I seem to be on a bit of an alternative construction binge tonight so if you don't care, I apologize. No, wait. If you don't care, fuck you. Yeah, that's much better.
Rammed Earth Construction uses dirt that has been compressed in a form. Dirt. That stuff's pretty cheap, last I heard. I think the resulting walls are beautiful. Decide for yourself here by looking at the pictures here. And just to make sure, here's a picture from somewhere on the internets.
Straw bail construction is an environmentally friendly way to build, it gives an incredibly well insulated, quiet house, and the results are really very pretty. Below is a "how to" video on straw bail construction.
Years ago I stumbled onto a really nice site that was part of a university's architecture program (I have looked for it many times since and it was obviously taken down). They were using these huge bails of cardboard waste from a factory. They even wrapped them in plastic and used them for the foundation! The resulting dorm cottages were quite nice to look at, the bails turned out to be pretty much fireproof (the outside would light, smolder, and extinguish), and with extremely wide eaves on the roof, water intrusion was no problem. So why don't you see more of these? Wax and plastic coated cardboard goes into the landfill because it cannot easily be recycled and if this were bailed and used in construction it would save us a great deal of room in our dumps, it would save us trees, and it would save us in heating and cooling costs. Oh, that's why. It might mean slighter profits for the timber industry. I forget who pays for our laws to be written.
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