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Click on image to buy from Customflix.com |
Building with Bags: How We Made Our Experimental Earthbag/Papercrete House 1 1/2 hr. DVD produced by Kelly Hart.We wanted to build an environmentally sensitive and aesthetically pleasing home at a moderate price. We chose to create earthbag domes covered with papercrete (recycled paper combined with cement and sand). This honest DVD documents details of the construction, insights gained, and the ups and downs (literally!) of the building process. Several other earthbag homes are also shown. For more information about the house see Photogallery & Description of Our House or Construction Details of Our House .
To view a streaming video intoduction to this DVD click here.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Earthbag Building : The Tools, Tricks and Techniques by Kaki Hunter, Donald Kiffmeyer, 2004. Earthbag Building is a comprehensive guide to all the tools, tricks, and techniques for building with bags filled with earth. Having been introduced to sandbag construction by the renowned Nader Khalili in 1993, the authors developed this "Flexible Form Rammed Earth Technique" over the last decade. A reliable method for constructing homes, outbuildings, garden walls and much more, this enduring, tree-free architecture can also be used to create arched and domed structures of great beauty. This profusely illustrated guide first discusses the many merits of earthbag construction, and then leads the reader through the key elements of an earthbag building: Special design considerations; Foundations, walls and floors; Electrical, plumbing and shelving; Lintels, windows and door installations; Roofs, arches and domes; Exterior and interior plasters. There are also dedicated sections on costs, making your own specialized tools, and building code considerations, as well as a complete resource guide. Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer have been involved in the construction industry for the last 20 years, specializing in affordable, low-tech, low-impact building methods that are as natural as possible. They developed the "Flexible Form Rammed Earth Technique" of building affordably with earthbags and have taught the subject and contributed their expertise to several books and journals on natural building. For a more detailed review of this book written by Kelly Hart see this article.
Earthbag Building
is available as a downloadable ebook for $29.95 from this link.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Building with Earth: A Guide to Flexible-Form Earthbag Construction by Paulina Wojciechowska, 2001. This is the first book published about earthbag building, and still one of the best. Unfortunately it has gone out of print, but is still available used from various sellers at Amazon. My earthbag/papercrete house is featured on the cover, and as a case study, and images of it are sprinkled throughout the text. Paulina visited me while I was building it and helped with the construction some. She studied with Nader Khalili at CalEarth, so is grounded in his training, but is not bound by his perspective. This book touches on most of the relevant facits of earthbag building, and I give it a high recommendation.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Emergency Sandbag Shelter by Nader Khalili, 2008. The book shows how to use sandbags and barbed wire, the materials of war, for peaceful purposes. Earthbags can shelter millions of people around the globe as a temporary as well as permanent housing solution. This affordable, self-help, sustainable, and disaster resistant structural system is a spin off from Khalili's presentation to NASA for habitat on the moon and Mars, which successfully passed rigorous tests for strict California earthquake building codes. This book along with a small library of films and kits can guide anyone to learn and teach how to build a home or community.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Emergency Shelter DVD. Region 1 ( U.S. and Canada only). The works and words of architect Nader Khalili. Natural disasters are human created disasters blamed on nature. In today's world there are, according to the United Nations, over a billion people without suitable shelter. In the spirit of protecting their families, requests have come from all over the United States for instructions on how to build a safe shelter before or during an emergency. This video documents a group training at Cal-Earth Institute by constructing an 8 ft. interior diameter dome in one day. It is intended for use with materials and tools developed for instruction during the apprenticeship training at Cal-Earth.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Ceramic Houses and Earth Architecture: How to Build Your Own by Nader Khalili, 1996. This book shows how to build vaults, domes and arches with adobe blocks. It then goes on to suggest how to actually fire the structure like pottery, with a glaze. It is a fiscinating concept that has seen little use, partly because the firing process can be rather polluting. This book has been updated to discuss the SuperAdobe building method of building with earthbags.. I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in alternative building methods.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Sidewalks on the Moon by Nader Khalili, 2002. With the moon as a metaphor, Khalili takes us from the poetic moon of the ghettos of his childhood to the scientific moon of his presentations to NASA for lunar base construction using on-site earth and ceramics. He chronicles his own transformation renouncing his successful architecture practice and voyaging into the desert, ultimately firing and glazing the first Ceramic Houses. Inspired by the mystic poetry of Rumi, and the unity of the universal elements of earth, water, air, and fire, with his technical background he presents his proposals for earth and ceramics lunar bases to NASA.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn, 2004. I have rarely been this enthusiastic about a book, and not just because I am in it! My earthbag/papercrete house is featured in a two-page spread. Ever since his first publication of Shelter in 1973 (which I also contributed to), Lloyd has been collecting imagery and stories for this eventual sequel. With Home Work, Lloyd has gone beyond the glory of his earlier work in many ways. Not only does it seem more comprehensive, but it is almost entirely in color. This is a sumptuous coffee table book that will likely not spend much time on the table, since it is so intriguing you just want to pick it up and browse through it. Every page is chock full of fun, unusual, lyrical, quaint, artistic, humble, elegant, practical, colorful, whimsical, well-crafted, funky, traditional, and outlandish buildings that were lovingly built by the hands of those who reside there. All of this is presented with Lloyd's casual style of layout and commentary that is reminiscent of a scrap book. Many of the photos are actually collages of several exposures spliced together to create expansive murals. Flipping through the pages of Home Work will take you back to the early days of hippie huts and forward to the cutting edge of natural building technology. The builders themselves are portrayed as lovingly as their buildings, with many profiles of fine craftsmen and women sprinkled throughout. In fact, the book begins by featuring the work of ten artisans who represent some of the best in this tradition of owner-builders. Then a whole slew of other specific homes are displayed in such a way that the lifestyle of their occupants is embedded directly within the imagery. This book depicts far more than architecture; it shows entire ways of life.
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Click on image to buy from Amazon.com |
The House That Jill Built: A Woman's Guide to Home Building by Judy Ostrow and Karen Leffler, 2005. Millions of women are already learning the basics of do-it-yourself and getting in tune with the empowering nature of power tools. Allison Kennedy, a woman who built an earthbag house all by herself after her boyfriend left her with a concrete foundation, is one of the featured stories. The House That Jill Built is perfect for women of all skill levels, from the experienced do-it-her-selfer to the woman who doesn't know the difference between a stud finder and a palm sander, to the woman who is looking to move on to more complex or large-scale projects. Sharing women's real-life experiences in creating their own dream homes, The House that Jill Built is a groundbreaking guide to the process as well as a collection of women's real-life home-building experiences, complete with before and after photos and drawings, advice from experts, safety precautions, and a comprehensive section of how-to tips, including a tool guide. Chapters highlight success stories, such as the design and construction of one woman's desert dream house to another's tropical paradise nestled up north. After reading these personal stories, every woman will feel motivated to pick up the hammer and go for it.
If you buy any of the above books from Amazon.com a small percentage of that sale will help support this website.
For a complete listing of popular books about green building, see The Natural Building Bookstore.
earthbagnetwork.com a forum where people can share information and network socially about earthbag building.
naturalhomes.org lists workshops from around the world that relate to earthbags.
calearth.org Nader Khalili's earthbag works.
okokok.org Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer, the authors of Earthbag Building, have assembled a very informative site that is mostly about earthbag building.
karacadirearthbuilding.com offers workshops and training for building with earthbags and sustainable living practices.
motherearthnews.com an extensive article by Owen Geiger about how he built a small earth-sheltered earthbag dome.
gypsyfarm This family in Georgia has been building a hybrid house of earthbags, ferrocement, poleframe, and strawbale for several years. Their website chronicles their experience in thoughts and photos taken over the years. It is extensive, detailed, revealing and personal...a very enjoyable browse!
earthlodge shows the evolution of an earthbag building project, but the description stops before the vault collapsed, so watch their video to get the whole picture!
earthhandsandhouses.org the construction of Paulina Wojciekowska's earthbag dome project in Poland. is shown under projects/sandbags...
caicosdream show Doni Kiffmeyer and Kaki Hunter working on an earthbag project.
midpines.us a series of construction photos with captions about building an earthbag home in the Sierras of California.
icbo code central article outlining the chronology and results of testing done on Nader Khalili's superadobe system of building.
calearth.org/Emerg This two-page PDF file outlines Nader Khalili's approach to building an emergency shelter.
archearth.com pictures and description of an earthbag "Sound Temple" in Thailand.
whitehole.tistory.com while this site is almost entirely in Japanese, it has lots of illustrations of earthbag projects around the globe.
calearth.org links to a gallery of photos of projects by alumni of CalEarth
iflux.com.br/bienal/laminas.pdf shows a hybrid bamboo/earthbag structure built in Brazil.
montelloalpacacompany.blogspot.com is a blog about building a multi-dome home in Nevada, among other things.
sarpy.com features a state by state list of vendors of polypropylene and burlap earthbags.
nmdirtbags.com provides earthbag building supplies, especially in New Mexico.
Regular & Misprint Bags:
Agriculture Bags MFG., Inc.
C.H.K. Manufacturing, Inc.
960 98th Ave.
Oakland, CA 94603
Tel. 510-632-5637
Fax 510-632-2056
Contact - Jeff Kuo
Innpack, LLC
www.innpack.com
Memphis, TN
Contact: Nina Sanders
1-800-622-3695 Ext. 102
Polytex Fiber Corp
www.polytex.com
Houston, TX
1-800-628-0034
Contact: Denny Smith
www.suncoastpkg.com
Tim Kragt
Toll (800) 785-0201
TRKATsuncoastpkg.com
Sodus, MI
Bags & Tubes:
Berg Bag Company
410 Third Ave. North
Minneapolis, MN 55401
1-800-658-7201
Central Bag Company
www.centralbagcompany.com
Kansas City, MO
1-816-471-0388
Contact: Chris Klimek
Fulton Pacific Packaging Co.
www.fultonpacific.com
1-800-521-1414
Contact: Rett Schuler
MaxKatz Bag Co.
P.O. Box 1666
Indianapolis, IN 46206-1666
1-800-225-3729
Contact: Don Katz, ext. 3666
NYP Corporation
805 East Grand St.
Elizabeth, NJ 07201
1-908-351-6550
Donald Davis Bags
1020 S. Church St. Ext.
P.O. Box 8369,
Spartanburg, S.C. 29305-8369
1-800-662-7756
www.donalddavisbags.com