“When it comes to green architecture, many recycled things come to our mind from clay houses to PET bottle construction. One example of such environment friendly architecture is the world’s first Plastic Bottle Village located on Isla Colón in Panama. The entire village is made from over a million recycled PET bottles. Built on 83-acres of tropical jungle, the village consists of nearly 120 houses and a lodge.
earthquake resistant
Grassroots Movement Building Earthbag Schools in Nepal
In collaboration with Good Earth Nepal.org and donations from the Schoeck Family Foundation, we’ve been touring earthbag projects near Kathmandu. We’ve seen numerous earthbag schools in our travels, but haven’t noticed any new conventionally built RCC/brick schools.
Live from Nepal: Tour Update #1
As most readers have already heard, I am touring earthbag projects near Kathmandu in collaboration with Good Earth Nepal.org (winner of NEA design award). Every day is exciting, informative and productive even though there are many challenges traveling in rural areas on heavily damaged mountain roads. For instance, the “main road” to China, which one would think is a major trade route, in some places looks like a bulldozer simply cleared aside a crude path on top of millions of tons of rocks. And that is in fact what it is!
Grandma Krishna’s Earthbag Home in Nepal
“Initially, on paper, I figured that it would be cheap to build earthbag houses. After many years of research, while I was studying and working in the UK, and after the twin earthquakes of 2015, it made more sense to me to give this method a try and promote it. I finally made the jump and started building a small earthbag home for the sweet old lady from my community here in Chiti VDC Lamjung. I found some hidden surprises associated with the build.
UNM students rebuilding Nepal community center
“It was almost a year ago that a massive earthquake rocked Nepal. Nearly 8,000 people died and hundreds of villages were destroyed. Many buildings crumbled to the ground.
But out of those dark moments, a group of UNM students are shining through. Their goal: to help rebuild. A group of UNM engineering students have rebuilding on their minds after their visit to Nepal before the earthquake’s destruction.
Building Earthbag Tornado Shelters for Profit
In a previous blog post about Earthbag Tornado Shelters I suggested building them for profit. Four years later the same advice is still valid. The marketing process should be even easier now since earthbag buildings are much more common. One key selling point is the cost. Most commercially available tornado shelters cost at least several thousand dollars. The materials cost for earthbag tornado shelters is around $300. That means almost pure profit for the builder.