CalPlant featured in The Atlantic
CalPlant—a facility designed to produce rice-straw-based, medium-density fiberboard (MDF)—is featured in Atlantic Re:think, a series on sustainability in The Atlantic. Strategically located in California’s Sacramento River Valley, CalPlant takes the rice straw, the by-product of rice farming, and converts it into MDF, a common building material usually made from wood. The facility has the capacity to convert 280,000 tons of post-harvest waste into 150 million square feet of MDF. By eliminating the traditional methods of burning the leftover rice straw or flooding fields to hasten decomposition, CalPlant’s practice reduces air pollution, water consumption, and methane emissions. It also eliminates the need to cut down trees, which would otherwise remove CO2 from the atmosphere, to make MDF. CalPlant launched Eureka MDF in November of 2020.
Image: CalPlant.
Rowell Brokaw played a small part in this incredibly large project. In the CalPlant facility, we designed the control building inside the main manufacturing plant for the MDF, as well as a small addition to the Straw Prep Building. Chris Andrejko and Peter Utsey enjoyed detailing the technical aspects of the control building—the control room itself, a transformer enclosure, an electrical room, a MiniFog equipment room, a heating room, a hydraulic room, and a lab—and reinforcing the humanistic aspects of the addition—a break room, an office, and bathrooms. They thoroughly enjoyed working with Evergreen Engineering, who led the project team with a practical and down-to-earth approach. They also appreciated contributing to such an important and exciting project that addresses sustainable sourcing in architecture.
For more on CalPlant’s innovative practices and environmental impact, read The Atlantic article “What if We Treated Waste as a Resource?”