Steve's Dome Home

On a large organic mango farm, far into the countryside of northeastern Thailand, I have designed and built my little dome home. Enjoy the tour!

Website: Steve Areen

Earthbag/Adobe House

Building with earthbags (sometimes called sandbags) is both old and new. Sandbags have long been used, particularly by the military, for creating strong, protective barriers, or for flood control. The same reasons that make them useful for these applications carry over to creating housing. Since the walls are so substantial, they resist all kinds of severe weather (or even bullets) and also stand up to natural calamities such as earthquakes and floods. They can be erected simply and quickly with readily available components, for very little money.

Earthbag building fills a unique niche in the quest for sustainable architecture. The bags can be filled with local, natural materials, which lowers the embodied energy commonly associated with the manufacture and transportation of building materials. The fill material is generally of mineral composition and is not subject to decomposition (even when damp), attractive to vermin, or burnable...in other word it is extremely durable. The fill material is generally completely non-toxic and will not offgas noxious fumes into the building.

Earthbags have the tremendous advantage of providing either thermal mass or insulation, depending on what the bags are filled with. When filled with soil they provide thermal mass, but when filled with lighter weight materials, such as crushed volcanic stone, perlite, vermiculite, or rice hulls, they provide insulation. The bags can even act as natural non-wicking, somewhat insulated foundations when they are filled with gravel.

Because the earthbags can be stacked in a wide variety of shapes, including domes, they have the potential to virtually eliminate the need for common tensile materials in the structure, especially the wood and steel often used for roofs. This not only saves more energy (and pollution), but also helps save our forests, which are increasingly necessary for sequestering carbon.

Another aspect of sustainability is found in the economy of this method. The fill material can be literally "dirt cheap," especially if on-site soil is used. The earthbags themselves can often be purchased as misprints or recycled grain sacks, but even when new are not particularly expensive. Burlap bags were traditionally used for this purpose, and they work fine but are subject to rot. Polypropylene bags have superior strength and durability, as long as they are kept away from too much sunlight. For permanent housing the bags should be covered with some kind of plaster for protection, but this plaster can also be earthen and not particularly costly.

The ease and simplicity of building with earthbags should also be mentioned, since there is much unskilled labor available around the world that can be tapped for using this technology. One person familiar with the basics of earthbag building can easily train others to assist in the erection of a building. This not only makes the process more affordable, but also more feasible in remote areas where many common building skills are not to be found.

Website: Earthbag Building



How to build an earthbag house



Construction of an adobe dome

Cob House Building

Margaret Krome-Lukens shows us the cob home being built by interns at North Carolina's Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute. Since her new home is less than 150 square feet, she talks about the joy of giving up stuff to move in.

Cob House Building in Northern Spain.

What if I told you that you could build your very own beautiful home with the resources right beneath your feet, on a budget of a few thousand dollars, and never have to live with a mortgage?

Use the earth that God has given us to build our homes.

Simple Solar Homesteading

How to have a home with no house payments and no monthly utility bills! This is an introduction to simple solar homesteading that provides information on how to find cheap land, build an inexpensive home, and use solar power to eliminate monthly utility bills. What would you do if you had no house payment and no monthly utility bills ? Well watch the video and I will show you how it is done easily and with very little money.

Watch a video how to built a 14x14 solar cabin for under $2000.

DIY Home For Less Than $ 3500

In a town where the median home price is over half a million dollars, Jenine Alexander decided to build her own. "It's a house that's mobile… For me it just made sense because I don't own any land yet. Land is so expensive around here like I don't have access to that kind of opportunity. What do I have access to, the dump, to craigslist." Using resources like the tiny house blogs and the book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (a gift from her mom), Jenine spent less than $3,500 on her home. In fact, she used nearly only materials recovered from the dump or found on craigslist and the only things she paid for were a trailer and fasteners (nails, screws, hinges, etc). She built it on wheels not just to get around minimum size standards, but mostly because she couldn't afford land in her hometown of Healdsburg, California.

In this video, Jenine shows us her reclaimed floors/windows/beams, her ample storage space and her expandable roof and she talks about why living small helps her live simply and more comfortably (more photos on her blog).

House Of Trash

See how beautiful and efficient a house of trash can be. Annie and Jay Warmke in Ohio live in a wonderful House Of Trash so special they even give tours of the place. All the structures on their property are built with reclaimed materials, and actual 'garbage'. There are 1,400 old tires packed with mud, along with bottles, cans and plastic jugs providing insulation. They even bought a barn for $200 at auction just to use the wood! As this couple says, there's a lot of garbage out there to put to good use. They have a plastic bottle greenhouse for year round food production. Both structures manage their own heating, cooling and water needs without any external help.

We The Tiny House People

TV producer and Internet-video personality Kirsten Dirksen invites us on her 5-year journey into the tiny homes of people searching for simplicity, self-sufficiency, minimalism and happiness by creating shelter in caves, converted garages, trailers, tool sheds, river boats and former pigeon coops.

Off Grid, DIY, Smart Home

On an off-grid property in Philo, California (Mendocino County), Loren Amelang built a home that would help him generate 'free hot water, free power and a decent chunk of free heat'. The entire south side of his home is covered in solar capture devices: 1600 watts of photovoltaic power, solar hot water panels, a sunroom/greenhouse and a solar hot air collector. 'The sunroom/greenhouse provides most of the free heat'. Putting his technical skills to use (he's a pioneer in C++ programming), Amelang wrote over 10,000 lines of code so that his home's water and electric systems could be operated more efficiently and automatically. An added benefit is the ability to control everything remotely, by even just an iPhone. Since he built most of the home himself (the person he hired to do it decades ago, spent all the money and built half the house), Amelang has made it very custom. He avoided using aluminum and plastic (except for the insulation on the wiring) and he wired it for pure DC lighting (which makes sense with solar, but Amelang also likes how 'peaceful' DC lighting feels).

Straw Bale Homes

Straw Bale Shelters

Houses of straw - the rediscovery of strawbale building

Strawbales are a new, interesting building material: it is a sustainable, ecologically sound resource, available in abundance. Strawbale walls achieve highest insulation values and offer a healthy, beautiful living environment.
This film is a trailer for a DVD called "Houses of straw", shot in Germany. It shows the recent developments, many examples show the different possibilities of building with straw. In interviews with owner-builders, architects and experts we hear a lot of importants aspects. And: an exciting fire test shows: strawbale walls don´t burn!

Straw bale house made by single mom for $50,000

I built my passive solar straw bale house with earthen plasters in 2000 for $50K (will most likely cost more today, depending on many factors). This is an overview of the house; it is extremely energy-efficient. My electric bills are about $35 per month.

How to build with strawbales

Part Of The Solution

To us, the phrase "Part Of The Solution" defines someone or something that makes the world a little better. We try to give back more than we take from the planet and humanity in general. This video is designed to give credit to the people who are doing just that. Maybe they'll inspire you, or maybe it's just good viewing, but hopefully it will make you think about what you're doing and how you can, in your own way, become Part Of The Solution.

SunRay Kelly

Growing up in the wild hills of the Pacific Northwest, it seems like SunRay was always building something. His favorite source of inspiration and materials is the woods around him, "God's Hardware Store" as he calls it. When working on a project it is not uncommon to see him pick up a saw and head off into the woods looking for the right piece of wood to present itself. If he says anything, he'll mumble "I'm going shopping."

Website: SunRay Kelley 

Simple Survival Model Earthship

Can be replicated to create larger buildings. Aimed at being the cheapest and most affordable Earthship possible. A very simple set of details to put together. Radically Sustainable Buildings. The Most Versatile and Economical building design in the world.

Earthships can be built in any part of the world, in any climate and still provide you with what you need to survive, with 'modern' amenities, if desired. The Earthship building method has been evolving for over 40 years. 

Website: Earthship Biotecture

See also: Garbage Warrior & Earthships



The Most Versatile and Economical building design in the world.



Trailer for a new Earthship Documentary.
An inspiring and personal story about a group of people building sustainable housing in the Baja California peninsula in Mexico, it also serves as an introductory guide to building alternative sustainable housing, as well as describing with the use of animation, how these buildings offer solutions to today's most important issues like: energy, water, food, shelter, sewage and recycling.



An overview of Earthship Biotecture. The ultimate in Green Buildings.

Living In The Future # 24: Building With Mud

Heavy autumn rains have made progress difficult for the ecovillage pioneers in Pembrokeshire, but they have still built two beautiful reciprocal frame roundhouses.

Michael Reynolds: Earthship Webinar

Michael Reynolds, inventor of the Earthship Concept sits down 'with the world' live, over the internet at the Phoenix Earthship. Entirely powered by the sun and the wind, the 'Earthship Webinar' is broken down into 8 parts and covers all aspects of Earthship Biotecture.



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6



Part 7



Part 8

Living In The Future #15: Rachel Shiamh's Strawbale House

Rachel Shiamh's two storey straw bale house in Pembrokeshire.
Straw-bale construction is a building method that uses straw bales as structural elements, insulation, or both. It is commonly used in natural building. It has advantages over some conventional building systems because of its cost, easy availability, and its high insulation value
This house was the first two-storey load-bearing strawbale structure to be built in the UK and only the second in Europe. The design brief, set by owner Rachel Shiamh, was to build a beautiful, low impact strawbale home which had to be sensitive to its natural environment, self-sustaining and made from natural and mainly local materials.

Cob Homes

Photos of cob homes on the West Coast of Canada

Grand Designs - Ben Law

Two excerpts from the documentary where the famous British woodsman Ben Law is covered as he plans and executes the development of the wooden house of his (and monay others') dreams. Build entirely of wood that he himself has husbanded, on land that he has cared for, this represents the culmination of a lifetimes work and acheivement in modern environmentalism.





Full Movie

Bamboo Living: Green Home Made With Bamboo

What's it like to create an eco-lux island style home that's made with sustainable and beautiful bamboo?

Earthships

An Earthship is a passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials using thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization and renewable energy & integrated water systems. This makes the Earthship an off-grid home with little to no utility bills.
Biotecture is the profession of designing buildings and environments with consideration for their sustainability through a combination of biology and architecture.



Part 2

First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture

First Earth is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter -- building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, First Earth makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream.

First Earth official website: http://www.davidsheen.com/firstearth

Part 1: What's Wrong With Architecture?



Part 2: African Earth



Part 3: American Earth



Part 4: Why Earth?



Part 5: Empowering Earth



Part 6: Another Earth is Possible



Part 7: European Earth



Part 8: Arabian Earth



Part 9: Urban Earth



Part 10: Inner City Earth



Part 11: International Earth



Part 12: Future Earth