https://www.economist.com/node/18618271?story_id=18618271&fsrc=nlw|hig|04-28-2011|editors_highlights https://300house.com/ https://blogs.hbr.org/govindarajan/2010/08/the-300-house-a-hands-on-lab-f.html World-Class Design. Our next question was: "Who will do this?" We decided that it would be have to be a collaboration between global design and engineering companies and non-profits with experience solving problems for the poor. The usual suspects ran through our minds — IDEO, GE, TATA, Siemens, Habitat-for-Humanity, Partners In Health, the Solar Electric Light Fund, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Gates Foundation, Grameen. Governments may play an important part is setting the stage for these types of cross-country innovation projects. The Reverse Innovation Payoff. Participating companies will reap two rewards. First, they will be able to serve the unserved, the 2.5 billion who make up the bottom of the pyramid. Second, they create new competencies which can help transform lives in rich countries by creating breakthrough innovations to solve several problems (scaled housing for hurricane victims, refugees, and even the armed forces). A House of One's Own: Affordability. To move beyond charity, the poor must become owners of their homes, responsible for their care and upkeep. The model of social business introduced by Muhammad Yunus resonates strongly with us. Micro-finance must surely play a role in making the $300 House-for-the-Poor a viable and self-sustaining solution.
Do people have to fit in it? 24 sq. ft. for $200. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/garden/24tiny.html Top 5 Tiniest Prefab Homes https://inhabitat.com/top-5-tiniest-tiny-houses/
About 40 years ago, in one of the 'Foxfire' books (don't remember which one), I read about a conrete dome house. Pile up a mound of loose dirt/sand, cover with concrete, (except for the door) let cure, then dig out the dirt. It was cheap in the 70s. a couple of the foxfire books https://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/this-n-that/foxfire-books-free-downloads/ Dome Homes made of concrete. https://www.goldenrod.net/DH1.htm
Here is a small house for $362. It is insulated with wool, and uses a wood stove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOIifnYM7DQ
Wow and that is American dollars so it would only be 250 AUD i built a pond in the manner suggested by ojo and boy it was heavy so the house would not easily blow away.
A sprayed hempcrete or foam would be lighter. These guys spray onto a reusable balloon and forgo the pile of dirt. until recently—the economics of energy has never forced us to look at our buildings from the point of view of conservation . . . even though the basic guidelines for making the best use of energy have been available to heat engineers for decades. For instance, the heat loss of any structure can be described by the relationship of five factors: surface area, insulation,storage,leakage(called infiltration), and the difference between inside and outside temperatures But what would happen if an architect were to look at all five of the heat loss factors before designing a building? The form developed as a result of such an analysis definitely wouldn't be the all-American box. For one thing, it's difficult to conceive (within the range of practical construction methods) of a shape that has more surface area per unit of floor space than does a cube. First of all, to an architect who's attempting to minimize heat-robbing wall and roof area, a rounded structure is nearly irresistible. By using a portion of a sphere (or a paraboloid or an ellipsoid), the surface area for a given floor space can be reduced by as much as 40% from that of a cube. Thus the economy of the dome shape is undeniable ... and—from the standpoint of comfort-a circular room will not have the chilly corners that are frequently found in angular abodes. excerpts Read more: https://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Homes/1980-05-01/A-Foam-Dome-Home.aspx#ixzz1LM0D6WEU
for cheap heating and cooling it's hard to beat underground. John said. “And it was much more comfortable inside the domes. It stayed 75 to 80 degrees all summer, and that is without air conditioning.” Glenn said that the domes are proving “extremely energy-efficient.” He added, “I recently was gone for three days. No heat was turned on and the temperature was in the low 30s at night. When I returned, at night, the temperature in the house was 75 degrees. I have only had the heater on twice since moving in.” excerpt https://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-invisible-dome-home the culvert house https://home.earthlink.net/~dectiri/OuterSpace/CulvrtHs.htm https://www.subsurfacebuildings.com/Links.html
k, i just gotta make this joke... that's a lot of pot to smoke in order to make a home. :rofl: Seriously though, I see more and more potential for hempcrete, I wish I could get the material here.
Do they have to be small? https://inhabitat.com/tiny-tumbleweed-houses/ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/garden/24tiny.html?_r=1 Not quite that bad yet PP. If we have exchange rates like that we may need to do some "Quantitative easing" ourselves
Approximately 40% of all hardwood harvested in the U.S. is for making shipping pallets About two-thirds of pallets are used only once before being thrown out 1/4 of all wood in landfills is from used pallets You can help prevent deforestation and keep pallets out of landfills by finding creative alternative uses for them, like building a house. Pallets can be found everywhere. Once you start looking for them, you’ll see them scattered all over your town or city. https://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/02/19/build-your-own-free-tiny-house-with-shipping-pallets/ https://www.tinyhousedesign.com/
Here are two more: (the second one is longer and harder to hear, but has more good details) $15 Earth Berm Eco House filmed 30 years later $50 Underground House Eco Building The houses were build by Mike Oehler
I've been in a 3 bedroom house built entirely of WW2 wooden ammo crates. It's been lived in for 50 years and probably last 50 more. The trick is to find enough at the same time, so it doesn't take twenty years to collect materials. https://inhabitat.com/pallet-haus-an-efficient-affordable-modular-house/ https://www.wired.com/culture/lifes...0/gallery_instant_housing?slide=3&slideView=8 https://www.i-beamdesign.com/projects/refugee/refugee.html Imagine a magical building material. It's cheap, perhaps even free. It's plentiful everywhere, worldwide. It's strong enough to hold up under extreme weather conditions. It's inexpensive to heat and cool. And it's so easy to use that workers can learn the necessary skills in a few hours. This miraculous substance isn't only cheap as dirt, it is dirt, and it's winning new respect from architects, engineers, and designers. excerpt https://architecture.about.com/cs/greenarchitecture/a/eartharch.htm
the average american retirement plan, starve to death, living in your minivan, in a wal-mart parking lot. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...almart-parking-lot-ignored-shoppers-days.html “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” - Confucious https://www.giah.org.mx/eco-village_english.html earthbag construction video & links https://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums/6507_0/green-building/eco-dome
Would it surprise you to know that the companies in the Pacific Northwest that cut down trees do so to have them chipped & sent to Asia? These same companies have land holding large then some US States, and the tax payers are subsidizing this because they don't hire as many people anymore. Which, is pretty obvious why they don't, considering a 5 man team with machines does the work 20+ used to. I won't even get into the ecological harm which these idiots tought as, 'there are more trees here now then when the Indians were here.' ./walks away ranting
https://www.earthbagbuilding.com/workshops.htm https://guidingstarcreations.blogspot.com/ how about some hemp earthbags... Gosford, NSW-based company Biofiba has developed a new product which uses organic fibres to make planks for shipping pallets. The only known technology of its kind, the company says it has the potential to make considerable inroads into domestic and international export pallet supply markets. The manufacturing process involves the modification of hemp fibre and natural starches to fabricate pallets rather than timber or plastic composites which pose their own problems. With 6 billion export pallets (94 percent made of wood) sold annually, Biofiba’s product stands to help prevent the destruction of the world’s natural and irreplaceable forests. https://www.supplychainreview.com.au/news/articleid/73277.aspx Recently, plant breeding and selection in industrial hemp in Australia by Ecofibre Industries has focussed on developing varieties suitable to Australian production, particularly the sub-tropics where higher summer rainfall and summer temperatures implies higher production capacity. These varieties have consistently achieved much higher fibre yields than previous trials of European varieties. https://www.ecofibre.com.au/growingfibre.html Hemp to Potentially Replace Reliance on Fossil Fuels Overall, the entire plant has great and diverse value to humans. https://www.dailynexus.com/2011-04-18/hemp-potentially-replace-reliance-fossil-fuels/ or we could move back to the sea. Aquanaut and bioengineer Dennis Chamberland hopes to expand upon those successes by building the equivalent of suburbs on the sea floor, a region where there is unlimited space for expansion. https://www.takepart.com/news/2011/01/19/underwater-suburbs-coming-soon https://www.sub-find.com/trilobis65.htm
The same thing happens in S. NSW and Tasmania Australia. Tonnes of native trees wood-chiped and sold to Japan for a pittance to make origami
I wonder how much these "cost"? https://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/Turf_Houses.htm
Exactly. Or maybe something made out of cob? https://www.cobcottage.com/ We took a workshop in Oregon last fall. We learned a fair amount - but most of all we (re-)learned that you don't have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars of materials or tools to build a house. Success at lower cost lies in using what is at hand rather than demanding new materials produced by the building industry. It also helps to think hard about your needs and expectations before committing to a project bigger than you want to afford. It kind of drives me crazy to see poor people impoverished further yet to live in horrible manufactured housing, and to see concept factory-produced 'cheap houses for the people' when what would serve the people much better is the knowledge of how to take the materials around them and build a home which would better suit their needs. I know that once you factor building code into the situation it gets much trickier, but I'm also of the mindset that the building code is there to make life better for people, not just to guarantee livelihood to contractors. Zeke
[video]https://www.homedsgn.com/2011/05/07/a-tiny-apartment-in-hong-kong-transforms-into-24-rooms/[/video] https://www.homedsgn.com/2011/05/07/a-tiny-apartment-in-hong-kong-transforms-into-24-rooms/ What you can do in 300 sq feet
