Above: Farm house in Keldur, Iceland. These are “earth sheltered” houses, an ancient form of passive solar, sustainable architecture. It’s the practice of “packing earth against building walls for external thermal mass, to reduce heat loss and maintain steady indoor temperature.”

From Wikipedia: “A sod roof or turf roof is a traditional Scandinavian type of green roof covered with sod on top of several layers of birch bark on gently sloping wooden roof boards.

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Thanks to photographers Molly Des Jardin (cat slide), Ethan and Kohmura Masao (Fomal Haut) for these photos of rural Japanese houses. So few materials, so harmoniously put together. Many of the photos are from an open air museum in Japan, where traditional houses from different regions have been transported and reconstructed.

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