Natural homes map Links to low impact websites Natural homes Natural  homes courses Natural homes books
straw bale course Green oak course cob course earthbag course Clay and lime plastering course cordwood course natural roofing course
Women build beautiful homes
Barbara and Bee help all sorts of people learn how to build beautiful straw bale homes
 
Solar Power Summit, Saville, Spain 
On the 5th and 6th of November the Solar Power Summit will help you to understand hybrid systems, improve heat storage, maximise sunfall, cut costs, construct effectively and manage financial risk. More about solar power summit
 
French Straw Building Gathering
The next gathering of the French Straw Building Network, Les Compaillons, will be held in Jublains from the 1st to the 4th of November. The gathering will be in French apart from a presentation on loadbearing construction by Amazon Nails. More details on lamaisonenpaille.com
 
The World prefers straw bale
Results are in from September's ecoVote and the World clearly prefers straw bale construction but in the Americas cob and strawbale are equally preferred. Read more about the ecoVote results
 
Celebrating Sustainability, NC, USA
June 20-29 2008, Asheville, with Kleiwerks, run a city wide collaboration of local communities building sustainable solutions for the city. You can volunteer for 2 weeks and up to a year on the project. More details on Kleiwerks and ashevillage.org
 
Special homes around the World
Here are some of the special homes you can find on the natural homes map.
 
 

Earthship Biotecture, Jamaica
Earthship Biotecture will be starting a project in Negril, Jamaica in February of 2008 spending three weeks building an earthship. There will be positions available for eight trainees for each of the three weeks. Fees for the training will be 350 USD per week.
If you are interested in participating in the Earthship Jamaica Training Program, please go to www.earthship.com

 
Reasons to go solar in the USA?
Listen to John Schaeffer of Real Goods discuss three reasons to go solar and some of the very tangible benefits in this quick two-minute video
 
Put your house on Natural Homes
Here is a short letter from Tim & Patricia from their straw bale eco house in Argentina.
"The folks who have come to visit all learned about the house from Natural Homes. Keep up the good work! We are pleased that we have a positive influence here. It's all great fun!"
To help others who are thinking of going green we have launched our mapping system so that natural homes around the world are more accessible. If you know about a home that you think should be on our map then contact us. Take a look at the Natural Homes Map.
 
low-impact homes map
 

How to use this site
We hope you will find plenty of things here to help you on your way to building a natural, eco-friendly home. The site is divided in to five parts.

  • Building courses in the learn section.
  • Start by buying a book or two
  • Links to other sites where you can learn.
  • House, natural homes built, or being built.
  • Map, natural homes around the world.
We use these colours for regions of the world.
Africa
Europe
Americas
Australasia
Middle East & Asia

 
Lammas UK eco-village rejected
The Lammas plans for an eco-village of nine low-impact homes on land in rural Pembrokeshire has been turned down by councilors. Read about it on the BBC Please send a message of support to Lammas who will re-apply for permission. You can read Pembrokeshire County Council's low-impact policy here and watch the Lammas' eco-village video collection
 
October's ecoVote results
Strawbale warning in the Americas
Results are in from October's ecoVote and the World clearly prefers to invest in straw bale homes but not in the Americas where earthen structures are prefered. Read more here.
 
Put a map on your blog
The natural homes map is now available for you to include in your blog. This is an example blog that displays straw bale houses. Get the code for your blog here and spice up your eco-friendly blog.
 
What's an Earthship?
You can see pictures of earthships with links to the builder's websites here and get a good introduction about earthships on Wikipedia
 
It's possible there why not here?
The International Polar Foundation unveiled its plans for the Antarctic Polar Station which will run entirely on renewable energy and will completely recycle all its waste. It will not cause any damage to the pristine Antarctic environment. So why can’t we do the same here? Read about polar renewable energy here
 
Off-Grid in New Mexico  
We are looking for off-grid homes to put on the natural homes map. Recently Chris Niner contacted us to put Green Mountain Solar on the map. His website if full of good advice and well worth a visit.
 
Natural Building Colloquium, Texas
In the Central Hill County, Kerrville, Texas, October 19-28. With David Eisenberg, Matts Myhrman and Judy Knox, Doni Kiffmeyer and Kaki Hunter, Kindra Welch and Frank Meyer. More details about the Natural Building Colloquium here
 
Cobbing in Mexico, February 2008
This Cobworks project is located 8KM above the town of Santiago in the mountains of the La Laguna Biosphere Reserve. There is a 50 foot waterfall within hiking distance of our worksite, as well as hot springs to explore on rest days. In addition to laughing, singing, eating, and making friends that

 
you will probably keep in contact with long after the course is over, cobworks will cover all of the basics of cob mixing and building. cob building .
 
What's a cordwood house?
See some examples of cordwood homes here and read about Larry's cordwood cabin near Harrisville, USA
 
Women build beautiful homes
Barbara and Bee help all sorts of people learn how to build beautiful straw bale homes
 
A green oak builder's day
This course was lead by Ron Smith, one of the many green oak courses listed by Natural Homes. Click on the picture below to see a time-lapse animation of a day in the life of a green oak building team as this green oak frame extension to a Welsh home rises in a day.
 
Green oak frame building team
share us with others

Low-impact ecovillage
natural building
Sustainable Building Directory
eco homes green directory

 
be Inspired...
build a natural home
Straw bale eco house in Italy
Would you like to contribute

If you know of any sites we should link to, or books we should list or maybe you know of a natural home we should include, then please write to us at house@naturalhomes.org.
an earthbag home
near Warsaw, Poland
Carbon Neutral home in Poland
© 2007 Oliver Blake Swann
Design by
Site last updated 8th December 2007