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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.
"
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.
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.
Thank god that someone is finally addressing the Martian housing crisis.
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.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
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."