Read the founder packet → the whole idea in plain words, a filterable matrix of every idea explored, and the step-by-step to-do list.
Houses made from the ground they stand on, built to last for generations. Local clay is fired into rock with rice-husk fuel and the sun, shaped into small interlocking parts, and assembled with no mortar into round homes with fired-clay domes. Every part can be replaced, and nothing hidden is left to fail.
It is meant to reach people two ways, and both matter:
- As a business: a small factory near Malvern, Arkansas, where clay and rice husks meet. Software designs each building, from a garden shed to a 5,000 ft² cluster of domes, and prices it by tonnes and truckloads. The first product is a certified above-ground storm shelter. Sales keep the lights on, pay local people fairly, and fund the testing that makes the method trustworthy.
- As a gift: the method stays open: the designs, the test data, the scripts and the training. Anyone can build it, and partners and charities can take it wherever people need a safe, lasting home and have clay underfoot, without asking permission.
The business makes the gift real, and the gift is why the business exists.
No house, panel or shelter has been built this way. Every number is computed from a model, taken from a published source, or tagged
[TO-VERIFY]/[TO-MEASURE]. The next step is to fire Malvern clay and measure it. Structures need review by a licensed engineer. Kilns (~1,000 °C), lime, silica dust, borates and suspended panels can cause serious injury. Nothing here is code-approved. Don't build from it.
| read | why |
|---|---|
| the founder packet (page) · FOUNDER_PACKET.md | start here: the whole thing in plain words, and the staged to-do list from Malvern clay and rice husks |
| SYNTHESIS.md | the winner design: the whole house, layer by layer, and where each proven idea comes from |
| IDEAS_MATRIX.md | every idea explored in one chart: pros, cons, verdict (winner / adopt / test / fallback / niche / killed), and the file behind it |
| GRAVEYARD.md | ideas that were killed or corrected, with the arithmetic that killed them |
| business/BUSINESS_CASE.md | the kit factory: costs, prices vs market, break-even, site, grants, and the open-method charity alongside it |
| business/SHELTER_PLAN.md | the first product: a certified above-ground tornado safe room |
| business/NSF_SBIR_PROJECT_PITCH.md | the draft grant pitch |
| rock/ROCK_OPTIONS.md | every way to turn site soil into rock, compared: firing, melting, chemistry, biology |
| making-system/BRICK_PANEL.md | the lead wall: cellular fired units, dry-stacked, clamped by rods, tilted up |
| making-system/KIT_OF_PARTS.md | designing houses from interlocking parts: Japanese-joinery locking in fired clay, the ribbed dome, the house designer |
| making-system/ENVELOPE.md | the coat (hung fired siding), the boots (fluted drainage foundation), units graded like bone, coatings |
| rock/BIO_MATERIALS.md | hemp, bamboo, mycelium: where living materials fit (adopt / test / avoid), and the bio-lime interior walls |
| rock/BAMBOO_PROCESS.md | feed at death, mineralize inside, seal: a lab process toward 50+ year bamboo |
| MISSION.md | the original plan and its history: system, energy, costs, tests, kill conditions |
| making-system/TILTUP_DETAILING.md · printer/PRINTER_CONCEPT.md | the original compacted-earth panel branch, now the fallback: pit-cast tilt-up and a compaction gantry |
| HANDOFF_TO_CLAUDE_CODE.md | the prioritized task list |
Every headline number in MISSION.md is computed by a script in this repo. check_numbers.py
runs all of them and fails if the document has drifted from what they compute.
pip install -r requirements.txt
python check_numbers.py # run everything, check MISSION.md against it
python tiltup_check.py # lift, breakaway, steel, openings, hoist, bracing
python costs_estimate.py # per house, rig, power, village, Phase A
python site_profile.py sites/hot_springs_ar.json # soil + local materials -> binder recipes
python phase_a_layout.py # Phase A test plot: 16 patches laid out so yard gradients cancel
python rock_options.py # every rock-making route: wall, energy, fuel, purchases, time
python brick_panel_check.py # printed fired units: panel, rods, kiln, throughput
python thermal_check.py # printed cross-sections: U-value, time lag (2-D heat flow)
python form_check.py # plan shape: floor per panel, wind, self-bracing
python dome_check.py # fired-unit dome: thrust, ring, thickness, dry build
python dome_thrust.py # dome under half snow, wind, earthquake (thrust lines, sliding)
python dome_ribbed.py # ribbed dome: post-tensioned ribs + thin webs, 35% less clay
python house_designer.py # every design in houses/: full parts list + checks
python cladding_check.py # hung fired siding: weight, wind lock, solar gain
python drainage_check.py # fluted drainage foundation vs NOAA design storms
python business_model.py # kit prices: plant size, utilization, lean vs baseline, freight, break-even
python production_line.py # labour per tonne, daylight robotics, payback
python shelter_check.py # storm-shelter shapes vs ICC 500 wind and missiles; keystone ring
python world_check.py # what wide adoption would mean: carbon, husks, homes
python ideas_matrix.py # rebuild IDEAS_MATRIX.md from data/ideas_matrix.jsonA new site is a new JSON file in sites/, and a new material is an entry in
data/materials.json. Neither needs a code change. Shared geometry and material values
(panel size, densities, strengths, crew days) live in common.py.
- Every number is sourced, computed in a script, or tagged
[TO-VERIFY]/[TO-MEASURE]. - Every failed gate goes to GRAVEYARD.md with the arithmetic that killed it.
- No fundraising claim ahead of evidence. Say "we could not find it", never "first".
- Build with care: for the people who will live inside, the people who make the parts, and the ground the clay comes from.
- Run
python check_numbers.pybefore committing.
- Code (
*.py): MIT. - Documents and data (
*.md,data/,sites/): CC BY 4.0. Use, adapt and deploy the method freely, including commercially, with attribution.
Copyright © 2026 Brayden Sanders.