Owen’s Philosophy
Years Ago, Doctor Owen Geiger Wrote Down His Building Philosophy in Succinct Terms. Owen Was an Extremely Educated Man...
We’re Now Offering Earthbag House Plans from Dr. Owen Geiger
We are pleased to announce a partnership with Kelly Hart to offer some of our mutual friend, Owen Geiger’s, floor plans for earthbag and natural homes.
Reasons to Build Your Tiny House with Earth
In 2019, we set up a workshop to build a tiny house on our community property. It was an eight-day workshop–the longest we had done to date, and it filled up quickly. As most readers probably already know, tiny houses have been one of the biggest trends in alternative building.
An Interview With Jasmine Dale, Co-Builder of the Hobbit House
I Had the Opportunity to Ask Jasmine Dale, Wife of Simon Dale, Some Questions About Their Hobbit House in Whales. If You’re Interested in Natural or Alternative Building, and Unless You’ve Been Living Under a Rock for the Last Decade or So, You’ve Probably Come Across Pictures of the Hobbit House...
Our Online Earthbag Tiny House Class is Live!
In 2019, we had an eight-day workshop at our property, to begin work on an earthbag tiny house. This and footage taken since then has been turned into an online, earthbag tiny house building course.
That Time I Worked on a Hempcrete House…
Several years ago, I got an opportunity to work on a hempcrete house for a couple of days. By that time I’d heard quite a bit about the technique and was very excited to get a chance to try it out.
The Organic House by Javier Senosiain
Here’s a modern hobbit home that uses some very sound design principles and has a decidedly organic feel to it. It was designed by Architect Javier Senosiain and was built in 1984. Javier mostly used cement with metal reinforcement to accomplish the sensual curviness of this structure. Much of the same feel could be achieved with less impact using natural building methods such as earthbag or cob.
What is Earthbag Building?
I’ve Been a Proponent of Earthbag Building for Well Over a Decade Now. When I Tell People What I Teach, I’d Say That at Least 95% Of Folks Haven’t Heard of It. The Premise Is Simple: Put Dirt (A Mix of Sand and Clay) In Sandbags and Build Walls With It. We Built Our First Earthbag House in 2009...
The Beauty of Bottle Walls
My first exposure to the concept of bottle walls was through one of Mike Reynold’s earthship books. Mike developed the idea of earthships in the 70’s when recycling was in it’s infancy. Landfills were filling up with glass bottles–a foolish waste of an amazing material. What Mike found was that you could build walls of amazing beauty and durability, that evoke the feeling of stained glass, by using these discarded (dare I say, “disgraced”?) receptacles.
Building our Earthship-Inspired Earthbag House
In 2014 our small intentional community purchased twelve acres of prime land in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Over the next year and a half, we helped our community members build infrastructure and their earthbag house. In the spring of 2016, we began work on our own earthship-inspired earthbag house.