The number of farms in the United States has been in decline for quite awhile, but some are turning to homesteading, where property owners use home gardening, lumber production and other subsistence skills to take more control over their lives during uncertain times. The definition of a homestead varies. For the purists, it means living … Read more
In flood-prone Pakistan, villagers are trading tents and tarpaulins provided by aid agencies for natural materials such as lime, mud and bamboo to build their own low-cost and water-resistant homes. Designed by Yasmeen Lari – Pakistan’s first certified female architect – about 1,000 such houses have been built. Traditional mud huts are vulnerable to extreme … Read more
The four houses shown above are completely different in size and style, but they are all environmentally friendly, cheap, and fast to construct because they are made with earthbags. The four earthbag dwellings above are, clockwise from top left, in Veracruz, Mexico, Capetown, South Africa, Ahwaz, Iran and Durban, South Africa. Many countries with urgent … Read more
Dunbar Spring near downtown Tucson, Arizona is a neighborhood with unpaved sidewalks lined with native, food-bearing trees and shrubs fed by rainwater diverted from city streets. One single block has over 100 plant species. This urban food forest was planted almost 30 years ago and provides food for residents and roughage for livestock. The tree … Read more
The Joali Being wellness retreat in the Maldives archipelago was built with a bamboo framework that is topped with a woven roof canopy. The engineering and construction aim to maintain the architectural idea of a floating retreat complex delivering technical solutions and details to preserve the quality and stability of the structure in the particular … Read more
Michael Reynolds, the 77-year-old architect and founder of Biotecture Enterprise has been experimenting near Taos, New Mexico for more than 50 years with constructing Earthships, self-sufficient off-grid houses that harvest their own electricity, water and heat. “We build according to six principles,” Reynolds sums up his philosophy. “Passive thermal heating and cooling, power from the … Read more