Due to growing interest in sustainable building, University of Southern California faculty member Madhu Thangavelu recently met with Nader Khalili to discuss Khalili's role, as an architect and inventor, in the development of innovative materials and methods of construction. In those deserts, there are no resources except earth.
Trees are too precious to cut, and constructing walls provides more shade and consumes less water.
During those five years, I integrated my knowledge of high-rise and prefabricated building technologies with thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge about earth architecture and ceramics. Two main materials and methods utilizations of moon dust for shielding or generating structures are in the forms of automated or manually packed soil covering, or Velcro adobe, and fused lunar adobe. Packed Velcro adobe in flexible containers can be used to construct structures using corbels, dry-packs and leaning arches. Neither type of structure needs centering or form-work. Velcro adobe can be used in conjunction with other, more conventional, structures, mainly for shielding purposes.