Tag Archives: earthbag

Earthbag Home Update

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Michael Janzen

Owner-builder Aaron posted a progress update on his small earthbag home. One of the aspects we don’t usually see online is the hard work involved in building one’s own small home. While this video shows just a few minutes of … Continue reading →

Posted in Projects | Tagged Aaron, earthbag, texas | 4 Comments

Geopolymer Stones & Earthbags

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Michael Janzen

Voting is heating up at The $300 House Open Design Challenge. This design challenge started out as an idea described by Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar in a blog post at the Harvard Business Review. They proposed that it might be possible for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Construction Method | Tagged $300 House, competition, earthbag, Geopolymer, owen geiger | 9 Comments

$300 Earthbag House

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Michael Janzen

This is Owen Geiger‘s entry to The $300 House Open Design Challenge. Owen is an earthbag expert and the former Director of Builders Without Borders and Founder and Director of the Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building. The design challenge … Continue reading →

Posted in Sustainable Living | Tagged $300 House, competition, earthbag, owen geiger | 2 Comments

How to Build a Fortress on the Cheap

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Michael Janzen

Aaron is an amateur owner-builder putting together an earthbag home on his land in Texas. In the video below he gives us a tour of the home in it’s current unfinished state. The house is small (not tiny) and appears … Continue reading →

Posted in Projects | Tagged Aaron, earthbag, homestead, prepper, texas | Leave a comment

Triple Dome Survival Shelter

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Michael Janzen

Dr. Owen Geiger, expert earthbag designer and builder, recently posted the design of this Triple Dome Survival Shelter on his Earthbag House Plans website. It’s designed to house a family for an extended period of time – protected from nuclear radiation, earthquakes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Design Concept | Tagged earthbag, earthen, fallout, Owne Geiger, radiation, shelter | 25 Comments

WorldHaus Prefab

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Michael Janzen

The folks at faircompanies tipped me off to an interview they recently had with Daniel Gross, the entrepreneur behind a company called WorldHaus. WorldHaus, an Idealab project, has developed a low cost prefab building system intended to provide families in … Continue reading →

Posted in Humanitarian | Tagged Daniel Gross, earthbag, faircompanies, owen geiger, prefab, Video, worldhaus | 21 Comments

Cal-Earth Superadobes

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Michael Janzen

The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture is a charitable non-profit organization that was founded in 1986 by Nader Khalili (1936-2008). They focus on developing truly sustainable earthen architecture. Their primary building method, nicknamed superadobes, uses long sandbag tubes … Continue reading →

Posted in Video | Tagged adobe, Cal-Earth, earthbag, earthen, Nader Khalili, sandbag, superadobe | 1 Comment

Sustainable Architecture – Metal Boxes vs Earthen

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Michael Janzen

This post was sparked by a comment from Steve, one of my long-time readers. In a nutshell, he suggested that people would be much better off living in handmade homes than living in machine-made prefabs. Like most people, modern prefab … Continue reading →

Posted in Sustainable Living | Tagged adobe, cob, earthbag, LEED, prefab, rammed earth, sustainable architecture | 17 Comments

Earthbag YouTube Channel

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Michael Janzen

The folks at the Earthbag Building Blog recently launched a YouTube channel filled with videos that show exactly how earthbag buildings are constructed. These simple earthen homes are extremely inexpensive to build and can be earthquake and hurricane resistant if … Continue reading →

Posted in Video | Tagged earth, earthbag, earthen, sustainable architecture, Video, youtube | Leave a comment

Earthbag House Construction Resources

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Michael Janzen

Owen Geiger and Kelly Hart at the Earthbag Building Blog have been busy posting a lot of great detailed information about how to build earthbag structures over the last few months. I’ve been really enjoying their 3D drawings, descriptions, and learning … Continue reading →

Posted in How To | Tagged construction, earthbag, Earthbag Building Blog, Kelly Hart, owen geiger | 9 Comments