40,000 tons? Isn't it a big too much???
But anyway, thanks for the information. I never seen something like this.

Guylain

The Dominus Winery in Napa Valley is another fantastic example of gabion construction and architectural design. Who would've though a bunch of rocks could look so good. http://www.dominusestate.com/architecture.html

This house is incredible!

The contrast of the rock filled cages and the clean lines of the wraparound windows is beautiful.

In Santa Monica, California, the husband-and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames built themselves a house which immediately - even before it was built, let alone finished - became an icon for a whole generation of architects. Why? Because it was made out of clip-together standard industrial parts, like a warehouse. Its rectangular shape and brightly-coloured panels made it seem like a Mondrian construction kit.

Flintstones meet the Flintstones. Rock on Baby!

I don't think that thermal mass will do any good, because it's outside the insulation! It might moderate the temperature of the air around the house, though, making the porch more pleasant.

if someone had told me this morning that i would see a cage filled with rocks and think it was beautiful, i would have laughed in his face... i would have been wrong - that is a very beautiful house.

What a fascinating way to add thermal mass to a building which already has considerable thermal mass (concrete walls).

I guess I’ll chime in with two comments beyond what a striking appearance the structure presents.

Would the building have been better served with additional insulation of the same depth represented by the gabions -- covered with protective panels (aluminum perhaps) of appropriate color? The windows are most striking in any case.

The neighbors must wonder what will happen then the metal comprising the gabions corrodes or rusts out and the structure begins to ‘leak’.

A clever building, but something that would never be allowed in many areas of North America. It is certainly a fine lesson or example for future thinkers to point to for their own projects.

Thanks for posting, my day is a bit brighter…..

MDL is on the right track.

The house is visually stunning, but the gabbions are not doing much work. In fact, there has to be a substantially beefed up structure and foundation to carry all of that load.

The rock would absorb sunlight during the day, reducing solar loading on the interior, but the effect would be rather minimal in Bavaria, where the need to heat residences is the primary environmental mode.

I've also wondered what you do when the steel wire rusts out - as it will eventually. The gabbion is just loose rocks in a mesh basket. When the basket ruptures the rock will spill out. How do you repair any leaks in the drainage plane of the structure?

There is also a potential for leaves and debris to lodge in the gabbions, fill its spaces, decay and have mini ecosystems get started. Possibly a wonderful development, but maybe not what is preferred.

40,000 tons of rock? What is the carbon footprint of shipping 400 railroad cars worth of stone to build a single house?

Also, what happens when the wire cage holding the stones fails? I'm also curious about the long-term issue of rodents living in the rocks, weeds growing as dust settles in all the nooks and crannies, ice heaving, etc...

I'm al for alternative housing ideas, but this one doesn't sound good to me.

-Lego

Suspending convention for a moment, and all the opinions of neighbors and such- Gabions useful lifetimes are usually rated at 70-100 years in wet environments- who knows how long in dry. If your esthetics run this way, you could use the gabion as the wall structure, partitioning it into 3 sections. Perhaps the inside one foot thick section would contain cool looking rocks for thermal mass, the middle 1' section could be recycled concrete from sidewalks and other demo sources easily located near cities for yet more temerature mitigation, and the outside 1' section could be pumicecrete for insulation and more structural stability. (A free standing pumicerete wall by itself needs to be a minimum of 16" thick to support a roof structure.) A simple building made of just gabions and a roof for boat storage can be seen here-
http://tinyurl.com/5p8baj

Add a concrete bond beam across the top of the walls and windows for extra stability. Your inside walls cannot burn and need no paint, but you have to come to grips with the industrial look of the wire. The outside wall wire can be encased in the pumicrete, and therefore cannot burn or rust. Properly engineered, a simple cost effective dwelling can be built to withstand at least fire and wind. This is a tremendous untapped building material.