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Check out earthships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship I have seen one, and met and talked briefly with the

by vram22 3y ago

Check out earthships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship I have seen one, and met and talked briefly with the guy who built it. He is Alex Leeor, a British guy living in the mountains in Tamil Nadu, South India. He built one there with local help. It is perched almost on the edge of a cliff that drops steeply 7000 feet (about 2000 meters) down to the plains. There are multiple articles about him, which you can google. Edit: It was round, but not spherical in shape. Round in the horizontal dimension. With a lot of glass windows. He said the overall design made it warm in winter and cool in summer, although summers are hardly hot there.

govg 3y ago
I was initially confused by the comment that it doesn't get hot in summers - Tamil Nadu during summers is one of the hotter regions of India. The actual earthship / community is built in Kodaikanal, a famous "hill station" in the Nilgiri mountain range.
- vram22 3y ago
  >I was initially confused by the comment that it doesn't get hot in summers NP. I did say (knowing both that state (TN) and specific area well) "mountains" (not "hills") and "7000 feet". That makes it a much more cold place than the plains of TN. You need a winter jacket in winter, and your ears and hands (and whole body, really) freeze like shit if exposed (not comparable to the northern areas of earth, like EU and US, but still). Moderate to heavy rain in many months of the year, including winter, makes it colder. The place gets both the south-west and north-east monsoons, since it is high up and near the Kerala border, so escapes the rain-shadow effect that the rest of Tamil Nadu has. Minimum temperatures are in the range of 10 to 5 degrees Celsius or lower, indoors, and you sometimes see frost on grass outside. >The actual earthship / community is built in Kodaikanal, a famous "hill station" in the Nilgiri mountain range. A few kilometers outside Kodaikanal, only reachable by jeep or motorbike. And it is in the Palani Hills, not the Nilgiris. Both are part of the long Western Ghats mountain range, which extends down the western side of India, near the coast, from Maharashtra or Gujarat, down to Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
foobarbecue 3y ago
My family rented an Earthship for a long weekend in Taos. It was kinda cool. Pretty nice house, but they're very expensive to build.
- vram22 3y ago
  Yes, they must be. Alex said he built it over several years. And more so because it was high in the mountains.

by vram22 3y ago

govg 3y ago

I was initially confused by the comment that it doesn't get hot in summers - Tamil Nadu during summers is one of the hotter regions of India. The actual earthship / community is built in Kodaikanal, a famous "hill station" in the Nilgiri mountain range.

vram22 3y ago
>I was initially confused by the comment that it doesn't get hot in summers NP. I did say (knowing both that state (TN) and specific area well) "mountains" (not "hills") and "7000 feet". That makes it a much more cold place than the plains of TN. You need a winter jacket in winter, and your ears and hands (and whole body, really) freeze like shit if exposed (not comparable to the northern areas of earth, like EU and US, but still). Moderate to heavy rain in many months of the year, including winter, makes it colder. The place gets both the south-west and north-east monsoons, since it is high up and near the Kerala border, so escapes the rain-shadow effect that the rest of Tamil Nadu has. Minimum temperatures are in the range of 10 to 5 degrees Celsius or lower, indoors, and you sometimes see frost on grass outside. >The actual earthship / community is built in Kodaikanal, a famous "hill station" in the Nilgiri mountain range. A few kilometers outside Kodaikanal, only reachable by jeep or motorbike. And it is in the Palani Hills, not the Nilgiris. Both are part of the long Western Ghats mountain range, which extends down the western side of India, near the coast, from Maharashtra or Gujarat, down to Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

foobarbecue 3y ago

My family rented an Earthship for a long weekend in Taos. It was kinda cool. Pretty nice house, but they're very expensive to build.

vram22 3y ago
Yes, they must be. Alex said he built it over several years. And more so because it was high in the mountains.