Barrels of Hope Plastering and Fundraising Event

It’s time to plaster!!! Isn’t it great! All the bags and roof are up. Now it’s just the finishing touch – plaster! Weather permitting, we will be plastering on Saturday December 4th. This is the easy part so come join us and have some fun! To learn more about the Barrels of Hope for Haiti … Read more

Helical Earthbag Shelter

Ward-Karet wanted to gain some real world experience in the earthbag construction method while building in a manner that was in keeping with the surroundings. With a budget of $1,000, she designed and built the Helixa Shelter using earthbags, adobe, sunbrella fabric, and scraps from the architecture school. Read more at Inhabitat: Helical Earthbag Shelter … Read more

TYIN Haiti

Here’s another Haiti project in the works. Text below is from their website. TYIN haiti is a TYIN tegnestue– initiative, comprised of a group of six students and two architects, all studying/ graduated from NTNU. TYIN tegnestue is a non-profit organisation working humanitarian through architecture. We aim to build strategic projects that can improve the … Read more

Michael Janzen’s Emergency Shelters

A hybrid earthbag and pallet building would provide excellent protection from the weather and would be virtually free to build with debris and discarded shipping pallets. The addition of rain water collection, humanure composting, and simple solar oven(s) would provide fresh water and help keep human waste safely out of the way. Any additional materials … Read more

Low-cost Multipurpose Minibuilding Made With Earthbags

One of the most practical structures on a small farmstead is a multi-purpose garden structure that can serve as a storage shed or cool pantry above ground, or as a root cellar or storm shelter below ground. You can build this multipurpose structure for about $300 using earthbag construction (bags filled with earth and stacked … Read more