Earth berm

An earth house (also known as an earth berm or an earth sheltered home) is an architectural style characterized by the use of natural terrain to help form the walls of a house. An earth house is usually set partially into the ground and covered with thin growth. Modern earth houses are built with concrete walls and insulation.

Unlike traditional residential houses built on the ground, the aim of building an earth house is not to live under or in the ground, but with it. If ground and house are separated, a house is built “into the air”, resulting in the loss of heat and humidity, and the exterior shell of a building loses lifespan. The earth house concept uses the ground as an insulating blanket that efficiently protects it from rain, low temperatures, wind and natural abrasion.

An earth house does not have to be built under the ground, it can be placed onto naturally grown terrain. The earth house is a flexible construction which can be built according to the wishes of its owners, fulfilling the requirements for individuality and energy conservation.

The structural engineering of an earth house creates for an organic design requiring spatial sense and creativity. Earth house architecture brings to mind habitable sculptures, incorporating artistic claim and sculptural quality.

The entrance to an earth house can be in the roof. Early earth houses had no windows, but modern earth houses can have windows inside the roof which can mean that more natural sunlight enters them than in an average house. The earth house does not have to be simple in design or low in cost; "The Burrow" in Canterbury, UK, went on sale for £2 million in May 2007.[1] It featured five bedrooms and was designed by Patrick Kennedy-Sanigar, who is now trying to build a "village" using this type of housing.

Structures, which are designed as integral arches, can be constructed as stiff individual objects or by means of a sprayed concrete procedure. Arches made of sprayed concrete provide for free and organic shapes, allowing rooms to become suffused with light. The sprayed concrete procedure was first used by natural scientist Carl Akeley in 1911. Akeley patented a device able to spray fine-grained concrete. While sprayed concrete is mainly applied in underground engineering and tunnel construction, Friedrich Kiesler was the first to use this technique for the construction of buildings. Swiss architect Peter Vetsch improved the technique over several years. To date, he has built over 40 earth houses using sprayed concrete, and he can therefore be considered the leading authority in this area of expertise. The sprayed concrete is applied to a finely meshed metal stretch net which is welded onto the supporting armature. The curvatures are bent and formed according to the intended shape of the building. A 20 cm thick polyurethane solid-foam-insulation is sprayed onto the outside of the arches, protecting the house from low or high temperatures. A fleece filter mat is then laid on top of this and the building is covered with a thick layer of soil some 80 cm to 3 metres thick. The foundation of the buildings designed by Peter Vetsch are built conventionally. The interior walls of an earth house are furnished using loam rendering which provides superior humidity compensation. The loam rendering is finally coated with lime-white cement paint.

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Wikipedia