Join a Tour of Marie’s Wild Life

Join Marie, a French woman, as she reviews her life creating a wide variety of living accommodations, from renovated crumbling cabins, to tiny homes, to a van, to a large personally designed home, to a small country homestead, all with horses, dog and son in tow. Marie is a geo-biologist and animal therapist, and you … Read more

Earthbag Building Gaining Traction in Africa

Earthbag construction utilizes bags filled with earth, resulting in strong, eco-friendly structures. Affordability and sustainability are key, hence it is becoming a go-to choice for construction in Africa. The primary ingredient, earth, is free and practically unlimited in most places. Bags used to hold the earth are cheap and can be re-used from agricultural purposes. … Read more

Holland Embraces Bio-based Materials for Building

Nineteen municipalities in Holland have made agreements on ‘bio-based building and growing’. With this they want to further promote the use of natural building materials and the cultivation of crops for this purpose. Biobased materials, such as fiber hemp and miscanthus, fit into the transition to sustainable agriculture, focusing on water and soil quality and … Read more

Sinfonia Verde in Costa Rica

Sinfonia Verde is an off-grid home that merges with the surrounding jungle ecology in Costa Rica. It floats over the jungle floor, almost disappearing with its permeability—an ideal way, it would seem, for inhabiting the jungle. Sinfonia Verde is a residence for a pair of researchers—a climate scientist and a marine biologist—who profoundly influenced the … Read more

Panelized Straw Bale Home in Rhode Island

Architect and designer Jenna Yu’s home in Providence, Rhode Island features wooden siding on an addition connected to the original 19th-century home. The addition was built with panelized straw. The walls were plastered by her family and friends with earthen plaster, and the light fixtures were handcrafted by her mother and step-father.  With two young … Read more