Harvey Lacey in Africa with visiting SMU Professor, Kenyan architect Ronald Omyonga

2012 Memnosyne Hamster Wheel Project

Harvey Lacey- Earthquake Test on house he created with recycled plastic bags

Harvey Lacey creates house

with recycled plastic bags

The Memnosyne Foundation’s "Hamster Wheel Program" works to collaboratively create a project with individuals or organizations who have identified a solution with the potential to empower a whole community or communities to escape an economic, environmental, health, etc. cycle they are "stuck" in. Solutions which take an integral approach to addressing multiple challenges facing a community are prioritized.

This is a program The Memnosyne Center for Global and Local Outreach seeks to do in collaboration with one or more of the other Memnosyne centers and all of The Memnosyne Foundation’s Center directors are encouraged to bring any such situations to the attention of the organization.

In 2012, The Memnosyne Foundation partnered with inventor Harvey Lacey who has developed a machine for creating plastic blocks out of plastic bags, Styrofoam, bottles, and whatever plastic trash people are trying to throw away. These plastic blocks can then be use to build houses. The process involves taking bags full of Styrofoam, plastic bottles, and other trash bags--and pressing them into blocks. The bags are loaded into a machine and then a wheel is turned to compress the contents. The blocks can then be used to build a house. For the small house that appears in the video, he used 1 truckload of trash plastic, along with $125 worth of rebar and another $120 worth of wire. The house has walls that are 8 1/2 inches thick in Styrofoam.

The Memnosyne Foundation’s underwriting the tests necessary to prove the concept’s ability to withstand a7.0 earthquake test and a 90 mph wind test is just the first step towards future collaborations should the concept be successful. Harvey Lacey’s concept qualified for the “Hamster Wheel” program because it has the potential of helping communities worldwide to escape the sociological-environmental-economic fully integrated challenges now facing communities around the globe. It is a holistic answer for a holistic problem.

“The house might fail. I don't believe it will. The tests will present an argument for innovation that the status quo will have to acknowledge. I hope it will offer an incentive for the youth to look at our problems through a holistic lens. I want them to see it isn't just about recycling, or just about houses for the poor, or creating jobs in developing nations, or promoting women's rights because when women have rights, men do too. Ubuntu-blox lays out an argument for all of those problems being one problem. And it is great for the soul because it provides work that has purpose.” ~ Harvey Lacey

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