Free Open Source Strawbale House Design

Free open source strawbale floorplan
Free open source strawbale floorplan

Here’s another great project from Open Source Ecology.

“This simple home design grew out of a desire to share a easy-to-construct straw bale prototype for humanitarian applications. The barrier-free floor plan, comprised of a concentrated wet core within an insulating straw bale envelope, allows for an efficient layout within a small footprint. This system can scale up or down, orient to solar and wind patterns for passive heating and cooling, and be partitioned flexibly in order to adapt to changing inhabitant needs.

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Liberator CEB Machine

Liberator CEB machine
Liberator CEB machine

Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters building the Global Village Construction Set — a modular, DIY, low-cost, open source, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.

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The Liberator CEB Press Prototype IV

The CEB Story 2012. from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

Quote from the video: “After this December, there’s going to be major adoption happening as people see this machine works and the quality of the housing that’s built, both in terms of time and cost, is going to be superior.” Marcin Jakubowski, Founder Open Source Ecology

“We’re pleased to announce design completion of Prototype IV of the Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) Press.

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More Info on Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs)

Compressed earth blocks (CEBs) come in dozens of shapes
Compressed earth blocks (CEBs) come in dozens of shapes

We continue to get quite a few inquires about compressed earth blocks / soil-cement blocks. This Mother Earth News article got me excited about pressed earth blocks years ago. It’s an oldie but goodie first-person account of a couple in Arizona who used the soil on their land to make CEB blocks that cost 97 times less than cement blocks.

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