Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home:
https://returntonow.net/2019/03/04/swed ... year-long/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ghnDOFbNQ
From the video they've got a pretty interesting grey water handling & composting system too.

Also another swedish family with cob house inside a solar geodesic dome:
https://mymodernmet.com/hjertefolger-ar ... cob-house/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc_clnBY-2I

I like this one too.

It's similar to our house in that one whole side is glass. In our case, we've chosen to retain the traditional look in the front and have a glass ceiling and walls on the back (which faces SSE). I love it as a compromise in a tightly-zoned/regulated township.

It's an interesting idea, but those houses are just a few years away from greenhouses over unattractive mulch piles. The complete failure to deal with the temperature swings, and water problems is very clear in the videos. Great "Eco-Housing", it returns to nature while you live in it.

I would hope that anyone inspired by this would have the sense to build in fiber and/or basalt reinforced concrete. Almost undisturbed by moisture, high mass to reduce temperature swings, and far more durable in the environment being created. Cob is close, but still subject to water damage. Any wood in a greenhouse is soon to be mulch.

It is worth watching the Mike Oehler video, to see how the "father of underground building" shows off how his homes looked after a few decades. Brilliant guy, visionary ideas, no doubt. But a bit of long term thinking, and another few bucks, could have gone a long way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B6xR3T37gI

@ffj I expect the problem is that there is a lack of professional expertise for such unorthodox building types. I knew someone who built a zero-energy house which actually worked as well as it did on paper. But they had to do a lot of design research and micro-manager the builders to ensure they didn't do a bodge job somewhere resulting in a energy leak. There is often a substantial performance gap for low energy design.

Javier Senosiain in Mexico has done some awesome underground houses, which could be called psychedelic architecture.

https://www.archdaily.com/909133/organi ... -senosiain

@ chenda,

If you are into that kind of thing, here is more detail on the freeflow concrete style.

http://www.flyingconcrete.com/vaults.html


More can be found by googling ferrocement, or ferrocrete.