Cob Fibro Cement revisited

[Rog]

Greetings all,

Have just returned from a research tour of some of the east coast of
Australia, looking into intentional communities and permaculture.
One particular building I saw at a permaculture display village just
outside of Nimbin (northern New South Wales) was interesting from a design
point of view.  Its use of aspects and vents was admirable, however the
main wall material struck me as being relevant to the debate here regarding
fibro cement.
In short, they've used (off the top of my head) one part cement, two parts
sand and three parts _saw-dust_.  The resultant walls were a nice texture
-- at a distance one could make out the curves of each pour (a couple of
inches each) but on closer inspection the individual bits of saw-dust were
clearly visible.  They were generally warm to touch.  Unfortunately I
didn't ask much about their insulation qualities.
They had been poured into slip-form molds nailed onto verticals spaced
about a meter apart (sorry about the jump from imperial to metric -- that's
the X-generation for you).  The individual fibres of saw-dust were not
going anywhere; the material itself was totally resistant to my probing
finger-nail.  It had been poured two or three years earlier and was showing
no signs of damage from the sun, the rain, or other curious folks like me. 
The person responsible was intending to put an external coat of render on
at some stage but was certainly under no time pressure on this one.
The building itself was totally legit, although the walls weren't
load-bearing.  Mind you, Nimbin would have to be one of the most
alternative-minded areas on the globe...  When I was there the local
council was actually subsidising people at a dollar-for-dollar rate for
solar installations.  This is the same council that helps out with the
annual "Mardi-Grass", a highly publicised pro-marijuana rally.  Anyway, I
digress.
Methinks that this could be a short-cut around the problem of how to shred
up all the paper required for fibro-cement.  It's not as ethically apt as
recycled paper, but it's not bad.  Further, I'm guessing that little bits
of wood are going to be a fair bit stronger than little bits of paper.
No, no hammer tests were performed.

Just thought you'd be interested.
Cheers, Rog.