Also see: Tiny House Design and Tiny House Map
Now that’s sustainable! It’s an earthen home in Washington’s Independence Valley.
“The funky, individualistic two-story home was built by Gregory Crawford, who works at nearby Rising River Farm – and travels during the farm’s off season (having no mortgage helps, no doubt). He gained permission to build there by asking the landowner…”
Read more at Lloyd’s Blog: Hand-built Earthen House in Washington Woods.
This looks like an amazing cob building workshop. Love the little building they’ve built.
“The SunDog nine day workshop is designed to teach ordinary people the skills to build their own cob cottages, from the foundation to the roof. Our projects are small, most are under 200 square feet, and geared towards attaining a high level of completion in a short amount of time.”
Read the complete Cob Building Workshop article.
Here’s an unusual approach that combines a couple of building techniques.
“The dome is built from reclaimed and earthen materials and according to Jeffrey ‘this project started with the idea, that if we reduce the amount of space we live in, we are forced to utilize outside space more.’”
Learn more about this Tiny Earthen Dome Home.
The folks at Peak Moment TV interview a fellow that’s built an earthen home in western Washington.
“Greg Crawford shows the magical wattle-and-cob house he built with hand tools using local materials: alder trees in the surrounding forest, and clay from what later became the house floor.”
Learn more about this Earthen House Built by Hand on YouTube.
If you like the idea of building with rammed earth, Michael Thompson teaches a two day course in the UK. Below are the summer course dates.
“Learn to build using what mother nature provides, within my own Rammed Earth Eco-Shed on The Norfolk Broads!These fun and friendly courses will be held over two days and will cover all the essential areas of building with rammed earth.”
Learn more at Rammed Earth Building Course – Norfolk Broads UK.
The folks at fair companies have been putting together many great videos, including some that feature tiny houses. This video shows a 150 square foot tiny cob house being built by interns at North Carolina’s Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute.
Michael Thompson, the rammed earth home builder, will be releasing a book on March 1, 2010. This is sure to be an excellent resource for anyone considering building their own rammed earth home.
I always learn new stuff while reading Lloyd Kahn’s blog. This week I spotted this funky little tiny house built by the folks at Living Earth Structures in Petaluma, California. These folks build all sorts of earthen structures including benches, walls, ovens, and houses. They also offer adobe and cob workshops for those who want to learn about building in this extremely low-cost and sustainable building method. Below is a video from their website.
I’m starting to think that building with earth makes more sense than any other building method. I must admit I’m terribly biased because my real professional training and education is in the ceramic arts. The main disadvantage is that they are no portable like so many of the tiny houses I write about and explore through design.
Here’s another great find from Lloyd Kahn’s blog… it’s an article on 10 Amazing Earthen Buildings.
One of my readers on Tiny House Design sent me this very nicely done adobe casita near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Three months out of the year Samuel Grey lives in this tiny house. In a few years this will be his full-time home.