Reviews at Amazon.com: The quaint wooden house in Prickly Nut Wood is no fairytale concoction – it is an icon of the movement to combine ecology and ethics in design. –The Guardian Ben’s approach to building his house started with the materials. He selected the poles he wanted to build with and designed around them. … Read more
Whole trees and parts of whole trees (naturally curved branches and wood) have 150% the strength of milled wood, are 100 times more abundant than millable old-growth forests, have similar weight to strength ratio as steel in compression and twice the strength of steel in tension, require almost no processing, and utilize wood that would … Read more
This is how to make a banker cry. It’s their worst nightmare. It’s also how to change the world, one step at a time. Read my comments below after this brief intro. “Austin Hay is still in high school, but he’s building his own house. It’s only 130 square feet, but it makes him a … Read more
Dear Owen, I thought you might be interested in a book that I have written about sustainable building methods which ties in with your interesting earthbag building project. Please see attached postcard. Feel free to use the information on your blog if you think it is useful. Best wishes, Pete Hancock Code Green Publishing.com
One key to affordable natural building is to use low cost, locally available materials. Look especially for what others don’t want – things like ‘problem soils’, dredgings, ‘wastes’. This brick making video was the inspiration for this blog post. It explains how a company in the Philippines uses abundant, locally available materials to make brick. … Read more
The cost of energy keeps going up every year. This means the cost of producing and transporting goods keeps increasing. At some point there’s going to be a tipping point where modern building materials are not affordable. I don’t know when this will happen, but it could happen at any time since fossil fuels are … Read more