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

Rice Hull Earthbag House

I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with Paul in Chiang Dao, a district north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. We’ve been discussing how to build an earthbag house with bags filled with rice hulls. Rice hulls are super cheap, fire resistant, superinsulating, and super lightweight and easy to work with. Rice hulls are the by-product of … 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

Passive Houses Use 90% Less Energy – Really?

Here’s a great article by Gayle Fleming, an environmentalist and green real estate advisor at EcoGayle’s Blog. She’s EcoBroker certified and a NAR Green designated real estate agent in the Washington DC metro area. The following text is quoted from her blog. “Yes, really. You think the oil, coal, natural gas and HVAC companies want … Read more

Another Earthbag Bench

Here’s our third earthbag bench. I love these small projects. They’re so simple and practical. This one was made almost entirely with surplus materials: a few extra bags filled with gravel, cement plaster and scrap tile. It was built during the construction of our earthbag roundhouse so all the tools, materials, etc. were all in … Read more

2012: Time for Change

I just found this video by Daniel Pinchbeck and was pleasantly surprised to see earthbag building being demonstrated. It’s just a small segment in the film, but still it’s good to see the word getting out. Text below is their description of the film. “Storyline: 2012: Time For Change is a documentary feature that presents … Read more