Earthbag Building

[fa2991]

I've always been fascinated by earthbag construction methods:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthbag_construction

http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/

They more or less entail filling tubes with sand, dirt, and other readily available organic materials and then stacking them with barbed wire in between layers. The pressure of the weight comes down on the barbed wire and creates houses and other structures that are energy efficient, sound deadening, bulletproof, fireproof, earthquake and hurricane resistant, and very beautiful.

Do you think that these sorts of methods could be the answer to housing the world? They are resistant to the scourges of all elements, are several times sturdier than traditional structures, and, best of all, even the poorest of people and countries could build them en masse since there are only three building materials - dirt, barbed wire, and bags - required to build entire houses.

http://ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/images/uploads_img/earthbag_building_the_honey_house_1.jpg
http://archrecord.construction.com/news/images/080421khalili2.jpg

[Rusty Shackleford]

how are they on the inside?
are they electrifiable and plumable(sp?)?

[fa2991]

how are they on the inside?
are they electrifiable and plumable(sp?)?

Yes. In my understanding, you can install anything you could get in a regular home in an earthbag structure as long as you plan ahead and cut holes for windows, electric sockets, etc. before it's completed. They can be as plain or as advanced as you please.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/earthbag-home-2.jpg
http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Earthbag-Building-Blog-Roundhouse-floor.jpeg

[Rusty Shackleford]

Bunker houses for bunker socialism!

seriously though, i can dig it. im actually tempted to go to the wilderness and make a small cabin or something. this is awesome!

[Adil3tr]

Looks good, this is the kind of idea we could use to give everyone in africa a stable home.

[kitsune]

This is very cool. I love sustainable, natural building practices. This reminds me of the organic shapes you get from building with cob, sort of a freeform adobe method.

I'm a big fan of using thermal mass and passive solar design to make it easy to maintain the interior temperature; cool in summer, warm in winter. Very, very energy efficient. Combine that with some on-site energy production methods (solar, wind, hydro), reclamation of greywater and treatment of black water, permaculture garden, composting of waste, and you've got yourself a little self-sustaining paradise.

[fa2991]

Looks good, this is the kind of idea we could use to give everyone in africa a stable home.

That's what I was thinking. They're putting some up in Haiti as we speak, which is a great thing, since they don't collapse in earthquakes.



im actually tempted to go to the wilderness and make a small cabin or something. this is awesome! Yeah, they are pretty awesome. Build one into the side of a hill and you could live like a hobbit. :lol: I'm planning on moving into one when I retire.

[Rusty Shackleford]

perfect for wilderness commune making if you arent interested in participating in the struggle:lol:

[fa2991]

perfect for wilderness commune making if you arent interested in participating in the struggle:lol:

I'm sure they're popular in "natural" communes or whatever they're currently called.

The practical uses are incredible, though:

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/10845/haiti-prototype-by-cal-earth-institute.html

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Why the hell would you have people live in small fucking huts?

Giant flat blocks or it's a waste.

[fa2991]

Why the hell would you have people live in small fucking huts?

1. Not huts.
2. They beat tents.
3. They're very, very hard to damage or destroy
4. They hold up in all climates
5. They're cheap as shit, which is what makes them a great solution to the housing problem, at least in the short run.

[fa2991]

6. You can find the necessary materials almost anywhere.

[Autumn Red]

I've dreamed about going off to live in a community where they only build these, but the only ones in the United States that I know of are in New Mexico and Arizona. I haven't come across any in Canada either :(

[Nachie]

Those pictures aren't just earth bag structures, but the Superadobe system developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili (http://www.calearth.org). They are flood proof, fire proof, earthquake proof, radiation proof, bomb proof, ballistics proof, etc.

I have been absolutely infatuated with Superadobe for a few years now and am convinced for many many reasons that it is the most viable means by which to ensure housing for the future and personally if ever given the chance to build my own home I wouldn't use any other method.

In receiving my Permaculture Design Certificate I completed a design for a root cellar made from Superadobe but I would like to work on much more advanced projects in the future. Pretty cool to see somebody bring it up here! :)

I have a good working knowledge of the design and construction process if anyone has specific questions...

[Rusty Shackleford]

personally, i would prefer the creation of more modern structures with more room where the capacity to build them is possible but these are an excellent source of emergency housing and conservation housing for places like nature preserves or under-developed regions of the world.

i would like to at least spend one night in one of these to try it out. they dont seem much different than housing in San Francisco, where you dont have much room. and i must tell you, SF houses are rather cozy :thumbup1:

[fa2991]

An earthbag village in commie Nepal:

http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/projects/pegasus.htm


Those pictures aren't just earth bag structures, but the Superadobe system developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili (http://www.calearth.org (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.calearth.org)). They are flood proof, fire proof, earthquake proof, radiation proof, bomb proof, ballistics proof, etc.

I have been absolutely infatuated with Superadobe for a few years now and am convinced for many many reasons that it is the most viable means by which to ensure housing for the future and personally if ever given the chance to build my own home I wouldn't use any other method.I always used the two interchangeably. Superadobe is a type of earthbag construction, right?

I also really love the way strawbale construction looks, but I didn't post it here because it's not as practical as earthbags. :p


In receiving my Permaculture Design Certificate I completed a design for a root cellar made from Superadobe but I would like to work on much more advanced projects in the future. Pretty cool to see somebody bring it up here! http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_smile.gif:D I'm jealous. I always wanted to go through one of those building courses.

[Nachie]

A lot of earthbag buildings have roofs made of wood or other materials, whereas in these the dome is almost always integral to the rest of the structure. The "super" in Superadobe comes from the "super long" tubes you fill with your mix, whereas "earthbag" can mean just ordinary sandbags sometimes even filled with just earth and not any cement or lime. You can certainly make domes and other cool structures from ordinary sandbags (Khalili has an earlier book dealing with that), but the CalEarth tubes allow you to do some seriously interesting stuff and make the whole process much simpler in general. Plus I think it's all much more structurally sound given that each "row" is like a huge beam strengthening all points of the structure simultaneously.

Also what isn't pointed out in the pictures but is nice to know is that there is barbed wire used in between the rows as a sort of velcro/rebar to keep it all solid. This is neat because it leads to the whole idea of turning the tools of war, barbed wire and sand bags, into tools for housing :)

Just to be clear I was taking a PDC course at a different school, and it was kind of an independent study thing that led me to a Superadobe project. I would love love love to be able to study/intern at CalEarth, though.

Those domes in Nepal look incredible! Also very worth considering what hard angles and standardized living spaces do to our psyches and how it is really just natural for us to use the earth to make our homes, as all other living creatures do.

[Rusty Shackleford]

An earthbag village in commie Nepal:

http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/projects/pegasus.htm


i semi-retract my previous post. im fucking sold.

[leftace53]

These are fucking amazing. I would so love to live in a cute little affordable hut.
Why are they made in circular shapes? I mean I like it, but just wondering if it was a structural requirement or simply aesthetics? Also, I would have to find circle desks, rather than "corner" desks for these :lol:

[Tablo]

These are fucking amazing. I would so love to live in a cute little affordable hut.
Why are they made in circular shapes? I mean I like it, but just wondering if it was a structural requirement or simply aesthetics? Also, I would have to find circle desks, rather than "corner" desks for these :lol:
I think the circular shape allows them to be more structurally sound. They might be able to do other shapes.

[fa2991]

These are fucking amazing. I would so love to live in a cute little affordable hut.
Why are they made in circular shapes? I mean I like it, but just wondering if it was a structural requirement or simply aesthetics?

You could technically make them square, but I think the round shape evenly distributes weight or whatever. Also, building it in a circular shape makes it unnecessary to add a roof built out of another material like wood or metal or whatever.



Also, I would have to find circle desks, rather than "corner" desks for these :lol::laugh:

[leftace53]

I think the circular shape allows them to be more structurally sound. They might be able to do other shapes.

I wonder if they can do an anarchist star shape :lol:
I imagine the circle-ness also helps in the acoustics within the house?

EDIT: ahh yes, the roof thing. It is indeed pretty awesome that you can have a slanty roof to avoid rain collection without using extra materials

[fa2991]

I wonder if they can do an anarchist star shape

If you thought it would be hard to find furniture for a circular house... :lol:

[Rusty Shackleford]

i just got an idea
what about if one was made with a square base and a decent sort of framework was used to create a flat level, then put a round dome portion on that? you ahve a 2 story sandbag house!

[fa2991]

i just got an idea
what about if one was made with a square base and a decent sort of framework was used to create a flat level, then put a round dome portion on that? you ahve a 2 story sandbag house!

All the 2-story earthbag houses I've ever heard of were just built really tall and vertically divided into two parts, with a stairway going along the wall.

[leftace53]

This coupled with underground cities will be the way of the future! I mean really, think about it, all the soil dug up to make underground cities can be used to make overground earthbag buildings!
We could have residences above ground, and community areas underground.

[crazyirish93]

darn hippys are it again :rolleyes:

[Rusty Shackleford]

so, would you consider focoism to be hippyism because it starts off in a countryside? usually in a low waste military commune?

you know, July 27th Movement, FARC.

[crazyirish93]

no i would not

[fa2991]

darn hippys are it again :rolleyes:

Cheap, easy, weather and bomb-resistant shelters potentially lifesaving for those ravaged by poverty, homelessness, and natural disasters are only for hippies?

[Imposter Marxist]

Check out "Roger Dean Eco Village" Its even cooler/cheap/easy to build.

[fa2991]

Check out "Roger Dean Eco Village" Its even cooler/cheap/easy to build.

They look beautiful, but how are they made, and how do they hold up?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Looks good, this is the kind of idea we could use to give everyone in africa a stable home.

Yea, why should people in Africa have modern homes? :rolleyes:

The reason people around the world don't have decent housing, nutritious food, etc., isn't that the materials don't exist, it's that they don't have the ability to purchase those things.

The means exist for everyone in the world to have the things they want and need. But the private ownership of the means of producing those things by an elite minority prevents that from happening. That's the problem, and it can't be solved by offering groundbreaking mud huts to African squatters or fried insects to undernourished children in Latin America.

[leftace53]

They look beautiful, but how are they made, and how do they hold up?

These radical shapes required new building techniques and materials if they were not to remain art on the page. The key to their production is the use of gunnite, or sprayed concrete. A 1cm layer of plaster and hessian is laid over a reusable fibreglass mould of the interior of the room, divided into three or four pieces per room which are then assembled. One huge advantage of this technique is the short time it takes to assemble: as little as six hours to complete a one-storey four bedroom house. Wiring is then installed into this as yet delicate structure.

The strength comes when steel rods and gunnite are added, with pumice beads for insulation. A team of three to four people could "build" such a home within a day, adding ceramic vents, chimneys and spires to taste. The infrastructure, however, takes some three to four weeks to cure. The cost of producing a Dean house compares favourably with conventional units of similar specification. The process could save 10-20 per cent on materials alone.
A bit different from "normal" earthbag buildings it seems.

[Crimson Commissar]

Yea, why should people in Africa have modern homes? :rolleyes:

The reason people around the world don't have decent housing, nutritious food, etc., isn't that the materials don't exist, it's that they don't have the ability to purchase those things.

The means exist for everyone in the world to have the things they want and need. But the private ownership of the means of producing those things by an elite minority prevents that from happening. That's the problem, and it can't be solved by offering groundbreaking mud huts to African squatters or fried insects to undernourished children in Latin America.
Agreed. All countries should be modernised and brought up to the same level the west is at today. If some don't want to live in modern homes, then fine, they can live how they want to. But the option needs to be there for those who want it. We shouldn't be making Africa inferior to the west, we should make it equal to the west. We should be working towards a future in which neither europeans or africans have a better standard of living than the other.

[Nachie]

Fools I ain't tryna tell anybody in "Africa" what to live in, I'm talking about me.

The kind of materials, industry, and dependence on the oil paradigm that "modern homes" rely on are inherently unsustainable, alienating in terms of the modes of production, and ecologically destructive. When you call for everyone in the world to live in a "modern home" you are calling not just for the total and irreversible destruction of the biosphere (besides how you gonna keep fixing all these high-maintenance "modern marvels" such as asphalt shingles when oil runs out?) but also the final standardization and homogenization of life across the world according to the western capitalist model and all that it entails.

This sort of mechanistic view of human progress as some unrelenting march in only one direction that all the imperialist nations have a patent on is just stupid as fuck and only lands more and more of us in the cesspool.

"A revolution which in this day follows the line of industrial development, economic growth, and scientific advance; of the development of the actual productive forces, like the one conceived in this time, will unquestionably be captured by capitalist civilization." - Douglas Bravo

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

When you call for everyone in the world to live in a "modern home" you are calling not just for the total and irreversible destruction of the biosphere

Typical doomsday prophecy bullshit that in practice means keeping the underdeveloped world underdeveloped.

Middle class elements in the most developed countries shutter at the thought of everyone having the same standard of living as them. "Sustainability" is a great argument for that. Denouncing the alienation experienced by people living in "standardization and homogenization" is another. Romanticizing difficult, mind numbing, labor intensive sustenance farming is one more.

But the fact is for single plot farmers living in mud huts, for slum dwellers living in tin shacks, for dozens of workers sharing substandard one bedroom dwellings... clean, modern housing would be a massive advance. Which is why so many aspire for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUVgZrIorE0

Can modern housing be constructed for everyone in the world without bringing an "end to the world?" Of course!

Technology is not and never was the root cause of environmental degradation. The monopoly of technology by a shortsighted elite interested in immediate profits is.

[Nachie]

I certainly hope you're right...


Romanticizing difficult, mind numbing, labor intensive sustenance farming is one more.

Just need to make it very clear that I personally would never romanticize or call for this. My interests are in permaculture and agroforestry, not agriculture.

Also I agree with your views on technology but while that profit-motivated elite still controls it I feel it very dangerous to prescribe more of it as being any kind of solution.

[The Douche]

Typical doomsday prophecy bullshit that in practice means keeping the underdeveloped world underdeveloped.

LOL, imperialism is Nachie's fault.

[Animal Farm Pig]

I prefer the traditional building system in the planoalto of Moçambique. It's to construct a round frame from sticks. Into the frame, you put stone, earth, and whatever mixed with water to a thick muddy consistency. Then, you cover the outer (and inner if prefered) walls with a smooth layer of mud. The roof is made from a frame of sticks with lots of grass on top. So, the end result is a mud walled cylinder with a grass cone on top. People in Moz have been building these eco-friendly homes for a long time.

This system is very inexpensive, sturdy, and relies entirely on local resources. Homes like this can be wired with electric (I lived in one). The only maintenance is to add some additional mud to the walls after the rainy season and to occasionally add some grass.

Problems of housing associated with poverty are rarely (really) about construction technique. The most important issue is land tenure. If you're squatting, you don't put a lot of effort into building a home. If the corrupt local elite can drive you off your land easily, you don't put effort into building a home.

These kinds of structures may be great if you're living in the countryside, but I don't think they're the kinds of structures that we should focus on.

There's a lot to be said for increased population density in terms of planning for provision of service. Increasing population density allows easier role out of utilities, better public transport, decreased distance to workplace, school, and hospital. It allows more land to be used for large scale agriculture.

For such centralization, we want tower blocks. We want to build up. We want structures that have walls that can be shared (tessellated) to decrease material use. We don't want funky looking domes.

[fa2991]

Yea, why should people in Africa have modern homes? :rolleyes:

Can modern housing be constructed for everyone in the world without bringing an "end to the world?" Of course!

Technology is not and never was the root cause of environmental degradation. The monopoly of technology by a shortsighted elite interested in immediate profits is. Is that seriously your best proposal for helping the homeless or displaced peoples of Africa and the world? These structures are cheaper than tents, or whatever else they may currently be living in, and safer than "modern homes."

Many people in the world are in dangerous or inadequate housing. These structures would be a definite improvement for them. I doubt that they want to wait for the communist revolution to be protected from the elements.


But the fact is for single plot farmers living in mud huts, for slum dwellers living in tin shacks, for dozens of workers sharing substandard one bedroom dwellings... clean, modern housing would be a massive advance.As would superadobe housing.

[fa2991]

I prefer the traditional building system in the planoalto of Moçambique. It's to construct a round frame from sticks. Into the frame, you put stone, earth, and whatever mixed with water to a thick muddy consistency. Then, you cover the outer (and inner if prefered) walls with a smooth layer of mud. The roof is made from a frame of sticks with lots of grass on top. So, the end result is a mud walled cylinder with a grass cone on top. People in Moz have been building these eco-friendly homes for a long time.

This system is very inexpensive, sturdy, and relies entirely on local resources. Homes like this can be wired with electric (I lived in one). The only maintenance is to add some additional mud to the walls after the rainy season and to occasionally add some grass.

Huh. That's very interesting - care to elaborate on life in one of those things?


For such centralization, we want tower blocks. We want to build up. We want structures that have walls that can be shared (tessellated) to decrease material use. We don't want funky looking domes.A huge part of the appeal of using these structures as temporary or emergency shelters is that they go up very quickly and can survive basically anything. To bring up Haiti for the fourth-ish time, the displaced people there would be better off in domes at least for the time being, as they can survive hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs, and falling debris. Some people don't have the time or resources to build traditional upward buildings. In fact, in an earthquake, you would be far better off in a superadobe dome than in a traditional house. No comparison.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Once manufacture of concrete elements has been established, the construction of simple panel housing can quickly alleviate housing shortages.

http://i33.tinypic.com/2rzw8k6.jpg

http://i37.tinypic.com/wvuayr.jpg

[Rusty Shackleford]

Once manufacture of concrete elements has been established, the construction of simple panel housing can quickly alleviate housing shortages.

http://i33.tinypic.com/2rzw8k6.jpg

http://i37.tinypic.com/wvuayr.jpg
how sturdy are these structures generally?
i can imagine certain regions would be very bad for these.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

how sturdy are these structures generally?
i can imagine certain regions would be very bad for these.

They are sturdy structures. Those are simpler designs from the 1950's, which is why they are only 5 stories tall; this is to prevent earthquake damage (nowadays it is possible to build them taller and prevent earthquake damage, but at greater cost in capitalist society). They hold up well during earthquakes; when they have been damaged by earthquakes inducing liquefaction they generally have only tipped over without breaking into pieces, meaning people are likely to be able to get out unharmed and not be trapped in ruins. They are not easily affected severely by hurricanes or storms, at most they'd blow out windows.

[Adi Shankara]

This is probably going next to forkliftism and my suggestion of insects for the masses.

[Rusty Shackleford]

actually no. i am genuinely interested in this.

i seriously would not mind having a sandbag home or cabin.