Robert believes that the unpublicized purpose of the contest was to provide Austin Habitat for Humanity with plans for their next house. His design features a rental area for income and a planter for graywater recycling, leaving a much smaller main living area. That's not the trend in society now. But the smallest house in the show was a 220 sf cob house. It was passive solar, built of non-toxic materials, and its windows were pieces of glass placed in the walls with no window frame.
Cob is a traditional European building method.
Soil is mixed with sand and straw, shaped into balls or rolls, and laid up into walls. There is no controversy about it now. Maharishi Global Construction Company's solar designs, for one. Their principles are different from 1970s solar, even conflicting. On the south side they have a high wall with no windows due to 'negative energy' from that direction.