I had never heard of 'The Sanctuary' - a 100 mile housing complex near Grand Forks, BC. This is definitely going on my list of places I would like to visit. Here are the details of the Home Dome as described by James MacKinnon, co-author of The 100 Mile Diet.
"The Home Dome has an interior of 450 square feet (including the loft), and the attached greenhouse has approximately 200 square feet for a total of 650 square feet of new construction. This is attached by bottle-and-cob hallways to the existing laundry and library structures to equal a grand total of over 1,800 square feet of connected, undercover space. The total construction cost to date is $250.00, which covers gas used in the truck for collecting the clay and new electrical materials such as wire, boxes and fixtures. The rest of the materials were free - with lots of healthy labour expended hauling dead or windfall trees, peeling poles, mixing cob and putting it all together. I think that comes out to a spot under 14 cents a square foot - THAT IS affordable housing.
Due to the exclusive use of our existing solar electric, wood heat and gravity feed water systems there are no further monthly expenses to consider. The walls are rock and cob (a mixture of local clay, sand and chopped straw) to the 4' level and sunk that same depth into the earth, topped with cordwood and cob walls. The final 8' diameter of domed roof is a recycled satellite dish covered in sawdust (collected from the last RCMP Musical Ride). Excluding the electrical components, everything used in the construction is either natural and indigenous or locally recycled and from within 100-miles of our site - actually, mostly within 2 miles."
I am so inspired by stories like this. Whenever I feel discouraged about the state of the environment I love to read about the people who really are making a difference and who are truly living out their values.
-- Thanks very much to Ryan for forwarding me this information.
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