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

Our Roundhouse in Fall

It’s fun watching the roundhouse through the seasons. No matter what time of year, it always looks great. Our earthbag dome has been more popular on the Internet, but locally the roundhouse is far more popular. Everyone loves it. Note the earthbag bench under the tree. This is the third one we’ve built, not counting … Read more

60 House Plans Upgraded to Computer Renderings

My goal last year was to upgrade 40 of my most popular plans. This has now been completed, along with 20 additional designs. So there are now 60 finished plans available, including this new Roundhouse with Yurt. In this design, the roundhouse provides low cost space and a stable base for the yurt. The elevated … Read more

Garden House in Tanzania

Here’s a nice project one of our readers sent in. Text below is from Birgit. “I just remembered I said I would send you a few pictures of my first experiment with lime mix earthbags here in Tanzania. So far they are “behaving” extremely well, and I am planning to do a “real” house in … Read more

Earthbag in Nepal

We’ve been getting a fair number of inquiries from Nepal. It’s always great to hear from readers, but sometimes certain emails really stand out. This one really made my day. They sent some lovely project photos. Dear Sir, I am Narayan writing from Nepal. I am currently working in designing and building natural buildings in … Read more

Rasin Foundation Medical Clinic

Construction has begun on a new clinic with environmentally friendly low cost earthbag construction at rural Petite-Riviere, Leogane, Haiti.  The new clinic will have four exam rooms (including a dental suite), a treatment/surgical room, nurses station, waiting room, storage and bathroom.  Completion will hopefully be in early 2011. The current makeshift clinic (seen as the metal … Read more