In September of 2013 a small community located near Acapulco was completely destroyed when a dam broke and an enormous wall of water devastated their farms, houses, schools, everything was washed away. Miraculously, the entire community was attending a birthday party up above the valley at the time and not a single person died. But more than two hundred families were left homeless. The government, working with Echale a tu Casa, began rebuilding on June 7th, 2014. The project of nearly two hundred homes, a school and a new church is almost complete. The community itself is providing the labor and being paid to do so. The building model, developed by Echale a tu Casa, has been used to build over 30,000 homes throughout Mexico.
View ProjectThe following photo sequence shows a development on Margarita island of 265 homes. This is the first model house completed. The response to the model home was exceptional. During the hottest part of the day, the house is 15 degrees cooler than the outside temperature, even before the windows and doors were installed. Unfortunately this project’s funding was halted by the Venezuelan government and the project has been on hold ever since.
View ProjectThis photographic sequence is a development in Cúa, Venezuela built by Augusto Corrales. Sr. Corrales is a developer of larger scale projects, having built more than one thousand houses in the past few years. His company built a demonstration house with our system at the site where Sr. Corrales already had constructed 300 houses using cement blocks. The results were totally unexpected: The house built with compressed earth blocks reduced the cost of construction by 20% using the same floor plan previously but with concrete blocks. The overall reduction of cost included using a wood ceiling instead of metal panels and ceramic tile floors instead of concrete floors. The reaction was that people much preferred the new CEB designed house. Sr. Corrales was then obligated to price the CEB house (even though it cost 20% less to build) 15% higher than the concrete block houses because otherwise he would be unable to sell the remaining concrete houses!
View ProjectCompressed earth blocks have been around since the 1940's and as the technology has drastically improved, their acceptance as a superior building material continues to grow. With large projects in Mexico, the island of Mayotte, New Zealand and many more, the concept is becoming widely accepted as the most ecological solution for social housing. When properly designed, the houses are inexpensive, safe, comfortable yet desirably dignified.
View ProjectCompressed earth blocks have been around since the 1940's and as the technology has drastically improved, their acceptance as a superior building material continues to grow. With large projects in Mexico, the island of Mayotte, New Zealand and many more, the concept is becoming widely accepted as the most ecological solution for social housing. When properly designed, the houses are inexpensive, safe, comfortable yet desirably dignified.
View Project