Earth Building: Low Energy Input

Building with earth requires low energy input in processing and handling soil – only about 1% of the energy required to manufacture and process the same volume of cement concrete. This aspect was investigated by the Desert Architecture Unit which has discovered that the energy needed to manufacture and process one cubic metre of soil … Read more

Will Natural Building Readily Take Off?

Here’s a response I made to a reader over on the Mother Earth News Blog who said “This type of building for people is not going to readily take off.” Owen: It’s all a matter of perspective, because over 1/3 (some estimate ½) of the houses in the world fall into this category! This includes … Read more

List of Needs to Expedite Earthbag Growth

Bit by bit, word of earthbag building is spreading. Even though no large industry or organization has thrown their might behind the effort, earthbag continues its grassroots growth. Occasionally we stop and ponder, in a focused way, what can be done to facilitate this growth. With that in mind, here’s a partial list of needs … Read more

Complex Dome Home in Austin, Texas

Bill and Thea, via www.earthbaghouse.com are hosting the first Earthbag Open-House on January 8th in Austin, Texas. They have documented the building of this complex dome home and plan to create an earthbag building course as well as a blog that chronicles their work, with videos, photos and interviews with earth artists and builders. They … Read more

Vote on my Earthbag Book

Comments closed: Everyone voted unanimously for the longer book, so that’s what I’ll do. Thanks for the input. My upcoming book on earthbag building – How to Build Vertical Earthbag Walls – is taking shape and hopefully will be ready in a few weeks. It’s turning out longer than expected. I was hoping for 50 … Read more

First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture

Free documentary film about building healthy houses out of earth. All content below from the First Earth website. FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter — building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, … Read more