used in most EPDs weight all emissions equally regardless of when they occur. Hoxha et al. (2020) found errors of 35 to 200 percent at component level between static and dynamic methods. Every static comparison of straw against timber is structurally biased toward timber, because it erases the one variable that matters on a 2050 timeline: how fast the feedstock recaptures its carbon. The supply question compounds the problem. Mishra et al. (2022) modelled housing 90% of new urban population in engineered timber and found plantation forests would need to expand by up to 149 million hectares by 2100, with increased harvest pressure on unprotected natural forest. The world has already lost a third of its forests, half of that in the last century alone (Ritchie and Roser, 2021). FAO's 2025 assessment still records net forest loss of 4.12 million hectares per year (FAO, 2025). Scaling demand against a shrinking stock is a strange climate strategy. Agricultural residues need no land at all. They are a co-product of food we already grow. Pittau et al. (2021) compared timber, straw, hemp and cork across Europe and found straw ahead on both resource availability and carbon storage potential. Hansen et al. (2024) showed that substituting fast-growing biobased materials into Danish timber buildings cut wooded-land requirements by 50 to 61 percent. In Indonesia, where we do much of our work, the residue stream is large and most of it is on fire. Andini et al. (2018) put Indonesian open burning at 45 million tonnes of crop residue per year, about 21% of national residue production. Rice straw accounts for 19.3 million tonnes. That burning releases roughly 49,671 Gg of CO₂ annually, plus black carbon and fine particulate pollution that the WHO (2024) links to 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide from ambient air pollution, with the heaviest burden in South-East Asia. Indonesia alone accounts for 12 to 14% of global warming potential from crop residue burning (FAO, 2024). This changes the carbon accounting in kind. Timber gives you one effect: substitution of concrete and steel. Residue gives you three. You avoid an emission that is definitely happening. You store the carbon. And you displace conventional materials. The counterfactual for timber is a standing tree. The counterfactual for rice straw is a fire. The performance is there. Straw-based EPDs report global warming potential of -101.2 to -146.5 kg CO₂-eq/m³ cradle-to-gate, with thermal conductivity of 0.043 to 0.068 W/mK (Santamaría-Herrera, Otaegi and Rodríguez-Vidal, 2025). Each kilogram of straw holds about 1.35 kg CO₂. Straw is an envelope and insulation material, not a long-span structural one. We are not arguing against timber where fibre length and tension capacity are irreducible. We are arguing that for every square metre of wall, ceiling and insulation (the bulk of material volume in any building) residues do more climate work, faster, with fewer ecological costs. Two honest concessions. You cannot take all the straw. Soil needs some returned. But the numbers favour building: straw incorporated into soil retains about 50 kg of carbon per tonne, while straw in the building stock retains 240 kg per tonne (Pittau et al., 2019). And EN 15804, the standard governing EPDs, forces biogenic carbon to be re-emitted in end-of-life modules C3-C4, which means every compliant straw EPD understates its own storage (Ortech Industries, 2020). We use compressed strawboard, bamboo and lime. The rice straw we specify in Bali and Lombok would otherwise be burned in a field. Every panel we install is a small piece of pollution that did not happen, locked into a wall for decades, displacing concrete block. That is what regenerative architecture looks like when you follow the carbon rather than the convention. ## References Andini, A., Bonnet, S., Rousset, P. and Hasanudin, U. (2018) 'Impact of open burning of crop residues on air pollution and climate change in Indonesia', Current Science, 115(12), pp. 2259-2266. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) FAOSTAT: Burning - Crop Residues. Available at: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/GB (Accessed: 30 August 2026). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025\. Rome: FAO. Hansen, R.N., Hoxha, E., Birgisdóttir, H. and Pittau, F. (2024) 'Reducing the land-use impact of wooden buildings with fast-growing biobased materials: A Danish case study', Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 209, 107776. Hoxha, E., Passer, A., Saade, M.R.M., Trigaux, D., Shuttleworth, A., Pittau, F., Allacker, K. and Habert, G. (2020) 'Biogenic carbon in buildings: a critical overview of LCA methods', Buildings and Cities, 1(1), pp. 504-524. King, B. and Magwood, C. (2022) Build Beyond Zero: New Ideas for Carbon-Smart Architecture. Washington, DC: Island Press. Mishra, A., Humpenöder, F., Churkina, G., Reyer, C.P.O., Beier, F., Bodirsky, B.L., Schellnhuber, H.J., Lotze-Campen, H. and Popp, A. (2022) 'Land use change and carbon emissions of a transformation to timber cities', Nature Communications, 13, 4889. Ortech Industries (2020) Environmental Product Declaration: Durra Panel. EPD Australasia, S-P-10940. Pittau, F., Krause, F., Lumia, G. and Habert, G. (2018) 'Fast-growing bio-based materials as an opportunity for storing carbon in exterior walls', Building and Environment, 129, pp. 117-129. Pittau, F., Lumia, G., Heeren, N., Iannaccone, G. and Habert, G. (2019) 'Retrofit as a carbon sink: the carbon storage potentials of the EU housing stock', Journal of Cleaner Production, 214, pp. 365-376. Göswein, V., Reichmann, J., Habert, G. and Pittau, F. (2021) 'Land availability in Europe for a radical shift toward bio-based construction', *Sustainable Cities and Society*, 70, 102929. Ritchie, H. and Roser, M. (2021) 'The world has lost one-third of its forests, but an end to deforestation is possible', Our World in Data. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/world-lost-one-third-forests (Accessed: 30 August 2026). Santamaría-Herrera, N.M., Otaegi, J. and Rodríguez-Vidal, I. (2025) 'A review of recent advances in the application of cereal straw for decarbonization of construction materials and applications', Sustainability, 18(1), 65. World Health Organization (2024) Ambient (outdoor) air pollution, Fact sheets. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health (Accessed: 30 August 2026). ### Strawboard: Replacing Burning with Housing URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/strawboard-manufacturing-reducing-straw-burning-pollution-and-replacing-harmful-building-products-in-se-asia/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T08:41:43.000Z Every year, globally, we sequester the entire world's transport emissions in the byproducts of five crops: wheat and cereal straw, rice straw, sugarcane bagasse, corn stover and coconut husks\[1\]. Most of it gets burned in the field. Meanwhile we've lost roughly one third of the world's forests, half of that in the last century, yet the industry keeps specifying timber as though there were no alternative\[2\]. Compressed strawboard is not a laboratory curiosity. The technology has been in commercial production for decades. A single line processes around 15,000 tonnes of rice straw a year and can lock up roughly 25,000 tonnes of CO2e in the process, enough panel for about 4,000 homes. It carries a 60-minute fire rating, no VOCs, and it costs less per square metre than rendered blockwork. South East Asia is where this can have impact at scale. Indonesia burns enormous volumes of rice straw every harvest, and it is building fast. Put a factory somewhere near the rice paddies, with a radius of decentralised baling machines and night-time delivery trucks to the factory, and you solve two problems with one machine: the smoke that shortens lives across the region, and the demand for cheap, non-toxic, fire-resistant wall systems. No export required. The product gets used where it is made. ## References \[1\] King, B. and Magwood, C. (2022) *Build Beyond Zero: New Ideas for Carbon-Smart Architecture*. Washington, DC: Island Press. \[2\] Ritchie, H. and Roser, M. (2021) 'The world has lost one-third of its forests, but an end to deforestation is possible', *Our World in Data*. Available at: [https://ourworldindata.org/world-lost-one-third-forests](https://ourworldindata.org/world-lost-one-third-forests?ref=mainfrank.com) World Health Organization (2024) *Ambient (outdoor) air pollution*, Fact sheets. Available at: [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-%28outdoor%29-air-quality-and-health?ref=mainfrank.com) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) *FAOSTAT: Burning – Crop Residues*. Available at: [https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/GB](https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?ref=mainfrank.com#data/GB) ### Can Farmers Grow the Building Materials of the Future? URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/can-farmers-grow-the-building-materials-of-the-future/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T05:30:36.000Z The most resilient building on the planet is grown, not mined. We build in fire country with materials that burn, and in a house fire the toxic smoke kills before the flame does. GreenhousebyJoost modules were built at the CSIRO facility at Mallacoota and put through a Major Fire Front simulation in 2012 and again in 2024\. At 1,000°C outside, internal temperature rose to just 32°C, with no toxic load. If a straw building can survive a firestorm, what else is the industry wrong about? ### HIA Future Homes Forum Keynote URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/hia-future-homes-forum/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T10:12:29.000Z A keynote with Joost Bakker, addressed to builders. Australia generated 29 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste in 2022-23, two of every five tonnes the country throws away. The answer put to the room was to build with what farmers already grow. GreenhousebyJoost wraps a steel frame in straw wall panels, a wicking-bed green roof and, next, hemp joinery board pressed at Benalla. The talk covered what this means for a builder's crew and budget: components arrive numbered, local trades assemble them, and Woodleigh School finished its entire build program on eight skip bins. ### Regenerative Approaches to Practice URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/regenerative-approaches-to-practice/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T11:05:20.000Z A lecture about where regenerative practice sits relative to everything the profession already calls green. Working from Pamela Mang and Bill Reed, the talk plotted our rating tools along a single axis of net effect on the earth's capacity to host life: Green Star, NABERS, Passivhaus and Living Building Challenge all measured against the same line. It set that beside Kate Raworth's doughnut and the Regen10 framework, which asks organisations to aim at context rather than compliance. Andy Middleton and Denise DeLuca's question ran through the whole hour: **if you took the context fully into account, what would you set out to do if you knew you could not fail?** ### How the World Really Works - Vaclav Smil URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/how-the-world-really-works-vaclav-smil/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:06:21.000Z ## Core thesis Modern civilization runs on four material pillars: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia. All four require fossil fuels not merely as energy but as feedstock. Energy transitions are generational (decades, not electoral cycles), and anyone who claims otherwise has not run the numbers on tonnage. The book is a quantitative literacy exercise: how much stuff does it actually take to keep 8 billion people alive? ## What it unlocks in practice Forces you to quantify before you specify. Every material choice on a drawing carries an embedded energy cost that Smil's numbers make legible: a cubic metre of concrete embodies roughly 100–300 kg CO₂; a tonne of steel \~1.8 t CO₂; a kilogram of ammonia-based fertiliser \~1.5 kg CO₂. The design move is to run Smil's "four pillars" audit on any project: how many tonnes of cement, steel, plastic, and synthetic nitrogen does this building or masterplan demand, and which of those demands can be displaced by genuinely lower-energy alternatives (bamboo, earth, biological nitrogen fixation) rather than merely shifted to another fossil input? This is the test CEB blocks and the Byproduct thesis have to pass. ## Watch out for Smil is a diagnostician, not a designer. His stance can calcify into "nothing works, so don't bother," which is useful for killing naivety but dangerous as a design posture. He systematically underweights the speed at which costs fall on new energy tech (solar PV cost curves have repeatedly outrun his projections). He also has little to say about demand reduction, sufficiency, or non-Western material traditions; bamboo, earth, and lime barely appear despite their demonstrated structural capacity in tropical contexts. The risk is using Smil to justify inaction rather than to sharpen action. ### Buy [Purchase this book](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780593297087?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Design with Nature URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-design-with-nature/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:06:10.000Z ## Core thesis Design is not a formal or aesthetic act. It is a decision about where and how humans intervene in living systems. McHarg’s method: map ecological processes layer by layer (geology, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, climate), overlay them, and let the composite reveal where development is appropriate, where it is risky, and where it is destructive. Nature is the primary designer. The architect’s job is editorial, not authorial. ## What it unlocks in practice Every site we work on begins with a suitability analysis derived from McHarg. On Gili Meno this was literal: coral sand geology, freshwater lens depth, mangrove root zones, tidal inundation, and prevailing wind mapped as constraints before a single building footprint was placed. The masterplan’s conservation zones are not ideological. They are overlay outputs. At Jugil, slope stability and downstream hydrology determined the TPST footprint and drainage design before programme was even confirmed. The method forces us to treat site selection and building placement as ecological decisions with measurable consequences, not client preferences dressed up in sustainability language. ## Watch out for McHarg’s overlay method assumes relatively stable ecological baselines. On a 1.5km coral island with rising sea levels and shifting sand profiles, “suitability” is a moving target. The binary logic of build/don’t-build also underestimates what light-touch, adaptive structures (elevated, demountable, bio-based) can achieve in marginal zones. And the book’s silence on power, capital, and land tenure means you still need a political theory to get anything built. Overlay analysis tells you where. It does not tell you how to negotiate with the landowner, the regulator, or the investor who wants the beachfront. ### Buy [Purchase this book](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780471114604?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Thinking in Systems URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-thinking-in-systems/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:05:31.000Z Stocks, flows, feedback and delays are a working grammar for everything the practice touches. Persistent problems are patterns generated by structure. The deep levers sit in who gets information and in what a system is actually for. Our buildings are designed as feedback instruments because of this book. ## Core thesis Problems persist because they are generated by structure. Behaviour emerges from stocks, flows, feedback loops, and delays. Intervene at symptoms and the structure routes around you. Lasting change means shifting information flows, rules, or goals. ## What it unlocks in practice Before any design response we identify the accumulating stock, trace dominant feedback loops, and locate where information is missing or delayed. On Gili Meno this meant mapping water, waste, and revenue as interdependent stocks. The masterplan’s phasing follows directly: which reinforcing loops activate first (mangrove biomass, guest confidence), which balancing loops kill momentum if ignored (regulatory lag, freshwater depletion). At Jugil TPST, BSF larvae populations are a stock with biological delays that dictate facility throughput. Design the buffer before the building. ## Watch out for The book can make you feel fluent in systems without ever quantifying one. Causal loop diagrams are easy to draw, hard to validate. "Shift the paradigm" is not an architectural instruction. If your systems thinking never produces a number or a falsifiable prediction, it’s philosophy cosplaying as method. ## Project relevance Gili Meno masterplan: phasing and infrastructure logic from stock-flow-feedback mapping. BiRD Lab: coupled feedback loops between pedagogy, food production, and building performance. ### Buy [Buy this book](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9781603580557?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Material Worlds, Robin Boyd Foundation URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/test/ Last updated: 2026-08-13T02:39:04.000Z Bronwen Main and Frank Burridge opened not with their best work but with ruins: cyclone and earthquake damage on Gili Meno, buildings described as ghosts of a culture that valued speed over quality. From there, the five questions the practice asks of any material. Where does it come from, how much energy made it usable, whose hands shaped it, how does it behave climatically, and what happens when the building dies. The talk moved through soil, hemp, biochar, agroforestry timber with Mark Tuckey, the melaspas site blessing, and a rattan chair whose structure came from an elephant ear leaf. ## threads ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/RBF034-Main-Simulaa-014-Josephine-Briginshaw-WebRes.jpg) Photo: Josephine Briginshaw ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/RBF034-Main-Simulaa-022-Josephine-Briginshaw-WebRes.jpg) Photo: Josephine Briginshaw ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/08/RBF034-Main-Simulaa-033-Josephine-Briginshaw-WebRes.jpg) Photo: Josephine Briginshaw ### Drawdown URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-drawdown/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:19:54.000Z ## Core Thesis Climate change is solvable with existing tools. Rank solutions by net impact (emissions reduced plus carbon sequestered minus costs) and drawdown, the point where atmospheric greenhouse gases peak, is reachable without speculative technology. The constraint is governance, culture, and land use. Energy alone is insufficient. ## What it unlocks in practice A ranking filter for design decisions. The top levers are food systems, land use, and building envelopes, not high-tech energy systems. Every project can be audited against Drawdown's list: does this intervention register on the gigatonne scale, or is it feel-good? Insulation, passive design, reduced food waste, and regenerative agriculture compound in aggregate. The book turns climate from apocalypse to design brief. ## Watch out for Drawdown assumes rational adoption and underplays political economy: fossil capital, rent-seeking, and entrenched power. Efficiency gains can increase total consumption. And carbon accounting is not the same as ecological health; some "solutions" create monocultures or extractive offsets. ### Buy [Buy this book](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780143130444?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Agroforestry Furniture URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/shop-agroforestry-furniture/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T06:56:42.000Z A collection designed by Bronwen Main in collaboration with Mark Tuckey, made from timber grown in agroforestry systems: trees planted through grazing country, where the harvest pays a farmer to keep them standing. Photos by Lilli Waters Documentary - [The Making of Material](https://vimeo.com/1086270875?fl=pl&fe=sh&ref=mainfrank.com): Featured in Melbourne Design Week 2025, the event included a screening of a thought-provoking short film directed by Grace Moore and shot by Alexander Naughton, featuring insights from Andrew Stewart, a Bob Hawke Landcare Award winner. The film reveals the importance of agroforestry and its potential impact on the future of Australian design. Special thanks to The Stewarts Rowan Reid ### Where to buy [Horizon Table](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/horizon-table?ref=mainfrank.com) [Field Coffee Table](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/field-coffee-table?ref=mainfrank.com) [Bloom Coffee Table](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/bloom-coffee-table?ref=mainfrank.com) [Main Chair](https://marktuckey.com.au/products/main-chair?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Threads [Agroforestry Furniture](https://www.mainfrank.com/agroforestry-furniture/) (the project and the film) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/_62A8976.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/_62A9254-Melbourne-Design-Week-Credit-Photography-Lily-Waters.-Collaboration-with-Mark-Tuckey.-Agroforestry-designs..jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/_62A9210.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/8f/118f9c67-0bc7-47c8-bc11-cf3ec1b54e27/content/images/2026/09/_62A9567-Melbourne-Design-Week-Credit-Photography-Lily-Waters.-Collaboration-with-Mark-Tuckey.-Agroforestry-designs..jpg) ### Build Beyond Zero URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-build-beyond-zero/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T06:21:46.000Z ## Core thesis Net zero is an accounting trick if the building's fabric front-loaded decades of emissions before day one. King and Magwood argue the industry's next job is buildings as carbon storage: biogenic materials (straw, hemp, timber, mycelium, earth) that lock atmospheric carbon into walls and roofs, turning construction from an emissions source into drawdown infrastructure. ## What it unlocks in practice Embodied carbon as the first number on the drawing, not a footnote. Material selection driven by storage per square metre, separability at end of life, and what farms nearby already grow. The book makes "the most resilient building on the planet is grown, not mined" defensible in front of an engineer. ## Watch out for Carbon storage claims depend on end-of-life pathways actually happening. A straw panel landfilled anaerobically tells a different story than one composted or reused. Specify the cycle, not just the material. The carbon is only stored if the system closes. ### Buy [Purchase this book](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9781642832112?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-arts-of-living-on-a-damaged-planet/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:45:29.000Z ## Core thesis An anthology organised around two figures. Ghosts: the traces past damage leaves in a landscape, which keep acting on the present. Monsters: the entangled multispecies relationships (symbioses, contaminations, dependencies) we live inside whether we acknowledge them or not. Living well on a damaged planet means learning to notice both. ## What it unlocks in practice Site reading. It trains the eye to see a lot as layered with other lives and prior harms rather than as a blank plane with a north arrow. What was cleared here, what soil chemistry did that leave, which species moved in afterwards, and who are the nonhuman clients of this project? Pairs directly with the Dark Ecology notes: Morton gives the philosophy of entanglement, Tsing and colleagues give the field practice of attending to it. ## Watch out for It is an academic anthology and uneven; some essays are gold, others are dense for little return. Read it for the ghosts/monsters framing and the standout essays rather than cover to cover. ## Project relevance [Lia's Butterfly House](https://www.mainfrank.com/lias-butterfly-house/) (designing for nonhuman clients directly), [Green School BiRD Lab](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/green-school-bird-lab/) (multispecies entanglement as curriculum), and site analysis on every project with a damage history. [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9781517902377?ref=mainfrank.com) ### The Blue Economy URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-the-blue-economy/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:48:06.000Z ## Core thesis Ecosystems run on cascades: the waste of one process is the feedstock of the next, and nothing is optimised in isolation. Pauli catalogues business models built on this logic (coffee grounds growing mushrooms, and a hundred more), arguing that local resources cascaded through multiple uses out-compete both extractive "red" economies and expensive "green" premium products. ## What it unlocks in practice A design method for whole sites and small economies, not just buildings. Ask of every output: what eats this next? Greywater to gardens, food waste to aquaponics, heat to drying. On a small island this is less a theory than a memory. Gili Meno once ran on exactly these cascades (coconut, seaweed lines on the reef, salt evaporated from the lake) before tourism flattened the local economy into a single fragile revenue stream. ## Watch out for Many of Pauli's hundred cases are speculative or never scaled. Treat the book as a pattern library to test, not a portfolio of proven ventures. ## Project relevance [Gili Meno Zero](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/gili-meno-zero/) (the masterplan is a Blue Economy problem), [Green School BiRD Lab](https://www.mainfrank.com/tag/green-school-bird-lab/) (aquaponics and nutrient cascades as curriculum). ## Buy [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780912111902?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Bullshit Jobs URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-bullshit-jobs/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:50:40.000Z ## Core thesis A large share of modern work is jobs that the people doing them believe are pointless and they don't find satisfaction in doing it: flunkies, box tickers, duct tapers, taskmasters, goons. This is not market efficiency, it is a moral and political arrangement, and it produces real psychological damage because humans need their work to have meaning and consequences. ## What it unlocks in practice An audit lens for the profession and the studio. Architecture generates plenty of Graeber's categories: reports nobody reads, compliance theatre, coordination roles that exist because contracts distrust everyone. The book explains why the practice stays small, why physical outcomes matter, and why scope should be pruned like a Fukuoka field. ## Watch out for Graeber's evidence is anecdote-heavy and his definition is subjective by design. Some "box ticking" (fire engineering, certification) keeps people alive. The useful move is separating ritual from safeguard, not torching both. ## Buy [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9781501143335?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Designing Regenerative Cultures URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-designing-regenerative-cultures/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:52:28.000Z ## Core thesis Sustainability is the floor, not the goal. Wahl reframes design as an activity nested in living systems at linked scales (site, community, bioregion, biosphere) and asks of every project: does it increase the health and expressive capacity of the systems it sits inside? He leans on living-systems science, Gregory Bateson, and a "living the questions" stance over fixed answers. ## What it unlocks in practice Useful for briefs and client conversations because it gives regeneration criteria rather than vibes: scale-linking, salutogenic (health-generating) design, and the shift from designing objects to designing conditions in which life can organise itself. ## Watch out for The book is stronger on worldview than on delivery mechanics. It will not tell you how to procure, contract, or maintain anything. Pair it with Meadows for structure and Charlesworth for delivery reality. ## Buy [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9781909470774?ref=mainfrank.com) ### ### The One-Straw Revolution URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-the-one-straw-revolution/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:53:36.000Z ## Core thesis Fukuoka farmed rice and citrus for decades by progressively removing interventions: no tilling, no weeding, no chemical fertiliser, no pesticides. Each subtraction forced him to understand the system well enough that it could do the work itself. Yields matched conventional farms. "Do-nothing farming" is a misnomer; it is observation-heavy, intervention-light. ## What it unlocks in practice Fukuoka is Taleb's via negativa and Lao Tzu's wu wei proven in soil over forty years. For the practice it validates the instinct to strip systems out of buildings rather than add them, and to treat the first year of occupation as observation rather than correction. There is also a literal resonance: he seeded into standing straw, and we line walls with it. The by-product of grain farming carries the whole system in both cases. ## Watch out for His method was tuned to one farm over decades. The transferable thing is the epistemology (subtract, observe, adjust), not the specific techniques. ## Buy [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9781590173138?ref=mainfrank.com) ### The Ignorant Schoolmaster URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-the-ignorant-schoolmaster/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:54:49.000Z ## Core thesis Joseph Jacotot, a French teacher in exile, taught Flemish students he shared no language with, and they learned. Rancière's conclusion: explication is what makes students dependent. The master's job is to hold the student in a relationship with the problem, and to verify attention, without inserting an explanation between the student and the thing itself. All intelligences are equal; what differs is attention and will. ## What it unlocks in practice The pedagogical licence for metabolic architecture. If a building's systems are legible (the tank level, the fish, the temperature you negotiate by opening a window) then the building can pose problems without a teacher explaining them away. The student verifies their own intelligence against the material world. Explication-free learning is exactly what a live feedback loop provides. ## Watch out for Rancière is anti-method: turning "the ignorant schoolmaster" into a replicable pedagogy is itself a betrayal of the argument. Use it as a stance, not a system. ## Buy [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780804719698?ref=mainfrank.com) ### The Green Imperative URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-the-green-imperative/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T07:56:32.000Z ## Core Thesis Design and architecture are moral acts. Every specification, material choice, and product either amplifies ecological and social damage or reduces it. Papanek attacks consumerist, status-driven design and frames planned obsolescence as an ethical failure. His sustainability agenda is pragmatic: life-cycle thinking, materials that cycle, smaller scale, appropriate technology. ## What This Unlocks in Practice The argument that sustainability is not a feature you add on. It disciplines material selection toward repair, reuse, and end-of-life accountability. Prefer right-sized, locally maintainable solutions over complex ones. The book also reframes professional success: away from novelty and fashion, toward responsible participation in the conditions for life. ## Watch out for Papanek leans toward moral exhortation more than institutional design. Incentives, procurement rules, regulation, and finance are what actually change outcomes at scale. The book is a conscience, not a delivery manual. It tells you what to care about, not how to get it built. ## Buy [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780500296196?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Humanitarian Architecture URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-humanitarian-architecture/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T08:32:29.000Z ## Core Thesis Architecture needs to reclaim civic competence. Post-disaster work is a sharp test of whether the profession has anything real to offer beyond imagery. Charlesworth treats humanitarian architecture as a distinct practice domain defined by vulnerable clients, high-stakes constraints, and coordination with aid systems rather than the profession's usual authorial model. ## What This Unlocks in Practice The anti-signature instinct. In post-disaster contexts the personal fingerprint is irrelevant or harmful. What matters is low-cost, replicable, locally buildable solutions. This transfers directly to remote island work where logistics, skills, and supply chains are similarly constrained. It also validates the practice model: small, delivery-focused, working across procurement, construction, and post-occupancy rather than handing off after DA. ## Watch out for Charlesworth is stronger on what architects should be than on institutional mechanisms that would let them be it. The funding, training, and career structures she identifies as broken remain broken. Good intentions still do not equal capability. ### Buy [Purchase this book](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780415818667?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Antifragile URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/book-antifragile/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T08:34:03.000Z ## Core Thesis Fragile systems break under stress. Robust ones resist it. A third category, antifragile, improves because of it. The central mistake of modern civilisation is eliminating small stressors, which creates conditions for catastrophic failure. Taleb's method: optionality over forecasting, via negativa over addition, skin in the game over delegation. ## What This Unlocks in Practice A design heuristic: prefer reversible over irreversible, modular over monolithic, redundant over optimised. Buildings and sites should have barbell exposure, with extreme robustness in structure and high adaptability in programme and services. Prefab modules that can be relocated are antifragile. Centralised HVAC serving fifty rooms is fragile. ## Watch out for Taleb can licence institutional nihilism. Not all coordination is fragility. Some regulation keeps people alive. And barbell strategies assume you can absorb the downside, which not everyone can. ## Buy [Buy on Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/128004/9780812979688?ref=mainfrank.com) ### School buildings are not puff pastry URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/school-buildings-are-not-puff-pastry/ Last updated: 2026-08-13T03:26:34.000Z Most architects think about school buildings like puff pastry, like a chef's pièce de résistance, or like a smorgasbord/buffet. In all three the student is served a meal. What would it look like if architects invited learners into the metaphorical kitchen instead, to participate in the building's metabolism? 🥐 Approach 1: buildings are like puff pastries to be filled with cream. Whether the flavour is pistachio, chocolate or vanilla, it all gets squeezed into the same pastry. There's a partial truth here: learning can happen almost anywhere, but it misses what well-designed environments unlock for learners. It's how we ended up with cell-like classroom blocks everywhere. 🍽️ Approach 2: buildings are the chef's pièce de résistance, the perfectly plated fine dining meal. In architecture this means buildings that symbolise a school's ethos and set an inspiring backdrop for learning. At its best it produces speccy buildings that spark curiosity, though usually dominated by what is visual rather than what is lived and embodied during learning. 🍱 Approach 3: the environment is a smorgasbord for students to choose from. Think booths, breakout spaces, beanbags, study nooks, whiteboards on wheels. The variety makes the building a co-agent in learning, commonly called the "third teacher": relational, responsive, co-constructed with learners. The most sophisticated of the three, but still bounded by spatial and aesthetic logics. 👩‍🍳 What if students weren't served the meal, but were invited into the kitchen? A building, like a body, has a metabolism: energy flowing in and out, water cycling, materials breaking down and building up, all in exchange with the living world around it. Usually it stays hidden. In our work with [Green School Bali](https://www.linkedin.com/company/greenschoolbali/?ref=mainfrank.com) and [Woodleigh School](https://www.linkedin.com/company/woodleigh-school-australia/?ref=mainfrank.com), students step into that metabolism and help run it. ⚡ At Woodleigh's Regenerative Futures Studio, students will get live readouts of energy use in each classroom: real-time feedback they can act on together. They might wear extra layers in winter to use less energy than the class next door, practising how to read environmental cues (temperature, seasonality), make collective decisions (agency, cooperation, diplomacy), and grasp the biophysical reality of their environment (energy, thermodynamics). 🌱 When wood ducks nested on Woodleigh's green roof, students hatched a plan to build ramps for the ducklings to get down, only to discover wood ducks nest high in trees and their ducklings are light enough to bounce unharmed. A habitat green roof is an unpredictable ecosystem. Learning to read its changes (why the grass died, why the larvae never hatched) and decide how to respond is the grist to grind on the path to ecological adulthood. ### What is Regenerative Architecture URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/what-is-regenerative-architecture/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T11:05:31.000Z People often ask me: what is "regenerative" architecture? I gently reframe the question: regeneration is not about what something is, but about what it does - for an environment, an ecosystem, a community of learners. There is no checklist, but there are rules of thumb that help: 🌱 Regenerative buildings are made from materials that divert waste from landfill, agricultural byproducts and fibres that restore the soil where they're grown. The Woodleigh Regenerative Futures Studio, pictured below, is made from straw as a byproduct from wheat farming, salvaged timber, hemp as a soil-restoring rotational crop and clothing waste. 🌱 Regenerative buildings create habitat that supports the lifecycle of multiple species, providing substrate for ecosystem services like climate control, pollination, nesting, wildlife runs and succession. 🌱 They filter pollutants and toxins from the air while filling the atmosphere with a healthy microbiome that supports health and wellbeing. 🌱 They tap into our biologic affinity with nature through soft fascinations, like wind blowing over water or the rustling of leaves in a tree. 🌱 They generate more energy and capture more water than they consume, being powered by sun, wind and water that falls in the region, not by fossil fuels. They support the growth of regional micro-grids for energy resilience. 🌱 They are completely reusable, recyclable and compostable at the end of their use-life as buildings, with all natural fibres being re-incorporated into the Earth's carbon and nutrient cycles. 🌱 They invite occupants into a relationship with the metabolism of the building by making the consumption of energy and water visible and response-able. 🌱 By increasing the chance of encounters with nature, regenerative buildings create an atmosphere of wonder that shifts the learning context and expands the horizons of what is perceived to be possible by students and educators. These are not motherhood statements, they are binary and measurable states of affairs. A building either creates habitat, or it does not, and we can measure how many species, what quantity, how it helps a biome stay within or cross critical thresholds, etc. But measurable is not the same as universal. It's not about setting a target and chasing that everywhere, which produces buildings that score well but regenerate little. Keeping Life as our frame doesn't remove measurement, it gives it a direction and a context. The question stops being "what did the building score?" and becomes "is the living system here — this site, this bioregion, this community of learners — better off because the building exists?" Is the system here moving in a degenerative or regenerative direction? ### Mainstays URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/mainstays/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T11:05:39.000Z [https://greenmagazine.com.au/issue-109/](https://greenmagazine.com.au/issue-109/?ref=mainfrank.com) ### Sustainability Snacks URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/sustainability-snacks/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T09:13:38.000Z A materials talk built on three crops. Straw, the most wasted resource on the planet, locking up 33kg of CO2 per square metre of panel and paying farmers for a byproduct they currently burn. Hemp, which sequesters as much carbon in ninety days as an acre of forest does in fifty-seven years, and can replace studs, beams, cladding and flooring. Bamboo, with tensile strength, a fast fibre-to-land ratio and craft cultures already in place. ### Navigating the Landscape: Insights into Site and Context URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/monash-university-2025-navigating-the-landscape-insights-into-site-and-context/ Last updated: 2026-08-13T02:20:45.000Z In March 2025, Bronwen delivered a guest lecture to Monash University's Foundation Studio, sharing insights from MAIN&FRANK's BiRD building at Green School Bali, a collaboration with IBUKU exploring biomimicry and regenerative design. Drawing on materials like rice straw Durra Panel and bamboo, she spoke about designing for place through deep listening, literature, and cultural immersion, including the Balinese concept of Taksu. The talk covered working with landscape and microclimates, giving agency to non-human elements like rivers and wildlife in the design process, and the value of collaboration across disciplines. She closed by encouraging students to see collaborative challenges as opportunities for growth, both as designers and as people. ### The Second Ecology: Ecosystems Above the City URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/the-second-ecology-ecosystems-above-the-city/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T11:05:56.000Z [https://www.agmelbourne.com/post/opinion-19-the-second-ecology](https://www.agmelbourne.com/post/opinion-19-the-second-ecology?ref=mainfrank.com) ### How might our classrooms support the next generation of green leaders? URL: https://www.mainfrank.com/notes/how-might-our-classrooms-support-the-next-generation-of-green-leaders-by-shifting-from-extraction-to-regeneration-from-separation-to-synergy-and-from-human-centered-design-to-life-cente/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T11:05:49.000Z Shifting from extraction to regeneration, from separation to synergy, and from human-centered design to life-centered design I'm excited to introduce the Biomimicry for Regenerative Design (BiRD) Lab at Green School Bali — an innovative learning space designed to inspire change-makers of all ages to find regenerative solutions by emulating the wisdom of nature. As one of the architects for this groundbreaking project (along with the ever amazing ever living [IBUKU Studio](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ibuku/?ref=mainfrank.com)), I've had the privilege of participating in a design process that embodies a fundamental paradigm shift — one that moves beyond sustainability towards true regeneration by inviting many agencies into the design process, including nature ((more on this to come). At BiRD, learners explore biomimicry not as a way of extracting nature’s solutions for instrumentalisation within unsustainable systems, but as a way of seeing, thinking, and acting differently — as nature, rather than separate from it — something fundamental to systems change. It’s not painting shark-skin paint on the underside of shipping vessels to make their journeys use 3% less fuel while they transport fossil fuels around the world. It’s about sensing the systemic problems with business-as-usual, seeking nature’s solutions, prototyping them for real, and storytelling to communicate the regenerative impact these solutions could have for communities and nature. The BiRD Labs gives students resources to ideate and create products, processes and places that create the conditions for all life to flourish, locally and globally. The BiRD Lab is more than a building — it is a place to rethink governance structures by observing ecosystems, seek scalable models for replacing toxic colouring with natural dyes, prototype natural packaging that replaces plastics and nourishes the soil, shape new building products using the immense amount of wasted agricultural fibres globally, or reimagine our relationship with abundance and wellbeing by learning from nature's elegant, time-tested strategies.BiRD embodies Green School's commitment to regenerative learning, encouraging us to ask critical questions (which admittedly have been challenging questions to design from!): 🌱 What are the true costs—social, ecological, and generational—of our design choices? 🌱 How might we co-create conditions where all life thrives, not merely survives? 🌱 Can our communities flourish by thinking, feeling, and designing as nature does?The BiRD Lab invites us to shift from compartmentalized, disciplinary thinking toward integrated, life-centered living systems.