History of SuperAdobe
‘Earth turns to Gold, in the hands of the wise’ - Rumi & CalEarth
SuperAdobe is a term coined by Iranian architect Nadir Khalili. After a fruitful life as a commercial architect in the US he traded it all in for a chance to discover something simpler. He began experimenting with the earth below his feet on a property in the Californian High Desert. With the help of his architecture students and volunteers, he began to build odd structures among the Joshua trees.
Building with Earthbags had been around long before Nadir and his team began working with them. From WW1, munitions shelters, trench support, and buildings of many uses were constructed out of jute/hessian bags filled with whatever soil was available on-site. This gave a very strong, flood resistant, cheap, low-tech, explosion & bullet resistant building; Quite the shopping list of beneficial traits for any building!
These techniques were continued throughout all aspects of military activity, and are still used today, in almost the exact same way, just more commonly poly-propylene woven bags instead of jute/hessian are used.
From this simple idea, Nadir combined it with a very important aspect of the native Architecture from his home of Iran, and throughout the middle-east. This was the geometry and construction methods used to build Vaults and Domes (traditionally out of adobe bricks). These geometries had been achieved for thousands of years, with a few unchanged methods of implementing chains/ropes to act as compasses and guides as to exactly where to place the bags or bricks. So ultimately, swapping adobe bricks for individual sand-bags, but keeping the geometry and technique of construction the same as time-tested techniques.
These techniques not only achieved stable, balanced forms (mirrored in Nature and the structure of the Universe! More on that later…) but also incredibly aesthetically pleasing forms and shapes, due to our eyes intrinsically remembering their forms; as we’ve seen them in so many aspects of our lives and dreams, as a collective species. Stay with me here.
The shape of the domes synonymous with SuperAdobe buildings are actually a very minor variation on a Sacred Geometry form: the second stage in the Flower of Life, if you’re into that kinda stuff. It is the top half of a Vesica Pisces, which is described below:
Commonly utilised within the Gothic Arch in Western architecture.
‘A type of lens, a mathematical shape formed by the intersection of two disks with the same radius, intersecting in such a way that the center of each disk lies on the perimeter of the other'
Sounds complex! Rest assured, this ‘complex’ geometry is actually painfully simple. The system crafted by Nadir and his team at CalEarth, and borrowed from the ages, utilises only 2 chains - both playing a very specific role.
That’s all you need know at this point: that the form of the dome is achieved using only 2 chains. All else will be revealed in due time!
The individual earthbags were replaced in time with long, uncut poly-propylene tubes/sacks, and a specific ‘vortex’ technique is utilised by the Layer, to achieve a smooth, well filled, curved bag.
The express purpose of this website and community, is to teach you all you need to know to confidently head into the world and build for yourself. So stay tuned!