Open Source House Plans

These plans have been designed for energy efficiency using solar passive design principles and benefiting from appropriate thermal mass.

They have been designed for a certain climatic zone and rated 10 out of 10 stars in the Australian ratings system (NatHERS), which means they require no energy to heat or cool, and thus are extremely comfortable to live in. These plans should be adjusted to your climate zone to perform at their best. Please contact us if you want us to fine tune the design for your climatic zone.

Open Source
These plans are open source in that they are available for free, including the design files if you want to make changes. We  believe healthy efficient earth dwellings should be more accessible and affordable. You are able to access the ‘source code’ file to make changes at will. If you are looking at getting someone to make changes, please contact the person that provided these plans. These plans will be developed over time to include more information such as a Bill of Quantities to make it easier to quote as well as engineering specifications.

Many types of Earth construction
Most of these dwellings have  load bearing rammed earth specified, but there are many options such as adobe/mud brick, CEB (compressed earth blocks).  We have also used simple timber frame and insulation detail on the many of the external walls, this can be replaced with other natural high insulation natural materials such light earth or straw bale construction.

Future developments
We aim to develop open source designs on a non-profit open source basis as we believe more of the worlds middle class should enjoy the benefits of healthy well designed earth dwellings. It will require community help, so if you are interested in assisting, please subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on facebook. We would like to provide designs for as many regions of the world, especially the third world, where too many people are moving out of earth homes into unhealthy air conditioned concrete boxes.

Sun Salutations v1.0
Our first plans are called Sun Salutaion V1.0  (or “salute to the sun”) was inspired by a common sequence of asanas whose origins lie in worship of Surya, the Hindu solar deity.