“This Felton, California home combines traditional passive-solar strategies with new-age materials. Learn more about this home and other 2016 HOUSES award winners at Finehomebuilding.com
Month: July 2016
13 Most Unusual Houses
Not all of the houses in the video are sustainably built with natural materials, however sometimes it’s fun to look at something different and unusual to stir the imagination. My personal favorites are Simon Dale’s 3,000 Euro Hobbit House in Wales (perhaps the most popular natural home in the modern era) and the Flintstones House. Simon Dale’s house epitomizes why Kelly and I do what we do. This house demonstrates how people of average skill can build their own affordable, even dirt cheap, natural house in a reasonable amount of time so they can break free of the rat race and do what they really want to do in life. Which ones are your favorites?
DIY Soil Stabilizer Recipe Part 2 – Call for Assistance
This is a call for assistance from a librarian who can help find a book on how to make do-it-yourself soil stabilizers for natural home builders. About two years ago I published a blog post titled DIY Soil Stabilizer Recipe that has received quite a few comments. Now it’s time to take things to the next level.
Free CASBA Straw Bale Journals 2007-2012
Free journals published by the California Straw Building Association are available on their website as PDF downloads. Only issues from 2007-2012 are available at this time. I’m not sure if the journal is still published. The issues I looked at are quite good. To give you an idea of the content, the first article in the list is titled ‘Straw Bale House Designed by CASBA Members Arkin Tilt Architects Wins Fine Homebuilding Magazine’s “Best New Home” of 2012’.
Safido Interlocking Brick Machine
Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs), also called earth blocks or CSEBs is one of the most popular natural building methods in part because bricks are well accepted and understood by builders, and because the walls go up fairly quickly. Thin walls take up minimal space in urban areas where lots are small and expensive. Interlocking bricks add stability. And, of course, the main material is clay which is dirt cheap.
Kasita: tiny prefab home-as-a-service for post-land urbanism
“Professor Jeff Wilson wants to create the “iPhone for housing”. He thinks we need to shed our preconceptions of housing as dependent on land and instead consider his plug-and-play shelter.