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People > Photos > Gallery: FA Ecotecture > Album: EcoHouses designed by FA Ecotecture > Adobe Skytherm Home
Adobe Skytherm Home

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Date: 03/21/05

Tags:

adobe bags building buildings carved earth energy giving heat house houses laws low million roof single solar steel straight strong traditional water

If more than 600 million houses required for the homeless world's population were to be built in a single row, they would go around the circumference of the Earth nearly a hundred times. It is unlikely that even half these houses will ever be built with modern building materials such as bricks, cement and plastics. Traditional building materials such as bamboo, wood, grasses, lime, pozzolanas, stone, cloth, animal skins and of course, soils continue to be used. The majority of urban and rural households around the world cannot afford to purchase even the cheapest modern house. If the world economy continues to worsen in the 21st Century, and cement and brick prices fuelled by rising energy prices continue to rise, the small proportion of households who can afford modern housing will become even smaller. Making use of traditional building materials and patented passive solar systems gave rise to this organic house design for Dry Climates and Humid Middle Latitude Climates. Adobe is a word commonly used to describe the use of earth as a building material in places like Mexico, the southwest USA, and Spain, so stabilized earth - as one of the cheapest, most abundant building materials, has been used to design the walls of this house. Earth provides excellent heat insulation, so inside, an adobe building is cooler in summer and hotter in winter, than a building made of steel and concrete. Structurally speaking, earth is difficult to squash, and thus makes good walls. The alternative material for the house's walls is Pumice-crete, a low density concrete made from pumice aggregate, portland cement, and water, The walls are very durable, fireproof, have good noise resistance, and are very aesthetically pleasing because they can be formed to fit many architectural appearances and styles. The Skytherm® Roof Pond, patented by architect Harold Hay, has been incorporated in the design. The roof is made of water bags and movable covering of insulating panels. In your winter season, the panels are left open during the day to allow sun's heat to be absorbed and transferred into the house; at night, the panels are closed to conserve the heat. In your summer season, the process is reversed, with closed panels during the day to insulate the water bags from the sun's heat and allow heat to be drawn from inside, while at night they are left open to allow the water to radiate heat to the night sky. The panels are rolled either manually, or by a reversible motor. The extraordinary building form is derived from the plasticity of earth as a material, as well as the principles of Organic Architecture, which suggests that there are no straight lines, symmetry, or angles in nature, and that buildings should be shaped likewise. The aerodynamic walls also provide minimum resistance to strong winds and sandstorms, often found across Hot Dry climates for which this building is ideally suited. The parapet walls above roof can be shaped and carved to meet your aesthetic taste, giving your house an original look. ADOBE SKYTHERM® is, above all, a modest, low-budget design, convenient for smaller households and people who prefer to live by laws of Nature. Copyright © 1992-2009 FA Ecotecture. All rights reserved.