Gabriella “Gabi” Abello and Hannah Blake met as freshman roommates at the University of Colorado Boulder. When they toured the Solar Decathlon showcase in Denver in 2017 they wondered why wasn’t CU involved? Nearly four years later, they led the CU team to the top award in the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon … Read more
Casa Covida blends rammed earth, mud, clay and other natural materials with 3D printing. These materials are local and easy to source. California-based Emerging Objects is a visionary studio that is exploring ways to use 3D printing using soil mixed with straw, sand, and other organic materials. The name Casa Covida refers to both the … Read more
Chinmay Pareek of Brzee Studio sent me more information about their natural building projects in India that I recently posted images of here. Brzee Studio is based in Jaipur, India and wants to break the noxious cycle exploiting Mother Earth and support the shift in consciousness needed to heal our alienation from the natural world. … Read more
Steve Demarest took advantage of the huge boulders covering his land in the Cascade Mountains to build a home that is part cave and part megalith dwelling. The location was originally a cave where his children played, but when they outgrew it, he moved in with his tools and began to craft the rock into … Read more
The walls in Gregory Ferembach’s public housing building are lined with one of nature’s best insulation materials: hemp. “We’re never cold in winter,” Ferembach said in French. “The kids walk around barefoot all the time, or even in their underwear.” It helps that their apartment is on a middle floor, and their building is sandwiched … Read more
The Stoltz Bluff Eco-Retreat is a monolithic cob house that’s completely off-grid. It has a 1-kilowatt solar power system and a backup generator for electricity, a propane radiant in-floor heating system and a Rumford fireplace for heat, and a constructed wetland for natural wastewater treatment. Many cob homes are built with a timber frame structure, … Read more