“We live on earth yet remain so ignorant of earth and all the treasures it holds.”
-Rumi, Poet

We recently visited REFRAME, a Living Village focusing on habitat solutions for Third World countries during Engineering & Humanity Week at SMU where students are living for a few days. Our favorite: the Cal-Earth Sandbag Shelter, an earthquake resistant emergency shelter, easily adaptable to local materials and currently in use in 20 countries.

According to the United Nations, there are over one billion people on the planet with inadequate shelter. In addition, there are others who are displaced from their homes by natural disasters, war, and terrorism. Award-winning architect Nader Khalili, whose specialty was skyscrapers, dedicated his life to teaching others how to build shelter for humanity. One of his most innovative, shows how to use sandbags and barbed wire, the materials of war, for peaceful purposes as the new invention known as Superadobe or earth-bag, which can shelter millions of people around the globe as a temporary as well as permanent housing solution. This affordable, self-help, sustainable, and disaster-resistant structural system is a spin off from Khalili’s presentation to NASA for habitat on the moon and Mars, which successfully passed rigorous tests for strict California earthquake building codes.

After a fire, hurricane, flood, or earthquake we immediately declare that this was a natural disaster, an act of God. Then we ask if we have insurance, or how soon will the government or U.N. come to help. And these are repeated and echoed in the media around the globe over and over again. But these are not the right questions. According to Cal-Earth a non-profit established by the late Mr. Khalili (1936-2008), the right question is why did our house burn, fall apart, or get swept away? And when we have the chance to re-build it, should we build it the same way and in the same place? Ultimately “natural disasters” are disasters that humans create and blame on nature. Now, add to this the impact that population has on nature: pollution, deforestation, land mismanagement, the green house effect, etc. This will undoubtedly accelerate the rate of disasters in the future, creating a sense of urgency to educate ourselves and our children to act more in harmony with nature.

Mr Khalili says that, “we must also prepare ourselves for inevitable disasters. One of the best ways to shield against fire, flood, and storm may be with earth, water, air and fire. Nature does this itself. The equilibrium of the natural elements is the natural balancing act among these universal elements. To build simple emergency and safe structures in our backyards, to give us maximum safety with minimum environmental impact, we must choose natural materials and, like nature itself, build with minimum materials to create maximum space, like a beehive or a sea shell. The strongest structures in nature are those which work in tune with gravity, friction, minimum exposure and maximum compression: arches, domes and vault forms. And they can be easily learned and utilize the most available material on earth: Earth.”

These simple earth-friendly plastic bags are filled with sand and function much like the adobe structures created by the early Native Americans of the Southwestern United States. The heat of the day is absorbed in the structure and then radiates into the interior at night to keep it warm. For more permanent housing solutions, sand is placed in the tubular forms, covered in wire, then plastered to fix the form and add strength. For more about how adobe works go to this link.

“While we may not make sandbag houses in our own neighborhood, we applaud Cal-Earth for its ongoing mission to house the homeless with self help ideas in an earth-friendly manner. Through this process, Cal-Earth is developing innovative designs and cutting-edge technologies for construction that will ultimately impact our personal use of materials and design solutions.” Steve Chambers“

About The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture, Mojave Desert

Cal-Earth, The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture, is a 501 (C)3 non-profit/charitable foundation at the cutting edge of Earth and Ceramic Architecture technologies today. Founded in 1986 by its director, Nader Khalili (1936-2008), its scope spans technical innovations published by NASA for lunar and Martian construction, to housing design and development for the world’s homeless for the United Nations.

Current emergency solution for disaster relief housing.

Continuing in his tradition, Khalili’s associates and apprentices are dedicated to research and education of the public in environmentally-oriented arts and architecture. Its philosophy is based on the equilibrium of the natural elements of earth, water, air, fire, and their unity in service of the arts and humanity.