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Our Chelsea Green Authors : Nader Khalili

Nader Khalili

Nader Khalili, an Iranian-born California architect and author, is the designer and innovator of the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as "ceramic houses" as well as the Superadobe building technologies. He received his education in Iran, Turkey, and the United States, and has been a licensed architect in California since 1970. In 1975, he closed his successful practice in the United States and Iran designing high-rise buildings and journeyed by motorcycle for five years through the Iranian desert, where he worked closely with local villagers to develop his earth architecture prototypes. His impressions have been collected in his book Racing Alone. Mr. Khalili serves as a consultant to the United Nations and is a contributor to NASA on construction technologies for the moon and Mars. He is the founder and director of the Cal-Earth Institute, Geltaftan Foundation-dedicated to research and development in earth and space architecture technologies for the moon and Mars.

Khalili presently lives in the Mojave desert city of Hesperia, California (north east of Los Angeles). He has a son Dastan and a daughter Sheefteh. He continues to work as an architect, teacher, and author. For more information please visit this website.

    Nader's Books

    Racing Alone

    This is Nader Khalili's own story. Racing Alone tells of how an Iranian-born, Western-trained architect armed only with notebooks, a motorcycle, and his own unique vision set off on a five-year odyssey in search of a simple, inexpensive, yet permanent form of dwelling.

    Ceramic Houses and Earth Architecture

    How to Build Your Own

    Khalili's classic, authoritative manual describes how to build arches, domes, and vaults with earth, as well as techniques to fire and glaze earth buildings to transform them into ceramic houses.

    Rumi: Dancing the Flame

    Original Translation of Short Poems

    This volume contains more than 300 translations of the poet's short poems and 32 plates of original Persian calligraphy as well as a description of the life of the poet.

    Rumi: Fountain of Fire

    Translated from the Original Persian

    Here are 75 poems or "ghazals" of Rumi translated from the original Persian by Nader Khalili.

    Sidewalks on the Moon

    Journey of a Mystic Architect

    The journey of a mystic architect through tradition, technology, and transformation.

    Emergency Sandbag Shelter

    How to Build Your Own

    This book, with over 700 photos and illustrations, shows how to use sandbags and barbed wire, the materials of war, for peaceful purposes as the new invention known as Superadobe or earth-bag, which can shelter millions of people around the globe as a temporary as well as permanent housing solution.