New BIO-Engineering Techs

I am always looking for some great ideas for the community. There are several in this article on Popsci.com

Check it out! There is even a guided growth 'tree' house! I so nerded out on this article!

This is well worth checking out. This could be a great idea for growing some of the buildings as experiments for the community. I am so excited!!!

Why do people think you must go primitive to be green?

         I was talking with some friends yesterday about the sustainable living Druid community I want to build. They were extremely excited to see I was interested in it and started talking about going totally primitive. They were not the first people who immediately responded this way to my idea.

          So Why do people think you must go primitive to be green? I mean really... there is no need at all to go back to the 1800's way of living to be green. I am not really sure why anyone would WANT to go back to a private way of living.

          In this day and age people can live a green sustainable life while still having modern conveyances. To be off the grid you use modern renewable energy sources like wind turbines, solar panels, bio-diesel fuels, and hydro power turbines. The modern improvements give much more efficient power generation. And for appliances, we have energy star certified things or when it comes to a refrigerator there are propane powered units, etc.

          So again I ask "Why do people think you must go primitive to be green?" What a ridiculous idea! Now if you WANT to go primitive... sure go right ahead but I do tend to like things like running hot water, indoor plumping, internet, things like that.

Gathering rain water... water cisterns

          I live in an area where it rains pretty regularly but there are times during the summer when we will go weeks without rain. This can cause a major issue with watering food crops, animals, and the like. The best way I can see to help with this is through water cisterns.

          I have seen many different types of cisterns; underground, barrels, above ground large cisterns. But they all do the same thing, they collect water from roofs. The rain runs off the roofs into gutters which then funnel the rain into pipes which then carry it to the cistern itself. I really do see this as a great way to gather rain water for green house and for animals.

Great Article on building low cost earth homes...

Here is a great article on building 'Dirt Cheap' homes. The article gives a lot of wonderful ideas on what to consider when building an earthen home. I really found it very informative. Check it out!

How to Build Dirt Cheap Houses

Glass Blocks/Bricks.... natural light source?

          One of the ideas I keep playing with is the use of glass blocks/bricks being embedded in the Superadobe walls as a source of natural light. I have seen tons of images where colored wine and beer bottles are used as decoration and lighting with cod and adobe homes. So would this work well for the use of some natural light sources that didn't require large windows?

          I think this could really help open the home to pools of natural light that can really add to the ambient feel of the home or structure. I know that in general glass blocks/bricks provide pretty good thermal insulation as well. I would really rather use this kind of option and the use of sky lights. With the way the Superadobe structures are build it would be easy to just embed the blocks/bricks directly into the structure of the walls as they are being built. This was require only that they be sealed with a waterproofing agent to prevent leakage from any water or rain that might be on them. 

          Another great use would be for exterior walls. This would also allow for light to come through while still providing privacy to a degree. The other nice thing is it adds a great aspect of color and beauty.

          With the addition of glass, both clear and colored, in bottles and in blocks/bricks, the already stunning structures that can be made with the Superadobe building technique will be enhanced great.