Building Styles

House Gods: Sustainable Buildings and Renegade Builders

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Jim Kristofic’s initial intention with his new book House Gods was to expose Navajos to the possibilities of sustainable building techniques and at the same time lessen the footprint of buildings on the environment. Jim was raised on the reservation at Ganado, Arizona. “There are not a lot of passive solar buildings on the reservation … Read more

From Ruin to Regenerative Homestead

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After purchasing a ruin in a hilltop hamlet in the Spanish Pyrenees, Emmanuel Pauwels created a home in close harmony with the elements by first spending an entire year observing the patterns of the wind, sun, and rain. Today, the sun provides for passive heating of the home via south-facing windows, but also an antechamber … Read more

BioHome3D Printed with Bio-Based Materials

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The University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center has produced a prototype 3D printed house made entirely of bio-based materials. The 600-sq.-ft. structure is composed of wood fibers and what the Composites Center described as bio-resins, making the building fully recyclable. All the components of the house—roof, walls, and floors—were printed on what the … Read more

The Value of Straw Wattle Walls

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I recently received this message from Patti Stouter, who has been a long time advocate and experimenter with earthbags and other natural technologies, especially as a means for surviving earthquakes and other calamities: I am beginning a test shelter project of straw wattle that may be helpful in both Ukraine and Turkey, so this report … Read more