When Helly Scholten was offered the opportunity to spend three years living in a home inside of a greenhouse on Rotterdam’s docklands, she immediately volunteered her family. Scholten, her partner and two teen daughters moved into the experimental home and immediately began planting the four greenhouses surrounding and atop the home in an attempt to grow enough food to feed their family.
alternative building
No-Bake Martian Bricks
“Should we ever get human settlers on Mars, they’ll likely have to construct their buildings at least partially out of Martian soil. That said, it would be nice if they didn’t have to bring along a bunch of kilns, in order to fire that soil into bricks. Well, according to a NASA-funded study conducted at … Read more
Areas With Few or No Codes: East Tennessee
Message from a reader: “Just wanted to add my experience as an example if it helps someone (not selling anything). I bought 75 acres in Blaine, Tennessee (20 minutes east of Knoxville) back in 2014 for $146K. Rural, forest and hills, 4 seasons, but close enough to bigger cities. No building codes. TN has no state income tax. I pay around $100 a year for property tax because it is designated as “greenbelt.” The surrounding counties are the same and are very open to alternative building.
U.S. Building Codes by County Website
“I am working on a Christmas gift of sorts for the natural building community and I could use some help.
What is it?
U.S. Building Codes by County is a website to collect, organize, and easily display building codes and permit requirements for building in every county in the US. (3,142 counties to be exact).
Alt. Building Blog
I think you’ll enjoy this alternative building blog about traditional building in the Southwest. To browse the Alt. Building Blog by subject, scroll down to the bottom right side to Labels. There’s plenty of info for hours of enjoyable reading.