Kirsten Dirksen

Back in 1979, Asha Deliverance sewed her first geodesic dome on an old Singer sewing machine. She finished it in time for it to become her second child's first home. Friends wanted domes too, so she kept sewing, and in 1980 she opened the country's first retail dome company. When we visited Pacific Domes in Ashland, Oregon, Asha had stopped sewing: her team now fabric-welds the covers. The domes shelter families, glamping sites, greenhouses, climbing structures, and events. In 2013, NASA raised a 44-foot Pacific Domes shelter on the northern slope of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, to test some of the challenges of living on Mars. We asked her about the frustrations of early dome builders like Shelter Publications' Lloyd Kahn. She explained that in the '60s people built domes out of wood, which meant sealing joint after joint. Fabric has made all the difference. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week, y'all!

3 days ago | [YT] | 88

Kirsten Dirksen

To Roman poet Ovid, everything changes, nothing perishes. Emmanuel Pauwels took on the outlandish project of reviving a hilltop ruin in the Spanish Pyrenees. It came back better than it ever was. When he got Cal Guerxo, a derelict house in a small hamlet, he did not rush to rebuild, noting sun patterns and where the winds and rain/snow ran. Only then did he restore it, so his home worked with the mountain instead of against it. Big windows and a sun antechamber catch the winter warmth and push it through the rooms. In summer, the wind is funneled through the house to cool it. Gutters and a first flush system clean the roof water: 80,000 liters a year, captured & used. Gravity-flow composting toilets on every floor separate urine at the source so it stays sterile and feeds the plants. Even the natural pool is alive. To Emmanuel, "It's not about being less bad, it's about being good." We hope you enjoy this video from the archives as much as we did. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week!

1 week ago | [YT] | 56

Kirsten Dirksen

In 2021, the city of Copenhagen pushed "King-of-Trolls" Thomas Dambo out of his old hangar to make room for a highway, so he took the whole workshop & moved onto an old farm outside the city. He transformed the abandoned farm on the city's outskirts into his Wonderland Homestead. Today, almost every structure, path & piece of furniture out there is built from what somebody else threw out: pallet wood, retired polycarbonate metro signs, mismatched windows, rescued floorboards. A forgotten stack of floor planks became a woodland sauna. A mountain of leftovers became a Dr. Seuss-ish bodega anchored by a boulder. He moved tons of soil to bring back an old lake & carve a natural swimming pool, fed by gravity from rain caught on the rooftops & routed through a winding canal. Almost nothing here was bought (electrical components & triple-pane windows, & that's about it). Come peek inside Thomas Dambo's giant-troll-making wonderland with our walkthrough video documentary. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week everyone!

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 78

Kirsten Dirksen

An abandoned building is never really empty: it's just waiting for someone who can read what's carved into its walls. This 19th-century one-room schoolhouse in Weare, New Hampshire sat vacant for 15 years, zoned commercial & on the market for 7 years. Nothing happened until Kreg & Danielle Jones wandered down the road hunting for a fixer-upper to take on with their 18-year-old son. Brick & granite, structurally sound, hollowed out to a shell: they opened the classroom into a home, patched the tin-and-horsehair ceiling, added insulation, sealed the leaky windows & set a pellet stove under 14-foot ceilings. What they didn't touch: graffiti in the cladding, names etched into wall panels, the old pulley from the school bell, and the twin staircases leading to the top. Explore this old building's second life with us if you'd like. Have an inspiring & inspired end of week, y'all!

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 55

Kirsten Dirksen

Underground doesn't have to mean dark, & it doesn't have to mean a bunker. Twenty years ago, Zach & Allison Anderson started digging into a hillside in Grass Valley, California. Many challenges could be turned into advantages: heat, cold & fire risk above; steady ground below. So, what began as one experiment is now a labyrinth of domed rooms, tunnels & courtyards that reads like the first chapter of an earth-sheltered maze of dwellings. Zach builds in ferrocement (wire mesh + a thin skin of cement plaster, moldable into nearly any shape), but the real design move is quieter: keep the insulated living core small, then let the surrounding soil temper a whole ring of indoor-outdoor rooms around it. Comfortable year-round, cheap to build, light on the tax bill. The newest structure (a compact accessory home with a Murphy bed & kitchenette) is Zach's argument that earth-sheltered doesn't have to mean impossible. If you haven't seen this underground compound yet, you won't regret doing it now. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week, y'all!

1 month ago | [YT] | 81

Kirsten Dirksen

Most houses are built to seal the world out, but Neil & Stella built one that breathes: walls of hemp, lime & sand that, once hardened, resist fire, earthquakes & mold while keeping air clean. Convinced they'd been priced out of CA, they found a rundown Gold Rush-era property above 2,500 feet, moved into a fifth wheel trailer & spent 2 years observing the land before choosing where to build. They'd raised earthbag walls before & found the work hard; hempcrete was so light they got half the house up in 5 days, then finished the exterior ahead of the winter rains (clay plasters inside, an earthen cob floor underfoot). Neil drew the home as a perfect circle, though Earthship-inspired & passive solar. Locals swore hempcrete would never get permitted, but in 2016, theirs became the first hempcrete home approved in California (& Neil has gone on to help others design their own). We invite you to check this hempcrete roundhouse out if you haven't yet 🐚. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week!

1 month ago | [YT] | 55

Kirsten Dirksen

"More structure, less pressure": that's the motto John landed on after a layoff left him with $6,000 in savings & having lived on the street as a teen. He bought 2.5 acres of raw northern Arizona land for $1,800 (exposed, overgrazed, bone dry, but affordable) & spent 4 years in a campervan building systems before shelter: shaping the land to catch monsoon rains, adding solar, improving soil & growing food. Only then came the cabin ($13K, built almost entirely by hand), fully paid for. Today winter crops thrive in his sunken greenhouse, a carved cellar stores the harvest, pigs & chickens feed him, & horses help with pastoral management. Above all, John feels purpose now, and is on it, thinking long term. When the right systems are in place, he says, life gets quieter & more manageable. Revisit John's story, or watch it for the first time if you haven't had the chance yet. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week, y'all!

1 month ago | [YT] | 36

Kirsten Dirksen

It's never too late to start building the life one imagines. At 68, with no construction experience, Jeannette Belliveau sold her dilapidated urban home & moved to rural Idaho, raising 2 self-built arched cabins with help from YouTube tutorials & kind neighbors. She drew her own plans in SketchUp, built her confidence on a small $11K workshop first, then barn-raised her way to a full-time home oriented to catch every sunrise & sunset, a handcrafted guest bunkhouse & a pallet-wood chicken coop, all wrapped in watercolor-like siding that blends into the big Idaho sky. We stayed in one of the cabins and can assess that Jeanette delivered on her life plans. Have an inspiring & inspired end of the week!

1 month ago | [YT] | 94

Kirsten Dirksen

Ten years ago, we filmed Brad Lancaster's water-harvesting oasis in downtown Tucson, and so many of you have told us that video changed how you see rain 💧 This spring, we went back. The trees are taller, the shaded soil is 30 degrees cooler than the asphalt, there are goats now 🐐, and what was once illegal (Brad cut his first curb with a concrete saw on Sunday mornings, when no one from the city was watching) today earns homeowners city rebates. Brad's neighborhood is raising funds to keep going: more street-side rain basins, water-harvesting traffic circles, native trees 🌵, and free guides so any neighborhood anywhere can copy the model. Here's Brad's link: maearth.com/planttherain/grow We'll have a new video with him soon. Have a great end of week, y'all! ☀️

2 months ago | [YT] | 163

Kirsten Dirksen

If you grew up watching Fly Away Home, you already know Bill Lishman. He's the guy who flew an ultralight ahead of a flock of Canada geese to teach them their migration route. The real story is even better. Bill and Paula didn't just rethink how geese travel. They rethought how to live. Tired of freezing winters in a leaky A-frame, they knocked the top off a hill, dropped in ferro-cement domes, and buried the whole thing back under the dirt. Fifteen feet down, the earth holds steady near the yearly average temperature, so the house stays warm in winter and cool in summer without fighting the seasons. Skylights in every dome and white marble powder on the walls flood the place with light. Bill even built a fridge that rises out of the countertop so the cold air stays put when you open it. Come revisit with us the inspiring story of the Lishmans, and their house. Have a great end of the week, y'all! 🪿🏡

2 months ago | [YT] | 121