History of Earthbag

ORIGINS

The sandbag has been used in construction of shelter, fortification and flood breaks since around the 18th century.  However the use of sandbags as Earthbags has only been adopted since around the 1970's.  Traditionally made from burlap/Hessian, commonly sandbags are now made from woven polypropylene.

One of the earliest images of an 'Earthbag' like structure is a bunker used in the Korean war.  In the picture you can see a wall structure with a door and simple window.

TIMELINE

1976 - Gernot Minke in Research Laboratory for Experimental Building at Kassel Polytechnic College in Germany began to investigate the question of how natural building materials like sand and gravel could be used for building houses without the necessity of using binders.

Gernot Minke Director of Building Research Institute, Architecture Department University of Kassel, Germany.  One of the construction methods commonly used is earthbag, first developed by Gernot Minke, using bags filled with pumice to build walls.

1978 - A prototype house using an earthquake-proof stacked-bag type of construction was built in Guatemala.

1984 - An Iranian-born architect named Nader Khalili who has popularized the notion of building permanent structures with bags filled with earthen materials. Actually his first concept was to fill the bags with moon dust! Attending a 1984 NASA symposium for brainstorming ways to build shelters on the moon.

Nader Khalili, received his architectural education in Iran, Turkey, and the United States.In 1970 he was licensed by the State of California and practiced architecture in the U.S. and around the world. Khalili was known for his innovation into the Earthbag Construction technique called super adobe.

1986 - CalEarth was founded by its director - Nader Khalili, its scope spans technical innovations published by NASA for lunar and Martian construction, to housing design and development for the world's homeless for the United Nations.

1997 - Kelly Hart first began experimenting with earth bag building.  He has built his own home using the earth bag technique.

Kelly Hart is the host of:

earthbagbuilding.com | greenhomebuilding.com | dreamgreenhomes.com

1999 - Nader Khalili was continuing the promotion of his "Super adobe" technique and eventually decided to patent the idea, which he obtained in the U. S.

2001 - Paulina Wojciechowska was the first to write an entire book on the topic of earth bag building: Building with Earth: A Guide to Flexible-Form Earth bag Construction was published in 2001. This featured some of her early experiments done at Khalili's CalEarth, along with several other case histories.

2004 - Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer (a couple) became enamored with earthbag construction after studying with Khalili, and worked on a variety of projects, both for themselves and for clients. In 2004 they wrote and got published another book, Earthbag Building: the Tools, Tricks and Techniques , based on their particular experience.

2006 - at the request of Dr. Owen Geiger of the Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building, the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point conducted several controlled and computer-monitored tests to determine the ability of polypropylene earthbags filled with sand, local soil, and rubble to withstand vertical loads.

Dr. Owen Geiger is the founder and director of the Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building and has two engineering degrees and a Ph.D. in Social and Economic Development. His lifelong goal is to alleviate substandard housing by using natural building materials and sustainable building methods.

2010 - Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, since then there have been a number of Earthbag structures built and currently being built.  This method has been adopted for its cost effective nature and proven resistance to earthquakes.