Every year we publish the most popular blog posts for the last 12 months. We’ll do that again in November on our 4th anniversary. Our goal here is to look at the most popular blog posts since we’ve started – the Best of the Bestest. Think of them as hidden gems unless you’ve read all … Read more
The ongoing economic recession is putting lots of people in difficult situations. For some, the situation may even seem hopeless. I’m writing this to remind everyone to never give up. Who knows for sure what’s in store in the future, but the main thing is to keep your head together and just keep on going. … Read more
Rob Ormerod has posted a fun animated video that condenses six months of building an earth sheltered earthbag house into just two and a half minutes. This construction was done at the Rhiannon Community in Ecuador. The budget for this house is $400. The roof construction involves a simple wooden frame and a corrugated steel … Read more
I want to take the ‘boulder house’ concept one step further by combining boulders with living walls and living roofs. The end result would be au natural – a sustainable home in a natural state. I envision a home that looks almost exactly like boulders surrounded by plants. It’s hard to think of a more … Read more
The lightweight geopolymer earthbag method I described yesterday opens the door to building boulder houses that could last hundreds or even thousands of years. All sorts of other styles could also be built, but for some reason (maybe because rocks last almost forever) these boulder houses really capture my imagination. Worst case scenario is you … Read more
I’m proposing using a combination of ferrocement, earthbags and porous geopolymer to build durable, affordable housing. In a nutshell, earthbags filled with lightweight geopolymer cement are fastened to a rebar or bamboo frame and then plastered with geopolymer cement. This is distinctly different from heavy earthbag walls, and much different than regular thin shell ferrocement … Read more