The Earth Hands and Houses Blog has some good photos of the first earthbag dome (a root cellar) in Sussex, England. The workshop was taught by Paulina Wojciechowska, an architect and author of Building with Earth, a guide to Flexible-Form earthbag construction, who has been studying, building and teaching natural building since 1996. Nicholas Harris, … Read more
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
As you may well know, the recent floods in Pakistan destroyed or damaged 2 million homes, affecting 20 million people. PAKSBAB, an NGO building strawbale houses in Pakistan, uses gravel-filled earthbag foundations to protect their houses from water damage. To date, 22 houses have been built. In addition to providing flood protection, PAKSBAB uses earthbag … Read more
Working in teams of three to build earthbag structures is often the most efficient. You could use fewer or more workers per team, but three seems like the most efficient in most cases. Worker #1: Filling buckets, moistening and mixing soil Worker #2: Carrying buckets of soil from worker #1 to worker #3 Worker #3: … Read more
For years, I’ve ruled out building with brick because of the large amount of energy consumed in the manufacturing process, and the associated environmental toll. Like concrete and other high embodied energy materials, high-fired brick is generally not considered a sustainable building option (excluding recycled brick, of course). Although high-fired brick is extremely durable, there … Read more
Here’s a new project I just found. Full text is below. This is all I know at this time. Their website doesn’t provide any more info. Please let us know if you hear of more details. Since January 2010 Happier International has been focusing on the current housing issues in Haiti. Our goal is not … Read more