The Father of Earthbag Building, Nader Khalili, died peacefully, surrounded by his family, a couple of days ago. He was 71 years old. Here is part of a letter sent out by his family to former students: “The flames that ignited him in life and the quest that brought each of you to Cal-Earth to … Read more
It’s easy to be distracted and even wowed by glitzy features in a new house – a built-in entertainment unit, hot tub, walk-in closets, custom cabinets, and more. But the next time you’re in a stick frame house, really stop to think about what the house itself is made of. It’s actually just a thin … Read more
I recently got an email from Steve Cameron with the sketch shown below that he had drawn of a concept for filling and forming earthbag tubing into a uniform rectangular form on the wall being built. Steve asked for any comments that I might have about this idea, so I wrote: This is certainly an … Read more
Owen and I have collaborated on a new article posted at earthbagbuilding.com that describes how to use earthbags filled with various natural insulating materials to insulate ceilings or roofs. There seems to be a general lack of interesting ceiling options using sustainable building materials. For instance, when touring otherwise beautiful straw bale homes one often … Read more
I spent several hours working on this project page: http://earthbagbuilding.com/projects/haiti.htm I think it really is one of the best yet, because it shows the entire project from foundation to finish work on a simple home that would appeal to most people around the world; it was created by poor Haitians who had no prior experience; … Read more
I am very pleased to announce that there is now an extensive slide show of earthbag building projects up at www.earthbagbuilding.com. I spent several days selecting the best photos that I could find and formatting them to fluidly present a marvelous array of architectural styles and approaches to building with earthbags. There are already over … Read more