If you?re interested in getting a firsthand look at how natural and low-cost materials can be used to create livable, surprisingly beautiful houses, few places in the United States offer better examples than CalEarth, also known as The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture. Located in the hot, unforgiving desert climate of Hesperia, California (about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles), the nonprofit institute founded by the late architect Nader Khalili researches and develops environmentally-friendly building designs and teaches the public how to bring them to life.

Inspired by traditional earth architecture found in the deserts of Iran, CalEarth?s structures range from a small emergency shelter for one person that can be expanded into a rapidly-built village to entire three-bedroom houses with two-car garages. Some standout examples include the 400-square-foot Eco Dome, the modular Earth One Vaulted House featuring radiant floor slab heating and solar power, a ?Water Village? full of coiled and plastered huts, and a ?Fire Village? with integrated rocket stove heaters, among many more.
The CalEarth team explains: ?The building process is intentionally simple, but the structural integrity of SuperAdobe is the result of years of research. The structural design uses modern engineering concepts like base-isolation and post-tensioning. The long coils of sandbag provide compression (vertical) strength, while the barbed wire adds tensile (horizontal) str...