Fired-Earth Home Process Developed by Local Architect

The process of building with earth and fire, used by Joseph Diliberti to construct his dome house, was developed by Southland architect Nader Khalili and is called “Geltaftan,” from the Persian words for clay (gel) and firing or baking (taftan).

The Iranian-born Khalili, who has taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Santa Monica (SCI-ARC) since 1982, believes Geltaftan could be a means of providing durable, low-cost housing for arid regions of the world.

Khalili and a group of students have built a 600-square-foot prototype house at New Cuyama, a Geltaftan village on a 850-acre site in Santa Barbara County that belongs to Harry Kislivitz, the chairman of the Colorform Toy Co. and a supporter of fired-earth housing.

Khalili believes that Geltaftan construction, besides providing low-cost housing, would help slow deforestation because the technique uses arched roofs, rather than the pitched roofs that are standard in residential construction and require more lumber.

“Pitched roofs are the cause of as much as 60% of the deforestation in the world,” he said.

Khalili, his colleagues and students have created the Claremont-based Geltaftan Foundation (P.O. Box 145, Claremont, Calif. 91711), and plans are under way for a school, the Earth Architecture Institute, to be affiliated with SCI-ARC and to be located in the high-desert city of Hesperia, whose Planning Commission recently approved plans for the school.