I invite you all to visit my new website Earthbag House Plans. At this point I have 77 earthbag plans in the preliminary design stage. Most are houses, but there are some cabins, shelters, sheds and shops. All are small and made with sustainable materials — earthbags, straw bales, earth floors, earth plaster, sustainably harvested wood from local forests (ala cheap firewood permit), rice hulls, recycled materials and so on. I’ve just started adding elevation drawings and will work hard to get these finished soon.
At this stage, the main thing I’m looking for is reader input. No one else has a large collection of earthbag house plans, and so there’s no way for me to know what people are looking for. If there’s a big interest in domes, for example, I’ll add more dome designs. I look forward to reading your comments!
Wow! Great to see someone else running with [sustainable] plans. I’m definitely going to blog on this. I’ve also been really enjoying reading your stuff and getting reaquainted with this very simple construction technique.
i am interested in domes, thanks for your geat work!
The plans look incredible! I will go through and add my amateur comments.
Please tell me a little more about your dome preferences — size, configuration (single dome, multiple, etc.), lofts, etc. How would you modify the Enviro Dome to meet your needs?
I liked the summer breeze! It is almost the perfect size. Would it be possible to use that design with 10 ft high walls and perhaps expand the living room area a bit. I currently live almost next door to Cal Earth, but will be moving to northern AZ. When I last spoke with the building dept in Navaho County, they were very receptive to alternative building methods, but would prefer that all plans were engineered.
Will you be offering the plans in complete sets? Engineering? Foundation plans? Elevations and cross sections?
Thanks Brad
No website, but have designed houses all my life, and am very interested in incorporating architectural features into earth-bag design. Features like corbels, pillars, nooks, vaults, arches, half-walls, raised reliefs, etc. Feel that art and home should be synonymous. Also believe that homes today are in serious need of down-sizing. I think it’s possible to offer the feel of luxury in a tiny footprint. Also, Japanese styled houses which are expandable and contractible in terms of interior space, might offer the opportunity to use the house more fully as a large entertainment area, then easily convert back to smaller private functions when needed. Creating partially walled outdoor spaces that could open up to the interior rooms to bring connection with nature is also very appealing to me. People have the idea that self-sustaining is either self-denying or super-expensive, but mostly they connect them with unappealing. Your effort to appeal to a broad range of styles is interesting to me. Thanks for your posting.
Thank you very much. Glad you like our site. What you say is valid and important. But most of my effort goes into simplifying designs as much as possible to keep costs low. I figure most people will add on extras to meet their needs if/when they can afford it. However, this makes for small, simple, minimalistic plans that may turn off some readers. Oh well, I’d rather see millions have a decent place to live.