Earthen Hand — Newberry Roundhouse

Scott Howard of Earthen Hand Natural Building does it again! This earthbag cabin in Portland, Oregon was “built mostly during a workshop series in summer 2009. We had a lot of fun with building this house.” Click the link to see more pics. I think roundhouses are the simplest earthbag structures to build, and I … Read more

Passive Houses in the New York Times

Gayle Fleming at EcoGayle’s Blog recommended an article in the New York Times that addresses the effectiveness of passive homes: Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green? The New York Times article chronicles the experiences of Barbara and Steven Landau, who are building a 2,000 sq. ft. house to the passive-house standard in … Read more

Earth Sheltered, Solar Powered & Heated Home

The following text and video is from Daniel Geery’s article at OpEdNews. I can really relate to what this guy is saying about sustainable housing. Most of the technology was well known decades ago, as you can see in his video below. His house shows just how simple living off grid can be. “My family … Read more

Final Earthbag Book Cover Photo

Goldmund Lukic, a professional photographer, was kind enough to reshoot Julien’s house in Koh Phangan for the cover of my upcoming earthbag book. Click on the photo to see it full size. You might remember the previous blog post about this. Someone left a comment and strongly encouraged me to redo the photo professionally. Well, … Read more

NPR Radio: Dirt Bag House

This just in from Joe Newman, who’s building his earthbag home in New Mexico. “We have a locally produced show on NPR called Ozarks at Large. We recently had a 5 minute spot aired on earthbag building. We were interviewed along with another couple building an earthbag structure in Garfield Arkansas. Short interview, so my … Read more

Adding Character and Style to Your Home

It’s not difficult to customize stock house plans to match your style preferences. To get ideas it’s helpful and fun browsing good websites for pleasing design details: trim, colors, interesting uses of natural materials, window treatments, roof details and so on. Here are some of my favorite design sites that feature the beauty of natural … Read more