Sourabh Phadke in India has been quite productive lately in publicizing earthbag building in various ways. He is involved with a school there, where they have been experimenting with many aspects of natural building and green living, from compost toilets to creatively using recycled plastic bottles to earthen plasters over earthbag walls. Much of this [...]
Archive for June, 2009
The Rocket & the Rabbithole
Posted in Building Styles, Domes, Plasters on June 25, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Earthbag Building Expands Worldwide
Posted in Introduction, tagged earthbag building, earthbag, earthbag houses, sandbag homes, earth homes, sandbag building, sandbag, sustainable houses, sustainable homes on June 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Earthbag building (sometimes called sandbag building) started about one hundred years ago providing safe, bulletproof and bomb resistant shelters for the military. They proved to be fast, simple to construct and durable. The same qualities that make earthbags useful for military and flood control purposes apply to building houses. Now people all [...]
Rubble Trench/Earthbag Foundation
Posted in Bag Material, Building Styles, Filling Bags, Foundations, Insulation on June 16, 2009 | 6 Comments »
The Fleming College Sustainable Building Design & Construction Progam project in 2008 was the Madoc Performing Arts Centre. Students of this annual summer program constructed a sustainable performing arts center in Madoc, Ontario, Canada. Since 2005, students of this program have been building sustainable public buildings for host communities. The buildings mix low impact, low [...]
Build Your Own Affordable, Eco-Friendly House
Posted in Economics, Introduction, tagged affordable, do it yourself, earthbag, earthbag home, earthbag house, eco friendly, low cost, natural building, sandbag, sandbag home, sandbag house on June 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
What is the best way to build a low-cost home that doesn’t harm the planet? Most materials such as concrete and steel are highly processed and transported long distances, making them unaffordable to millions who are in need of housing. These high-tech materials also cause a great deal of harm to the environment. The answer [...]
$2,000 Earthbag House
Posted in Economics, Introduction, tagged shelter, earthbag, affordable housing, Mexico, earthbag house, sandbag house, earthbag home, sandbag home, sandbag, earthbag video on June 8, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Here’s another dirt cheap earthbag house – this one is in Mexico. I just found a new video about the house, and the owner’s daughter who helped build the house said it cost about $2,000! We need more stories like this. At some point people will stop paying ridiculously high prices and [...]
Earthbag School in Sierra Leone
Posted in Building Styles, Domes, Economics on June 2, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Shine On Sierra Leone, a human service foundation that provides education, mentoring and nutritional support to schools in Sierra Leone constructed a school building using earthbags. The building was made without power tools, but instead hand made tools. The idea was to use materials that are easily accessible to locals.
At first, the workers laughed at [...]
