Kelly Hart

The First Permitted Tire Bale Home in New Mexico

by

I recently received the following email from Kimi Ishikawa: We are in the process of building the first-ever fully permitted tire bale home in New Mexico! I exchanged emails with Owen Geiger while we were exploring building methods, and shared info with him on Foxhole Homes, the organization that hopes to build tire bale homes in … Read more

The Off-Grid Ecocapsule Transportable Pod

by

The Ecocapsule is self-contained egg-shaped, mobile dwelling with solar and wind energy. Sona Pohlova and Tomáš Žáček created the original design in 2014 for an American client “who had a big ranch where he didn’t have any infrastructure and he needed some living units for visitors”. They spent 5 years turning their plans into a … Read more

Grain Bins as Affordable Housing

by

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

Recycling Building Materials

by

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

Bamboo and Rammed Earth Help Build Integrated Society

by

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