I want to take the ‘boulder house’ concept one step further by combining boulders with living walls and living roofs. The end result would be au natural – a sustainable home in a natural state. I envision a home that looks almost exactly like boulders surrounded by plants. It’s hard to think of a more … Read more
The lightweight geopolymer earthbag method I described yesterday opens the door to building boulder houses that could last hundreds or even thousands of years. All sorts of other styles could also be built, but for some reason (maybe because rocks last almost forever) these boulder houses really capture my imagination. Worst case scenario is you … Read more
From Ginger at I’d Rather Be… Pursuing an Off-Grid Life: “We are planning to build a fence at the new place. I had an idea for an earthbag/sheet metal fence, and an earthbag/conduit fence. I want to consider earthbag pillars with corrugated sheet metal in between the pillars where privacy is needed. I want to … Read more
Houses in the Mindfulness Project, a planned sustainable community in Thailand, are grouped in clusters of five with a bamboo gazebo in the center and two Solar Vaults (1. mechanical room, shop; 2. toilets, showers, laundry) in the nearest clearing. This cluster shows Insulated Earthbag Domes. Some clusters will have Domed Roundhouses (an exciting new … Read more
Adapted from email exchanges with Sumano: People will likely use the gazebo daily for baking bread together, overseeing children, picnics and other informal gatherings. Once people let go of TVs, video games, and other wasteful things then it’s only natural that they’ll want to spend more time with other people. The gazebo has a pentagonal … Read more
This is a fourth installment on earthbag vaults. Previous posts have already covered most of the details. This blog post presents two more options – living roof and thatch roof. The thatched roof is the simplest and fastest. The living roof is much more difficult and not recommended as a first time project. The roof … Read more