Cool, but how to keep the moisture and black mold from forming inside the dwelling?
this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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I think cob is the way to go personally, but the general theme of using soil as a building material fascinates me.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
TBH, I think we need to bring this back for more remote/low density construction. It sounds awesome and I bet it would be a really good insulator
Not so much insulation, as thermal mass. It takes a lot of energy to change the temperature of that much earth.
They are excellent resilience, low-tech dwellings for places with temperature extremes, like prairies or high altitude.
The engineering needs to be sound.
However, they are dark inside and usually low-ceilinged, and can be damp if not well managed.
Or not well-designed. I'm sure someone like Mark Oehler could've figured something out. I don't have much sod here in central Finland, unfortunately, to try something, neither did he I suppose. I still think of how to cover the roof in living grass though, this is perfect roofing material IMHO once we figure out how to fix leakage without resorting to plastic sheets that my grass seems to tear like they are not even there.
Stainless steel perhaps
Yes and no. There are grades, variations of acidity and oxidative state of medium through the year. It's heavy. It warps differently from everything else with temperature variation. Most of all, it is expensive.
I was also considering glass or clay overlapping tiles. Would be cool to cast huge ceramic panel, but it will crack, unless soil matrix holds it together. Shingles under sod might get roots growing through.
Another possible approach would be to allow leaks deliberately, then leave porous medium below the locking level with airflow access - so that any leaked water would be carried away with warmer air rising from habitation levels or even rhtough ventilation system or stove exhaust.
So much to study.