Sustainable home designs

I do a lot of research into sustainable home building techniques and designs, and for the benefit of others I thought I'd share my best finds.

Cob is the future and the past, and that's what I like about it. There's something scintillating about photovoltaic cells sitting atop walls made with pre-history technology. If we make it, this is what our society will be in a hundred years: firmly rooted in our past and traditions, but also utilizing our limitless ingenuity and innovation. Some things we got right the first time, and others are yet to be discovered.

Ann and Gord Baird built a cob house in British Columbia that is truly inspirational. Their project can be found at eco-sense.ca, and an informative slide show of their house under construction can be found here.

The Earthship design is a brilliant and elegant concept with an unfortunate name. The design uses dirt-filled recycled tires as exterior walls to provide thermal mass for temperature control, and passive solar energy to provide radiant heat during winter. Mike Reynolds' ideas have been constructed all over the world, and prove the multi-climate viability of his ingenious solutions.

Many people who have built their own earthships have made websites detailing their design and the process, and also providing a window into what the pre-flash, pre-css, Geocities based interweb used to look like. Two examples are found here and here.