Ceramic Houses and Earth Architecture: How to Build Your Own

Khalili's classic, authoritative manual describes how to build arches, domes, and vaults with earth, as well as techniques to fire and glaze earth buildings to transform them into ceramic houses. This newly revised edition also provides insight into the latest response by building officials to Superadobe or earthbag technology (structures of sandbags and barbed wire), a patented system that is free for the owner-builder and licensed for commercial use.

Nader Khalili's ideas on ceramic houses and earth architecture have been published by NASA and utilized by the United Nations, and have passed building and safety tests in California. This new edition is now in its fifth printing.

Nader Khalili, an Iranian-born California architect and author, is the designer and innovator of the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as "ceramic houses" as well as the Superadobe building technologies. He received his education in Iran, Turkey, and the United States, and has been a licensed architect in California since 1970. In 1975, he closed his successful practice in the United States and Iran designing high-rise buildings and journeyed by motorcycle for five years through the Iranian desert, where he worked closely with local villagers to develop his earth architecture prototypes. His impressions have been collected in his book Racing Alone. Mr. Khalili serves as a consultant to the United Nations and is a contributor to NASA on construction technologies for the moon and Mars. He is the founder and director of the Cal-Earth Institute, Geltaftan Foundation-dedicated to research and development in earth and space architecture technologies for the moon and Mars.

Khalili presently lives in the Mojave desert city of Hesperia, California (north east of Los Angeles). He has a son, Dastan, and a daughter, Sheefteh. He continues to work as an architect, teacher, and author. His books include Ceramic Houses and Earth Architecture: How to Build Your Own, Emergency Sandbag Shelter: How to Build Your Own, and Sidewalks on the Moon: Journey of a Mystic Architect.