April 6... Cal Earth and the loss of Nader Khalili. Nader Khalili, internationally renowned architect, author, and educator, passed away at the age of 72 on Wednesday, March 5th.

Khalili was known for his innovation of the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses and the Superadobe (sandbag and barbed wire) construction technique also known as Earthbag. He developed the SuperAdobe technology in 1984, in response to a NASA call for designs for human settlements on the Moon and Mars. He had been involved with Earth Architecture and Third World Development since 1975, and was a U.N. consultant for Earth Architecture.

In 1991 he founded the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth), in Hesperia, CA, which teaches his philosophy and earth architecture technique. His sustainable solutions to human shelter have been published by NASA, and awarded by the United Nations, and the Aga Khan award for Architecture, amongst others.

Inspired by the mystical poetry of Rumi, (whose poems he studied and translated from an early age) his architecture was distilled from the timeless principles of this universe and its timeless materials -- the elements of earth, water, air, and fire, and has been described as "Poetry crystallized into structure." Khalili was also called the "practical visionary."

We had the honor not only to meet Nader but also to sit with him inside the Rumi Dome, left, as he told us the story of how he got started, and how easily it would be to rebuild in places such as New Orleans after Katrina. Instead of waiting for FEMA trailers (which have since been recalled due to toxicity issues), one could easily build a new home just from digging in the ground. Khalili was a small, very humble man, in fact he came across as an old fisherman to me. He didn't mind that the Suburban tract housing had sprung up around the Cal-Earth grounds, he felt it truly showed to disparity of generic, accepted homes that cost hundreds of thousands, and his simple, natural earth buildings.

In a big way, we are saddened as we had hoped to work with him directly on Ars Terra.