page_title: Pliny Fisk III
section_title: Crystal City, Nicaragua and the Laredo Demonstration Farm
hierarchical_section_title: Pliny Fisk III / Work / Crystal City, Nicaragua and the Laredo Demonstration Farm
caption_attribution_description: English: Laredo Demonstration Farm site designed and build by Pliny Fisk, now the Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center in Laredo, Texas
context_page_description: Pliny Fisk III is a co-founder and co-director of the "Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems", a sustainable design and planning 501c3 non-profit established in 1975. Fisk also serves as Fellow in Sustainable Urbanism and Fellow in Health Systems Design at Texas A & M University, where he holds a joint position as signature faculty in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Planning. Fisk has previously held positions at:
  Ball State University;
  The University of Texas;
  Mississippi State University;
  University of Oklahoma.
context_section_description: When the „Lo Vaca Gathering Co“ shut off the natural gas supply to the small town of Crystal City (Texas) in the fall of 1977, – Fisk developed the idea of using Army surplus wood stoves and abundant mesquite for heating. By January 1978, Crystal City residents – had installed nearly 1,000 wood stoves. In subsequent years – Fisk led an effort to manufacture and install inexpensive solar hot water heaters using salvaged materials. The production of the solar collectors – also helped bolster the job market of Crystal City.
  In 1983, Fisk was sponsored by the „Center for Investigation and Documentation of the Atlantic Coast“ (CIDCA) – to set into motion a large scale indigenous housing program for the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast. Fisk's goal in the project – was to draw upon the available natural and human resources of the region to address an extreme housing shortage. He – helped develop building materials, using abundant stocks – of:
  Kaolinite High Alumina Clay;
  waste sawdust and woodchips;
  waste rice husks.
  In 1991: the Texas Department of Agriculture (and – Laredo Junior College) – hired Fisk (and CMPBS): to design and build a demonstration farm (outside the arid South Texas city, of Laredo). The 2-acre (8,100 m²) farm:
  integrated local materials: in its mesquite wood floors and straw-bale buildings;
  achieved passive cooling: with wind towers;
  salvaged steel oil-rig drilling stems: for the super-structure, of the facility.
  Shade structures – protect the farm (from the often extreme South Texas sun).
caption: Site of Laredo Demonstration Farm, now the Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center
exif: {}