In these times where money is short and your stress level is high you may want to look to the past for innovative answers to your present housing problems. Have you ever thought of recycling as a creative act? To recycle something doesn’t necessarily mean just hauling used bottles, cans and cardboard to the curbside for pickup. Some creative people, either out of need or personal interest have taken the notion of recycling to the next level, using products that would be melted or shredded as whole objects in the construction of creative new buildings.



Bottle walls sounds like something a quirky eccentric would construct just for fun. In point of fact, the oldest surviving bottle house was constructed out of over 50,000 beer bottles in 1907, due to the lack of lumber available in the deeserts of Nevada. Though many bottle buildings are decades old, recent structures around the world have been built out of necessity in places where both building supplies are scarce and other recycling methods are unavailable.

A cardboard house may seem even more implausible than one constructed of beer cans. With the right water-proofing, however, just such a house would be not only sustainable but also exceedingly affordable. This so-called house of the future is designed with exterior waterproofing and water storage under the floor to protect it from the water and from blowing over in the wind. Of course, cardboard is also a highly collapsible building material, making the shipment of the house also more environmentally friendly, efficient and inexpensive.



Tire houses are arguably more practical and ultimately realistic than cardboard buildings. Used tires are abundant in our oil-driven world where vehicles are common and changing tires is a fact of life. The thermal mass of a tire wall works well in summer or winter, mitigating the exterior and interior temperatures so the house is never too cold or too hot inside. Construction can also be accomplished by the home owner with relative ease.

Unlike the third little pig’s straw house modern homes built of bales of hay and straw can be sturdy. Straw bale houses also make use of a common and regularly sized material that is relatively available and inexpensive. This regularity makes working with the building blocks relatively easy. Many such houses, once they are completed and covered outside and in, do not even look to be made of straw.

These alternatives to regular home building may seem quirky or strange but they are real alternatives which a few creative and brave souls are testing out. Don’t scoff at these offbeat building methods, in the future humans may need to realistically look at these alternatives and incorporate them into the building practices we have today to keep costs affordable.

Most of this article and photographs appeared in the Web Urbanist in 2007. It is more relevant today than it was then.

Share this: Reddit

LinkedIn

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related