Sustainable Village in Nepal Houses Former Street Children

The Pegasus Project built a small sustainable village near Kathmandu, Nepal in the Himalaya mountains where there are over 40 super adobe domes to accommodate 80 children, 10 staff and a small school. The village also has solar panels for hot water and a bio gas plant. The video below shows how the adobe homes are built:

Garbage Warrior: An Eco-Architect Fights to Build Off-the-Grid

What do beer cans, car tires and water bottles have in common? Not much unless you’re renegade architect Michael Reynolds, in which case they are tools of choice for producing thermal mass and energy-independent housing.

Shot over three years in the USA, India and Mexico, Garbage Warrior is a feature-length documentary film telling the epic story of eco-architect Michael Reynolds and his fight to introduce radically sustainable housing or “Earthships”. According to the website, Earthships are defined as “passive solar homes made of natural and recycled materials with renewable energy and integrated water systems.”

Sounds cool to us, let the man build!

Building Houses Out of Straw

Did you know that safe and warm houses can be built out of straw? As the weather gets colder, many families on Indian reservations across America struggle to keep themselves warm. That’s why Red Feather Development Group is working to provide straw bale housing for some of the poorest citizens in our country.

From their website:

Why Straw Bale Construction?
At the foundation of the American Indian Sustainable Housing Initiative is a belief that affordability and sustainability do not have to exist independently. Thus, we chose straw-bale construction as a logical fit for several reasons.

• Straw—an agricultural waste product of wheat production—is an environmentally sustainable and readily available option for Southwest and Northern Plains reservations where wheat grows on thousands of acres.

• Straw bale construction is builder-friendly: Indian families, volunteers and community members can quickly become skilled participants in the construction of their own homes.

• Our approach results in a relative cost savings of up to 60% in light of volunteer labor and donated materials as compared with a traditionally contracted starter home.

• Structures built with straw have an extremely high insulation value, which, when coupled with lower energy consumption, results in savings that can then strengthen the tribal economic base.

Learn more about straw bale construction here and check out volunteer opportunities here. Also, if you don’t have time to volunteer but you would like to help these communities, consider donating to help poor families in South Dakota heat their homes this winter. Even if you can only give 10 or 20 dollars, every 100 dollars raised helps a family heat their home for a month.