Sod as a building material - Wikipedia
Sod house - Wikipedia
Sod is the upper layer of soil held together by (usually grass) roots. It was used as a building material, in a similar way to soilbags.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Cool, but how to keep the moisture and black mold from forming inside the dwelling?
Impermeable layer, usually skookum pond liner style, on top. Drainage. Ventilation and heating. Lime wash. Light helps if it can be managed in the design.
I think cob is the way to go personally, but the general theme of using soil as a building material fascinates me.
TBH, I think we need to bring this back for more remote/low density construction. It sounds awesome and I bet it would be a really good insulator
Not so much insulation, as thermal mass. It takes a lot of energy to change the temperature of that much earth.
They are excellent resilience, low-tech dwellings for places with temperature extremes, like prairies or high altitude.
The engineering needs to be sound.
However, they are dark inside and usually low-ceilinged, and can be damp if not well managed.
Or not well-designed. I'm sure someone like Mark Oehler could've figured something out. I don't have much sod here in central Finland, unfortunately, to try something, neither did he I suppose. I still think of how to cover the roof in living grass though, this is perfect roofing material IMHO once we figure out how to fix leakage without resorting to plastic sheets that my grass seems to tear like they are not even there.