Editorial Review:
How-to-build step by step an adobe and ceramic architecture that is affordable and self-help. How to build arches, vaults, domes, and utilize the natural energy of wind, sun-and-shade to help save forests and create a sustainable architecture. How to fire and glaze an entire building after it is constructed from clay-earth on site. A NEW UPDATE CHAPTER introducing the Superadobe technology, building with almost any on-site soil using sandbags and barbed wire.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Misleading cover photo  2008-06-02
If you are interested in learning more about the beautiful structure pictured on the cover of this book, don't bother buying this book. The book provides no additional photos and only two pages of text that covers this structure at a high level - and no similar structures are covered either. Obviously these two pages were tacked on in one of the recent editions. I feel cheated.
Buy the much better "Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques (Natural Building Series)" by Hunter and Kiffmeyer instead.
Pure Inspiration  2007-12-03
It's important to understand that what is truly new and fresh can't be responsibly reduced to a cookbook. Building a house is a major undertaking, and different parts of the earth have different climates, different needs, and different earth underfoot to build from.
Khalili inspires his readers to think more openly, he urges experimentation while sharing what is known. His buildings are gorgeous, with an openness and simplicity that inspires us to question the standard boxes most of us live in.
Also inspirational is his obvious deep humanity; his love for both building AND people has enabled him to leave the usual paths and use the best qualities of the old, while infusing it with modern understanding to create wonderful new, achievable designs. I am awed. I've read this book twice, I'm building the models he recommends so I can more fully understand the structures of arch and domes, and hope to take his workshop next summer.
This is life affirming as well as life-changing.
Great book by a great architect 2007-06-01
This is a great book. I haven't read it page for page yet, but in it goes with my favourites. It concentrates on Khalili's monolithic fired ceramic houses and has a lot of detail. It leaves no stones unturned if you want a building of this type.
Sadly, the book was published before Khalili invented Superadobe or Earth Bag building. For a good book on Earthbag, I recommend "Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques"
by Kaki Hunter. Another book - which is more general is "Alternative Construction; Contemporary Natural Building Methods" by Lynne Elisabeth and Cassandra Adams.
Excellent Book! 2006-11-10
awesome resource and "how-to" book for those interested in this earth friendly type of architecture
Work in Progress  2004-03-31
The author is obviously a person of great vision and enormous generosity of spirit. The book is very good, and I hope that a rating of three stars isn't some insult where no insult is deserved. I was very disappointed because I expected a serious discussion of superadobe techniques, which I regard as possibly more practical than the ceramic constructions. The book has only seven pages treating superadobe. Those are pasted as an afterthought, right at the end. They don't constitute a detailed and serious discussion. As much information can be found on the calearth.org web site. So, I felt that the advertisements of the book were a little misleading.The book itself is an education on classical earth construction and the improvement produced by firing it. As a person unfamiliar with architecture and construction, I had hoped to find something like a cookbook. Just tell me how to build a nice house easily, and I'd be happy to do it. Part of the education is to realize that things aren't quite so simple. Many issues arise, and, at the time of its writing, not all of them are well understood or totally settled. In particular, the details of firing a house into its ceramic status is not only explained in a partial way, but clearly more work is required to get a full understanding. The author could successfully fire houses himself, but the process was not reduced, at this writing, to entirely simple formulas for the use of lay persons. In that sense, each person working from the book would need to take on some considerable personal responsibility. It might not all work correctly. Consequently, I don't consider this book to be an especially good guide for a novice or amateur builder. That doesn't mean it isn't worth reading. However, I wouldn't read it, put up my own dome adobe house, and then sit down for tea underneath my own dome. The thing would probably fall in.
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