conscious couple in Taiwan has opened a small schoolhouse built with donated newspapers fed through a homemade blender, the chief architect said Wednesday. Canadian-born John Lamorie and his Taiwanese wife, Shelly Wu, used more than 1,000 kg of newspapers, many collected from students who would turn them over for points in class, to build the 75 sq-meter schoolhouse. The project took about a year, with school now set to open ahead of schedule as news of the unusual construction method spreads in the rural area of Pingtung county. After getting the idea from visiting friends, Lamorie said he built a blender using a truck bed and a lawnmower blade. Into it he fed newspapers, water and cement to form what he calls “Papercrete”, the backbone of his six-inch thick school walls. Students contributed for the project in exchange for “reward cards.”
