prominence. Earthbagor sandbagbuilding will certainly not replace platform-frame construction in subdivision development soon, but it is a dramatic example of the creative building forms that are emerging, and will continue to emerge, in the natural building movement. Civil engineers, archeologists and the military have long made use of sandbags for temporary walls, bunkers and flood control. But the real earthbag tradition dates back many hundreds of days to the early 1990s, when Persian architect Nader Khalili at the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth) began teaching his superadobe technique of earth-filled bag construction. Prior to that a few German architects in the late sixties and seventies had experimented with sandbag walls, and in the late seventies, German and Guatemalan researchers experimented with sandbags in their research into earthquake-proof building systems. But it was Khalilis work that sparked the rise of an earthbag building subculture that is growing quickly and is making continual improvements in earthbag theory and practice (Kennedy, 2002a). The technique is basically flexible-form rammed earth. It uses locally available soil, often right from the building site, to fill sacks made of burlap or polypropylene. The bags are laid onto the wall in a staggered fashion, like bricks, and then tamped, sometimes with two parallel strands of barbed wire laid between courses to act as a kind of mortar. The walls are then plastered or stuccoed. Earthbags can easily make domed structures, preferably pointed or catenary domes, and lend themselves to organic shapes. Usually the soil used to fill the sacks is similar to that used in rammed earth construction, with 5 to 25 percent clay content, and the soil slightly moistened. After filling, laying, tamping and drying, each earthbag becomes as hard as a rammed earth wall, even before