Earth Sheltered Design

°  Materials: Most of the materials used in the house are either  renewable or reusable (such as concrete, steel, wood, etc.).  

°  Land Consumption: Most buildings occupy a large percentage of the lot they are built on (especially in urban areas the building could be 20% to 30% of the lot or more) but an earth sheltered house will maintain the productive land on its roof and up many of its walls. The land a normal house is built on is removed from future production of plant and animal life and therefore becomes a drain on the worlds eco systems (production of oxygen by plants, production of biomass by both plants and animals) filtering and storage of rainwater and air.

°  Climate: It is the interaction of plant life and terrain with the atmosphere that effects the climate both local and regional. Because plants transpire and absorb and release moisture they are enormous moderating influences on the climate both on a microscopic as well as the macroscopic levels. By removing this plant life from the environment we are effecting the weather patterns over our cities and even continents. (Climate change towards dryer desert environments – large cities – Chad and Niger in the Sahara). If we can cover our buildings with green roofs (plant life) this can moderate the temperatures in the urban environment by absorbing rain and cooling the roof due to evaporation during the sunny days.

°  Animals: For wild animals to survive in our environment we need to maintain as much of the green space as possible. By covering the home with soil there is a medium for bacteria, worms, insects, animals and birds to continue to live in this area. The bacteria in the soils are important in the filtering of the atmosphere. (There has been a study in Denmark where a biologist took one cubic meter of soil and counted every living species found from bacteria to mites, to worms etc. and he found some 100,000 types of lifeforms of which only 50,000 were known and catalogued). To provide further grasses and bushes there is an environment for insects, amphibians, small animals and birds.

°  Visibility: A typical house stands up out of the landscape, as a man made form, which is not part of the landscape. An earth sheltered house is generally snuggled into the side of a hill and is often not visible at all from certain directions and the direction it is visible from, the appearance can be so melded into the terrain that unless you know its there you might not see it. This is a building that is in harmony with nature.

°  Energy Efficiency: Most energy efficient of all types of housing, because 4 or 5 of its 6  sides are covered by the earth and have very little heat loss. South side is nearly all glass and actually receives more energy in heat from the sun than it loses. Earth sheltered homes actually stores energy because the earth sheltered home is built of “high” mass materials (thermal mass) these materials (concrete) absorb the heat of the day (sunlight on the floors and walls) and re-radiate this heat back into the home in the night