I am an avid reader of Kelly Hart’s blog, Green Home Building and Sustainable Architecture, and recently he started a separate site called Earthbag Building which I am hugely interested in (as some of you may have noticed already ). I just ran across a recent project, The Sun House ( Kay Sole in Creole), built in Haiti, which appeals to me for several reasons: 1. The walls are fabricated from poly bags which carried bulk diet staples such as wheat, rice and barley, and rather than being disposed of, filled with earth become free building materials. 2. Haiti is desperate for safe and sound housing, and given that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, why not utilize a free commodity? 3. Not the least of which, the house has a Modern look! Aside from the trullo style, most Earthbag projects look a little too hippie-ish for me The fact remains, this is one of the best methods of building I’ve ever seen, especially for poor and developing countries.
I’m quoting Father Marc Boisvert, who chronicled the building of Sun House:
We have long embraced the concept of environmental sustainability. We use compost. We recycle. Our energy for pumps comes from PV solar panels; electricity for the Guest House is augmented by a wind turbine and we stick with natural pesticides for the farm. Having read about alternative construction going on around the world, we decided to try our hand at it. We will be building a small house with earth bags. Rice, barley, wheat (staples of our diet here) all come in poly bags which we’ve saved. They will be used to hold a mix of moistened sand and clay. Gotta purchase the sand which comes from riverbeds nearby but we have tons of clay on our property. The bags will be laid out much like bricks or blocks and barbed wire will be used as mortar between the rows. It’s a learning process and we are anxious to see what will develop. Enjoy the project vicariously.

See the links and more photos after the jump: