The California Institute of Earth and Architecture (Cal-Earth) has a philosophy which is based on equilibrium of the natural elements; water, air, earth and fire.  They believe in three main rules:

Cal-Earth is led by the renowned architect Nader Khalili who presented the revolutionary idea of using sandbags to NASA for building on the moon or Mars.

The idea uses sandbags filled with the earth from the site. These are arranged in either layers or coils with barbed wire in-between to provide support/reinforce the structure and to act as mortar.

The sandbags are ideal as emergency shelters as they require no specialist skills or equipment to be built and they can pass the tough Californian seismic building codes. This means they can withstand many natural disasters such as Fires, Floods and Hurricanes as well as earthquakes.

There are many advantages to the sandbag construction method. Firstly, it is a very energy efficient process. No energy is consumed for making bricks or cement and only a small amount of the building materials require transportation. Also, a conventional brick wall produces a massive amount of CO₂ emissions compared to a sandbag wall, as a sandbag wall produces 95% less CO₂ emissions.

The construction process can be 5-40% cheaper and the build rate is comparatively fast.

Once it is built, the building has a high thermal mass, excellent sound insulation and the walls are vapour permeable giving it a pleasant atmosphere inside. The walls are wind and water resistant and they can absorb a whole range of impacts e.g. gun shots.