Kasey Budgell, 14, is helping to bring an earth-sheltered greenhouse to King’s Point, Canada. Growing has been a family passion for generations, she said, recalling that as a tot she’d trail her grandfather around his garden. “I’d always want to be able to cut the turnip tops off, and be hands-on with it, but I was … Read more
David Easton passed away in February this year at 72. Since the ’70s, he advocated for and experimented with earth as a building material. In a 2018 interview he described how he learned about Rammed Earth and why he chose to try it. “I found a book on the rack of a natural food store … Read more
One of the great assets of Canada’s Cowichan Valley is the Centennial Park Cob Kitchen. It’s a beautiful Cob pizza oven and cooktop available to the community. The Cob Kitchen can be used by individuals for family use, community organizations who wish to host an event or program, or by local businesses. Having heard that the … Read more
On a small island off New Zealand’s mainland is a building known as Te Kura Whare, which is designated as a “living building.” New Zealand law now recognizes the local terrain as a living entity, with legal rights of personhood. The Living Buildings framework, as set out by the International Living Future Institute, awards the … Read more
Windcatchers are a great example of the marriage between architectural design and the environment to help keep your house cool. For more than a thousand years, windcatchers have existed in and around the Persian Gulf, providing natural ventilation and passive cooling. Keeping cool through the summer involves controlling how all the elements in the house … Read more
In the heart of the Thar Desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan, this girls school was a pro-bono project by New York–based architect Diana Kellogg commissioned by a non-profit group. The school will serve more than 400 girls from households below the poverty line in the region where female literacy is just 36 percent. … Read more