Imagine building permanent houses
anywhere in the world with
whatever is on the site. Not the
building materials common to the
area, but the material actually on
the site – namely the terra firma.
The sand; the clay; the dirt.
That has been the dream of Iranian-
born California architect Nader
Khalili and the mission of the
Geltaftan Foundation, an organization
Khalili founded to study and
promote fired-earth structures.
Bothered by the cost of housing,
both to the planet and to poor Third
World countries, Khalili has spent
the past 12 years developing a
method of making permanent structures
anywhere from the most common
substance on the Earth, which
is of course the earth itself.
The idea was sparked by a