Group will spend spring break teaching how to construct temporary housing by David Hill | Staff Writer, www.gazette.net It’s Sunday afternoon in College Park’s Calvert Hills neighborhood, and Desta Anyiwo — a 23-year-old student at the University of Maryland, College Park, — is being peppered with questions from curious onlookers. He explains that he and … Read more
From www.raglan.net.nz: Want to know more about greener building techniques? Solscape Eco retreat at Manu Bay, Raglan are running an earth bag building course workshop from 16th-30th March. Read on to learn more about earth bag building. From the Raglan Chronicle, October 2009, by Edith Symes: It looks like a teletubby house, or maybe a … Read more
From time to time we’ll post answers to readers’ questions. Q: How do earthbag structures compare to military sand bag bunkers? A: We know sand bags have been in use by the military for a very long time, possibly as long as 250 years. See Earthbag History Footnote. We also know sand bags (earthbags) are … Read more
This post was contributed by Patti Stouter. What building materials are available near a disaster site? Broken pipes, tubular steel, corrugated metal roofing? All of these can be used to stiffen earthbag walls. Corners of buildings are especially liable to earthquake damage. Horizontal motion in a quake can be twice as powerful as vertical motion. … Read more
There is a whole class of cement that was very popular in the days before the invention and manufacture of Portland cement quickly replaced its use. Generally classified as magnesium-based cement, this material was used in historic times in Europe, India, and China, among other countries. It is unfortunate that Portland cement has replaced the … Read more
Our earthbag design team is busy creating home and shelter designs, as well as innovative building ideas for the reconstruction effort in Haiti. (See Kelly Hart’s Alternative Bond Beam and Lintel system, for one example.) As you’re probably aware, conventional bond beams and foundations are made with reinforced concrete, but these are costly, labor intensive … Read more