Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip has created a shortage of construction materials such as cement. But, some builders have adapted to make use of one thing they have plenty of - sand. Al Jazeera's Bhanu Bhatnaagur reports.
Paul in Chiang Dao, a district north of Chiang Mai, Thailand is building an earthbag house with bags filled with rice hulls. Rice hulls are super cheap, fire resistant, superinsulating, and super lightweight and easy to work with. Rice hulls are the by-product of processing rice (the protective coating around the grain), so they’re 100% natural and sustainable.
This video shows the construction of a cloackroom and a bathroom in EcoOca - Brazil. The techinique was developed by Fernando Pacheco, engineer, and it is called HyperAdobe. It is the ecological option to the superadobe techinique.
This project was headed and designed by Ian lodge who I assisted as part of my year long apprenticeship at Cal-Earth in 2007. This house is 5 connecting domes that was built in two months. The location is Pescadero, Baja California Sur, just south of Todos Santos Mexico. To see more videos on earth-bag building check out Guiding Star Creations channel or if you have questions or are interested in hosting or participating in a workshop please contact me us at: http://guidingstarcreations.blogspot.... Neil Decker
A slide show by Nelly Higginbotham which exhibits the art of building a home with earth bags, earth plaster for the exterior and interior walls, and milk paints for the drywall all with an imagination for detail. A four year, artistic project completed by one woman along with the wonderful help of others here and there.
17 foot Earthbag Dome
Village Library
Earthbag. Tirelli, Dogon Country, Mali. 2010.
This project was produced and lead by Scott Howard. This is the most technical structure completed by Scott to date. A two week-long workshop completed the majority of the structure. The building is almost entirely made of earth. It is a catenary arc, reaching nearly 17 feet in height. Serving as a library for many villages in the area, it is the first earthbag dome in Mali.
Slide show of a dome built from earthbags with a quasi-ferrocement roof. Still needs finish stucco and interior plaster. I also plan to pour an adobe floor when the weather is more suitable. This building is basically a "practice building" to gain insight before I build my house. The dome went through a few direction changes while I was building it, but it still turned out to be one extremely strong/massive structure. I'm putting this up for anyone looking for info on this type of construction. I know when I was doing my research, I couldn't get enough of it - so this is my little contribution.
I'm building an earthbag house which will incorporate many ideas from the earthship camp. I did my apprenticeship by building the dome first. Sorry for the lack of effort on the vid, I just wanted to get some photos up so others can see what I'm doing. Eyes tend to glaze over when I attempt to explain...
The first building on our jungle hillside property. Dimensions are 4 m x 8 m x 2.80 m. Rougly 1100 earthbags and over 50 metric tons of dirt were used to create this fortress-like structure. Duration of actual bagwork, in case you wondered, was 4 persons for 4 weeks. The wooden ceiling serves as a multipurpose platform beautifully overlooking the jungle.
This rather luxurious "cave" artfully combines granite, wood and earth. It has a 60 sqm ground floor divided into three rooms on 3 levels, topped by a 15 sqm loft. While the earthbag walls elegantly fill gaps between large boulders, the double roof structure is elliptic in shape and rests on two Sandalwood poles which previously served as main masts on a sailing boat. Corners are entirely absent, and a feeling of peace and tranquility prevails.
A small, 3.25 meter interior diameter meditation dome. In order to prevent any light from penetrating the interior, a double door system was devised. Air enters the dome through 3 pipes which run underground for a distance between 4 and 7 meters and is being sucked out by an air vent in the upper part of the dome. This space combines sacred proportions, complete darkness, and only very minimal sound pollution and hence effectively facilitates deeper states of meditative absorption.
Construction of the Half Moon, a small, off-the-grid cabin built with earthbags using a passive solar and passive geothermal design with integrated rainwater harvesting. This segment covers days 16-27 of the initial construction project.
Built from local materials; Almost wood free; Maximum use of space for minimum use of materials (doing more with less); Self-contained unit; Can be repeated to form a larger home or an eco-village; Can be built by a team of 3-5 people; Designed with the sun, shade and wind for passive cooling and heating; Wind-scoop can be combined with a rated furnace unit; Solar energy and radiant heating may be incorporated.; Interior furniture can be built-in with same material; Structurally sound and disaster-proof.
This project was headed and designed by Ian lodge who I assisted as part of my year long apprenticeship at Cal-Earth in 2007.This house is 5 connecting domes that was built in two months. The location is Pescadero, Baja California Sur, just south of Todos Santos Mexico. To see more videos on earth-bag building check out Guiding Star Creations channel or if you have questions or are interested in hosting or participating in a workshop please contact me us at: http://guidingstarcreations.blogspot.... or guidingstarcreationsATgmail.com.
Neil Decker
The size of the structure is 20 feet by 12 feet. We dug an 18 inch trench and put gravel till 6 inches. We filled the first two rows of bags with 6% cement. After reaching the height of 18 inches, we reduced the amount of cement to 3%. For the roof we have used bamboo and iron girders. This house took us 17 days to build.
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