by Peter McIntosh | Feb 23, 2017 | Adobe, Alternative building, Alternative energy, Cape Town, City of Cape Town, Clay, Cob, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB), Delft ECD, Early Childhood Development centre, Earthen Schools, Ecobricks, Guest post, Hybrid building, Living Sustainably, Local materials, Long Way Home, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building methods, Natural mortar mixes, Natural plasters, Passive Solar Design, Peter McIntosh, Qala Phelang Tala, Rammed Earth, Strawbale, Sustainable building, Sustainable human settlements, Thermal performance, Tyre building
In Delft, an impoverished township on the outskirts of the Cape Flats, local government is changing its approach to building early childhood development centres with a pioneering project showcasing a hybrid of natural building methods and up-cycled waste materials. By...
by Peter McIntosh | Nov 17, 2016 | Adobe, African Vernacular Architecture, Alternative building, Alternative energy, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB), Design competition, Heritage, Interview, Living off-grid, Local materials, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building methods, Passive Solar Design, Q&A, Rammed Earth, Sustainable building, Sustainable human settlements, Thermal performance, Uncategorized
We catch up with Paul Marais about his award-winning off grid, rammed earth house in Maun, Botswana. First off, congratulations on winning the Afrisam-SAIA Award for Sustainable Architecture + Innovation for Sustainable Product/Technology for your design of the rammed...
by Peter McIntosh | Nov 23, 2015 | Adobe, Architecture award, Clay, Cob, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB), Design competition, Events, Light Earth, Mud brick, Natural building, Strawbale, Sustainable building, Sustainable human settlements
The TERRA award is a collaborative effort on an international scale to enable both professionals and the general public to fully appreciate earth’s increasing popularity as a building material of high aesthetic and technical quality. Earth is becoming...
by Peter McIntosh | Sep 11, 2015 | Adobe, Alternative building, Alternative energy, Clay, Cob, Insulation, Living off-grid, Living Sustainably, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building methods, Passive Solar Design, Permaculture, Peter McIntosh, Solar energy, Strawbale, Sustainable building, Sustainable human settlements, Thermal mass, Thermal performance
Passive solar design can dramatically reduce our demands on fossil fuels and other forms of energy input, allowing our buildings to become producers and not consumers of energy and resources, supporting us in a healthier more comfortable abundant way. Passive solar...
by Peter McIntosh | Jun 16, 2015 | Adobe, African Vernacular Architecture, Clay, Cob, Community, Guest post, Heritage, Indigenous Architectural Knowledge, Indigenous Building Systems, Local materials, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building methods, Rammed Earth, Sustainable building, Sustainable human settlements, Thermal performance, Uncategorized
In this guest post by Jon Sojkowski, he chronicles common misperceptions of African vernacular architecture and how it is being abandoned for the status that comes with living in conventional Western style buildings. He asks whether these modern materials are truly...
by Franz Muhl | Apr 5, 2015 | Adobe, Clay, Cob, Franz Muhl, Living Sustainably, Local materials, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building course, Natural plasters, Owner-builder journey, Peter McIntosh, Reclaimed materials, Sand, Sustainable building, Sustainable human settlements
In this edition of the Owner-builder journey, Franz Muhl writes about a mud brick addition to his Scarborough home: “Let me build a home from fertile materials that is beautiful and healthy to live in, have a very low footprint and would grow a forest if you...
