Cal Earth Creating Different Housing

ClosedLoop writes " Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of the Cal Earth Institute. I found myself in southern California's high desert listening to Iranian-born writer, award-winning-architect, and Cal Earth Institute founder Nader Khalili present his vision of affordable housing that the world's people can build for themselves. Judging from his research structures (and EcoDome), he's not far from his goal. He also works with NASA on ideas for structures that can be built from local Lunar or Martian materials. "

Comments

This can mean only one thing...

[Zorilla]

Martian teepees?

Adobe?

[Dancin_Santa]

People have been making structures for themselves for a long time. From the towering A-frame lodges of the Pacific Islands to the mud-brick adobe dwellings of the American plains, eco-friendly housing has been around for literally all time.

These designs all require some kind of special material or parts that aren't so easily available in many areas. Fortunately, the dwellings these indigenous people have been using since the beginning of their civilization will work just fine.

refreshing ideas

[courseB]

nice to see a look towards 'nature' with curved and organic lines. a cactus is a powerhouse due to its round shape. we could make our homes such too.

living in this straight line box is getting old.

Re:refreshing ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

a cactus is a powerhouse due to its round shape.

Right, that's why batteries are always round, because the round shape generates electricity. But wait - pyramids sharpen razorblades?

Question:

[oexeo]

> ... that the world's people can build for themselves.

So, tell me, who exactly built them before?

Martian Houses

[mordors9]

Thank god that someone is finally addressing the Martian housing crisis.

What's it like to live in?

[niemeyer]

I found the site interesting, I'm always looking for interesting, durable building techniques for the "Dream House". What I did not find was what these houses are like to live in. They looked pretty comfortable to live in for the California/desert climate, but I wonder how they hold up in rainer climates like the US southeast or even Northern plains like North Dakota, etc.

Needs to be blessed by academia

[panurge]

Remember, folks, the technology and science of indigenous peoples isn't real until it has been properly rediscovered by Westerners. In fact, indigenous peoples don't actually exist until the West discovers them and writes coffee-table books about them.

OK this is a cheap jibe, and these houses do look nice, but most cultures have rather good traditional building styles based on local materials, and they are under threat mainly from so-called architects, and the heritage industry which wants to preserve them as they were and not allow them to be adapted to modern conditions. In fact, I have just had my house refaced and new ashlars and lintel on the front door using materials dug up a few miles away, while down the road you can see modern houses being put up with inferior stuff that has probably moved several hundred miles.

This guy may actually be doing a good job, but as others have said, it's not as if he invented doing things this way.

common misconception

[poptones]

part of the "Superadobe" construction is a proiper external shell. Plastering the house with a proper lime based mix will help make it reasonably waterproof. Replacing this as it's washed away is not something that can be neglected for decades on end, but it's not something that needs to be done every year either.

People often have the same notions about cob homes. If the walls are made from mud, then enough rain would cause them to weaken. In cob structures this is taken care of by proper foundation (ie a foot or so of rock along the ground before placing mud) a roof with good overhang, and proper plastering of outside walls. There are cob homes all over France and Germany and England that have stood hundreds of years.

With these structures the earth is contained in bags and interlocked with barb wire. You would want to make sure the house had a proper foundation for the walls, but the bags would help stabilize things much better than plain cob, which is already quite strong. I'm not sure if it's still online but I once read a report from a fellow who was demolishing one of these to make room for new construction, and it was pretty incredibly strong. He took a hose and shovel and had the entire dome standing on just three narrow "legs." It took quite a lot of deliberate undermining the foundation to cause the dome to finally collapse.

What I find really amazing is the concept of using solar energy to heat the soil to magma, then guiding its flow to form ceramic dwellings. I've read accounts of people filling these structures with wood and firing them in order to make ceramic domes, but the notion of directing magma flows is pretty... "ambitious."

Obstacles to alternative housing also

[Sai Babu]

encourage huge residential structures.

1)Property tax is generally based on number of square feet so municipalities have minimum square foot requirements in zoning.

2)Mortgage valuation is heavily weighted by the number of square feet. Cost per square foot goes down as total area goes up encouraging huge houses.

3)Zoning prohibits alternative materials. In Hawaii, where we now live most of the time, it's entirely practical to build a house using split, woven, bamboo walls in single wall construction over a timber (steel, wood, bamboo, or concrete) frame. It makes for very comfortable tropical housing, the walls are typically replaced avery 10 years or so. There is no need to paint. But, try getting a permit for something like this! Also in the tropics, outbuildings for kitchen (much safer from a fire hazard POV) and WC/bath (keeps dampness from main house in tropical climate) are impossible to get through zoning.

4)Alternative construction is foreign to most architects and builders and ends up costing a LOT more. I've been researching a concrete house for some property I own on the East Coast. Finding someone affordable who is familiar with modern concrete construction (foam forms, polished aggregate flooring, embedded radiant heat, etc) is an exercise in futility. Few people do enough of this sort of work that you either pay for someone to learn or pay the premium of someone who's experience is in short supply.

5)Then there are the damn neighbors who don't want anything that doesn't look like the mail order Sears Roebuck craftsman style houses that are already in the neighborhood but for some stange reason have no problem adding square feet (2nd floor) to their houses as long as it has the right 'look'.