For some people, Pele Juju is a core memory. The All-Women World Beat-Band, based in Santa Cruz, created an enormous basis and national supporters in the late 80s and early 90s.
When the band appeared, toured and played big festivals, including Reggae on the River, the Los Angeles Street scene and the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Lead guitarist Michele Landegger also worked as a carpenter.
Nowadays you will not find them on stage, but Landegger is flourishing in a new appointment as President of Studio Boa, a full-service design and construction company that emphasizes environmentally friendly, natural and sustainable building practices, with a strong focus on the design and construction of accessory residential units (ADU).
One could say that Landegger closed the circle. “My point of view is, music and art are an essential part of the human need and who we are as well as food and protection,” said Landegger. “I accidentally contact the protection.”
Landegger was licensed in 1988 and founded Studio Boa (formerly Boa Constructor Building & Design) and partner/lead designer Debrae Lopes. “We developed the Design -Build aspect of the BOA constructor in 1996 by our own homestead,” said Landegger. “When I left the band in 1995, we bought 20 morning Rawland in 1996 and started building.”
First, Landegger studied through the CETA program at Cabrillo College. The comprehensive employment and training law (CETA) is a non -employed US federal program for training and employment. “I became here because of the Cabrillo College,” said Landgger. “I went to a nationwide -financed program in which women and bipoc people were trained in retail.”
While it is a difficult woman on the market, Landegger was hired by a large number of male contractors who developed them into a highly qualified carpenter. “I started in solarthermal and was hired by a solar entrepreneur and moved to carpentry,” she said.
When she redefined her career, Landegger came to integrate energy -efficient, non -toxic buildings and solar design into affordable living space. “As a builder, the focus that I now take is to nurse and how important they are for community, affordable living space and infill apartments,” she said.
Agricultural waste
An essential motivator for the BOA design is the implementation of carbon breakdown or carbon sequest rate. “Straw Bale starts carbon from being released into the atmosphere, so Stroh is really a great viable material,” said Landegger. As CO2 of cars, buildings and production, sequesting carbon is another way to reduce our CO2 footprint and not only lose weight, but also to save these gases in the atmosphere before the release.
“Buildings make up 40% of the CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Landgger. “Change of our structure can have an incredibly significant influence on our climate praise.”
It is seen as a current trend to fish with nurse for more generations with several generations, and Studio Boa's reaction was to create an ADU profile with a panned 12-inch wall system of the fire-resistant straw. Landegger has built a number of 1,200 square meters of houses in which the larger main house can still be built on a package over a morning. In the city of Santa Cruz, this allowance is up to 800 feet depending on the size of the property. “We have created a straw plate that is 499 square meters in size,” she said. With this Prefab ADU design, owners can also avoid a soil report, she noticed.
On site you can find Boa's work in the whole of Santa Cruz County-Zum Example the 2.160 square meter straw of the Sullivan family near the intersection of Capitola and Wharf Roads. The craft man of the house was built from straw bales, which were covered with a plaster and fit seamlessly into the neighborhood. (The interior has an earthen gip.)
As described by Mother Earth News Magazine: “The airtight straw walls of the house and the recycled cellulose insulation create a building cover that helps the thermal mass to maintain heat or coolness that is released over time and keeps the house at a comfortable temperature,” writes the author. (“Solar in the city”, issue no. 210, June/July 2005)
“And we built a lot of straw houses and Adu as well as a straw panel prototype ADU in the Grant Street Park in the city of Santa Cruz,” said Landegger. This list also contains a straw bale house for a family that has lost theirs in the Czu Lightning Complex in Boulder Creek, and energy -efficient builds in Scotts Valley and Watsonville. In total, Boa built about 13 straw bale houses and many other houses, additions and conversions with stick frame in Santa Cruz County.
Fire -resistant and renewable
Straw with plaster is a fire -resistant medium, and Studio Boa has built many houses with straw together with framed houses with standard constructions. An organic base material, straw is not only fire and pest-resistant, but also renewable, said Landegger. Houses that were built with straw as infill insulation and built with plaster “stucco” were tested compared to the average embroidery frame with stucco, which is rated as one hour, as two-hour fire ratings. “In contrast to frame channels, this is due to the dense pack of the straw with less dense fiber optic insulation,” explains Landegger.
A uniquely cool feature of almost all straw bale houses is a “truth window”, a panel that opens to reveal the straw that is used in the building. Stroh also has no pest problems because it is closely enclosed. “It is really resistant to pests and fire,” said Landegger. In Nebraska there are still houses that were built from straw in the 19th century when wood was not easily available, she says.
The recent innovations in straws such as straw blocks and panels have also expanded the options, so that people are no longer limited to complete bales.
Straw is a by -product of food production – wheat and barley stems – of which both pollution and at the same time are not isolative, said Landgger. “Then we can really solve a few problems at the same time by sequest carbon dioxide into the construction of houses. Two defined problems of our time are the climate crisis and affordable living space. The natural building is at the interface of these two crises,” she said.
The end of the nineties returned to Pele Juju, and Landegger played for 10 touring and recordings with Pele Leadgitar. From his modest beginnings as a garage band, Pele Juju developed into a community event. “It is astonishing what an iconic band it was,” said Landegger. “It was born in the community. We grew in the community. It was a magical time for all of us in terms of creativity and importance of art and music in our community.”
Ultimately, Landegger believes that the band has become more commercialized in the pressure of success and the press. The singer Dana Hutson really brought the whole band to another level. I don't think we made cover at all, ”said Landegger. Brindle, the legendary hand drummer percussionist, died in 2009 and some men even joined various iterations of the band over the years, including the drummer Rick Walker, Gary Regina and Bob Burnett.” We are all spread out and do various things, “says Landegger.”
According to the last FM website, Pele Juju was chosen five times in a row in a survey by Santa Cruz in the 90s in a row. “So many of our arts need support in the material world,” added Landegger. “I had to support my family. I couldn't do it as a gigging musician.” Now she expresses her love for art by building local community.
Further information on Studio Boa Green Design Build can be found at studio.boa.com, call 831-334-1147 or email mi*****@st****.bOa.