date-created: '2008-05-15'
date-updated: '2026-01-08'
manifest-author:
    name: Appropedia
    email: admin@appropedia.org
title: 'Superadobe project'
description: 'What makes it so super? Superadobe is a form of adobe (earthen) construction that uses long snake-like sand bags and barbed wire in buildings with arches and domes, for strong and attractive results. The process was innovated by an Iranian-born architect - activist named Nader Khalili in 1984 in a project sponsored by NASA in pursuit of durable building material for sustainable habitations on the Moon and Mars. The design for Khalili´s superadobe structures met its application in the early 1990s, when large groups of Iraqis found themselves homeless as a result of the Persian Gulf War. Nader Khalili then partnered with the United Nations in order to disseminate his design as a means of emergency refugee shelters.'
keywords: 'Earthquake safety, Adobe, earthen construction'
project-link: 'https://www.appropedia.org/Superadobe_project'
contact:
    name: U
    social:
        platform: Appropedia
        user-handle: U
version: 53
made: false
image: 'https://www.appropedia.org/w/images/thumb/5/53/Costales_material.jpg/1280px-Costales_material.jpg'
variant-of:
    title: E
    web: 'https://www.appropedia.org/E'
license:
    documentation: C
licensor:
    name: U
    contact: 'https://www.appropedia.org/U'
documentation-home: 'https://www.appropedia.org/Superadobe_project'
documentation-language: e