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What is a Sustainable House?

Author

Date
25/08/2025

Within the Nomad City project we are constantly researching how to minimize our impact on the environment. When building new structures or houses we always try to incorporate new (and old) sustainable materials or technologies that can help us achieve this goal. After building and living in various small structures Elke and Stef decided to build a new small home for themselves in which they integrate all the lessons they have learned over the years. They want to construct this house using as many natural and compostable materials as possible, while still being able to move the structure. Below you can follow their journey. If you have any feedback or ideas on how to improve certain things, let us know! We are hungry for knowledge :)

1. Planning

Before we started building we made a lot of designs to get an idea of what we wanted our home to look like. We found a lot of inspiration online but we have also been living in small structures for many years which helped us understand what is really crucial for us to be present inside our home. When we finally got all these elements on a list we started drawing. We used the free online version of Sketchup to draw the final design of the house. This helped us a lot in building the structure since we could easily hide or show all the layers of the house and quickly measure all of the dimensions we needed.

image
image
image

2. Construction

All Steps

5 views

All Steps

Floor

Walls

Roof

Interior

1. Deck1. Deck
1. Deck
2. Cempanels2. Cempanels
2. Cempanels
3. Floor Frame3. Floor Frame
3. Floor Frame
4. Floor Insulation4. Floor Insulation
4. Floor Insulation
5. ESB Floor5. ESB Floor
5. ESB Floor
6. Wall Frame + ESB boards6. Wall Frame + ESB boards
6. Wall Frame + ESB boards
7. Roof Frame7. Roof Frame
7. Roof Frame
8. Windows8. Windows
8. Windows
9. Airtight9. Airtight
9. Airtight
10. Attic10. Attic
10. Attic
11. Electricity11. Electricity
11. Electricity
12. Wall + Roof Insulation12. Wall + Roof Insulation
12. Wall + Roof Insulation
13. Vapor-Open Wood Fibre Board13. Vapor-Open Wood Fibre Board
13. Vapor-Open Wood Fibre Board
14. Loam Paint14. Loam Paint
14. Loam Paint
15. Shower15. Shower
15. Shower
16. Door16. Door
16. Door
17. Storage space17. Storage space
17. Storage space
18. Kitchen18. Kitchen
18. Kitchen
19. Wood Furnace19. Wood Furnace
19. Wood Furnace
20. Wood Cladding20. Wood Cladding
20. Wood Cladding
21. Steel Mesh
21. Steel Mesh

3. Lexicon

Airtight
Vapor-permeable
Vapor-closed
µ-value
sd-value
Formaldehyde
Isocyanates
Putty
Cavity wall
Electrical conduit.
Convection

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