History of the Idea
The One Day House grew out of an idea that Don's father, Donald Cook Sr, passed on to him about 55 years ago.
Don's father had been a building contractor and had been aware of a type of cement called "Sorel Cement".
This cement, also called magnesium oxychloride cement, was discovered by the French civil engineer / chemist Stanislas Sorel during the mid-1800's.
It's components can be extracted from sea water. And Sorel had predicted that the seas would eventually become a major
source of materials for the construction industry.
Starting in 2003, Don had been looking with interest at a known process that involved using sea water for removing Carbon Dioxide from industrial
gas emissions. And wondering if the modification of this process to produce raw materials for Sorel Cement might not offer a much needed solution to the
problem of reducing Carbon Dioxde emissions into the atmosphere.
A major problem with Sorel Cement is that it is corrosive and completely unsuited to the use of steel for reinforcement.
But, unlike normal Portland Cement, Sorel cement is very well suited to the use of Glass Fiber as a reinforcing material.
But in 2004, there was a major earthquake coupled with a very large Tsunami that hit Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Southeast coast of India.
The need for low-cost, quick-build houses became very urgent. Don and Margie traveled first to Indonesia and then focused on Southeast
India to start work on prototype houses.
Photographs of some of the iterations in the design can be seen in the Page: "Design History" - link to the page is above.
