Thursday, April 26, 2012

A Spiritually Enlivening Home

Earlier this year while searching on Buckminster Fuller's geodesic designs I came across another form of sustainable design called earthbag construction, based off of the construction of sandbags laid in coursing for the protective barrier in military bunkers and flood control. I discovered Dr.Owen Geiger's site http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/ and from that his blog http://earthbagplans.wordpress.com/

The bags, originally burlap and subject to rot, now are usually polypropylene and can be even less expensive by buying misprints and recycled grain sacks. The fill is ideally a composition of on-site soil, local and natural materials. The bags are then covered with some type of plaster which can as well be an earthen-type material.

Dr. Geiger and other's in his movement work to bring low-tech, affordable housing in areas stricken by poverty and hit by natural disasters. It is becoming a great interest with green builders as well and I have seen various blogs from those here in the states sharing their experiences with this new idea of an old version of construction.

I personally have fallen in love with the earthbag dome home and dream of living in one of my own! They are small and designed for people not things, or stuff. Simplify, simplify!



http://www.archearth.com/2007/05/20/28/




http://milkwood.net/2012/04/03/rendering-our-earthbag-dome-first-coat-bring-on-the-cow-poo/

Here are just a few snap shots.... I find them spiritually enlivening! Please Google 'earthbag dome home' and look under images to see how varied and imaginative this building can be. And imagine the change we could bring for our already over populated earth by making simpler choices in how we live, lessening our footprint.

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