New approaches to home-building are emerging in response to the multiple crises of climate change, unaffordable housing, deprivation and exclusion. Models for housing vary enormously, from self-build, to socially provided housing and speculative, private markets. But the failure of rent-based models to provide homes that people can afford, especially in big cities and larger towns, … Read more
A Colorado Airbnb known as Wonder Haus seems to enchant all who visit. The owners, Adrian and Jeff Young, dreamed of creating an off-the-grid “mountain haven” with an arched glass-sided structure to feel immersed with the outdoors. First they bought an existing passive solar earth house that was built to satisfy the former owner’s love … Read more
If you go to www.messynessychic.com you will find a delightful array of archived photos of various kinds of shelter carved out of tree trunks, mostly from the giant sequoia found on the west coast of the U.S. There are also some descriptions of who created them and how they were used.
This Slovenian rammed earth house, topped by a green roof, was conceived by three architects as part of a competition. The lifted roof takes shape as a green canopy, blending the rammed earth house with the surrounding forest and protecting the rammed earth walls from water damage. The roof is used as a shading element, … Read more
There is a wonderful blog about the experiences of building an earthbag dome community in the Southwest desert that goes way back to reminiscing about the early days of being at CalEarth with Nader Khalili. You can spend hours browsing through the archives at 3moonsprojectblog.wordpress.com Here are some photos to whet your appetite:
The School of Architecture, established by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932, has graduated the first generation of experimental structures, or ‘shelters’, built at the school’s new campus at Arcosanti, USA. The graduating students have re-imagined what a dwelling structure might look like through a broadened range of materials, uses, and degrees of permanence. Jessica Martin … Read more