Group will spend spring break teaching how to construct temporary housing by David Hill | Staff Writer, www.gazette.net It’s Sunday afternoon in College Park’s Calvert Hills neighborhood, and Desta Anyiwo — a 23-year-old student at the University of Maryland, College Park, — is being peppered with questions from curious onlookers. He explains that he and … Read more
From www.raglan.net.nz: Want to know more about greener building techniques? Solscape Eco retreat at Manu Bay, Raglan are running an earth bag building course workshop from 16th-30th March. Read on to learn more about earth bag building. From the Raglan Chronicle, October 2009, by Edith Symes: It looks like a teletubby house, or maybe a … Read more
There is a whole class of cement that was very popular in the days before the invention and manufacture of Portland cement quickly replaced its use. Generally classified as magnesium-based cement, this material was used in historic times in Europe, India, and China, among other countries. It is unfortunate that Portland cement has replaced the … Read more
Our earthbag design team is busy creating home and shelter designs, as well as innovative building ideas for the reconstruction effort in Haiti. (See Kelly Hart’s Alternative Bond Beam and Lintel system, for one example.) As you’re probably aware, conventional bond beams and foundations are made with reinforced concrete, but these are costly, labor intensive … Read more
Many of you may have wondered what the structure shown in our masthead is. These images are of a Glorieta that is a sort of glorified gazebo that emerged directly from the soil surrounding it. This was created as part of a conference about sustainability, held in Crestone, Colorado in 2003, attended by youth from … Read more
Here’s a great shelter design by Delani that was posted at Core 77 as part of a recent shelter competition. Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest, and this design is exquisite because of its simplicity. That means it’s inexpensive and easy to build. And no doubt about it, it will work structurally. (However, it … Read more