Mark Clipsham has come up with some new plans for affordable grain bin houses. According to Mark, the basic construction of these homes is fast and DIY friendly. There is no concrete foundation wall – the home’s wall construction is the same from the footing to the roof. They are monolithic/continuous, field-formed, self-supporting SIPs (no … Read more
Demolishing buildings is a $4 billion industry, with that number expected to rise. In 2010 an estimated 104 million tons of materials flowed from project sites creating nearly 40% of the nation’s annual solid-waste stream. In the UK, the construction industry accounts for 60% of all materials used, while also generating 45% of all CO2 … Read more
German architect Anna Heringer is very fond of rammed earth and its potential to replace the ubiquitous use of concrete. She feels that it can help reduce the dominance of lobbies and preserve and enrich local know-how, and thus transform construction into a tool for reducing inequalities. The Anandaloy Building, a center for people with … Read more
At Cornerstone Housing on the outskirts of Leeds is a six bedroom house that is part of a co-operative where the participants have been able to buy the house and then rent it at an affordable price back to themselves as tenants. Nearby, Chapeltown Cohousing plans to build build an eco-community of up to 30 … Read more
With walls made from old tires packed with earth, as well as upcycled glass bottles and cans, Earthships have always been built with mainly found materials. The home provides its own energy (with photovoltaics, passive solar and geothermal tubes), water (rainwater and even dew-water capture) and grows food in the greenhouse (necessary for temperature regulation … Read more
The ‘Xiangyuxiangyuan Home Stay’ in China combines old and new construction into a hospitality complex reflecting local culture and beliefs. The project comprises the restoration of three ancestral houses built in different times with the addition of two new buildings. Instead of repairing the old buildings the architects have inserted contemporary spatial elements where repair … Read more