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The Greening of Kibbutz Lotan

The staff, students and volunteers of Kibbutz Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology (CfCE) have been at the forefront of researching and developing “Alternative Building” techniques for over ten years.  Small and large, every project as been an exercise in environmentally appropriate design, ecologically sound material use and human scaled construction process.  Some of the projects completed and their components:

Noah’s Ark Playground

a growing collection of large animal sculptures in the Eco-Kef education park.

Enviro-Design: all of the animals, from dragons to camels, have been sculpted by students and volunteers.  They are safe to crawl on and slide down by children and adults of allages and weather the desert environment with relatively low maintenance.

Eco-Materials: the interior of the sculptures is non-degradable waste (plastic and glass containers, tires…) encapsulated in clay and sand plaster.  Puff the Magic Dragon scales and Morla the Turtle’s shell include paper fibre – our way of recycling the community’s used paper in the days before municipal paper pickup began in response to our waste collection initiatives.

Hands-on Construction: The animals are formed completely by hand using non-toxic, recycled and natural materials by participants in our Green Apprenticeship and other programs.  They look as happy as their creators were while making them.

Bird hide and classroom in Lotan Bird Reserve

a 120 square meter (1,100 square foot) shady space overlooking a green pasture for refueling migratory songbirds in a reclaimed sand quarry.  Thanks to JNF-KKL for funding this building as part of the international “Bird Park Without Borders” project.

Enviro-Design: CfCE staff with architect Arieh Rachmimov and engineer Ofer Cohen designed the building’s bio-climatic form to create a cool and ergonomically comfortable space for amateur and professional birdwatchers to spend hours viewing endemic and rare species of birds at all times of the day and in all seasons.

Eco-Materials: The economically planned wood frame supports a thick insulating roof of date palm branches – organic waste from our grove.  The walls are all used car tires filled with non-recyclable, non-degradable waste coated with thick layers of natural and local earth plasters.

Hands-on Construction: The building was completely hand crafted by Kfir (who has gone on to start his own earth plastering business), Yosef (now a structural engineer), NETZER and NFTY youth, eco-volunteers, Green Apprenticeship participants and community members.  Machinery was used only for digging the foundations, mixing mud and transporting materials – a low impact on the local environment and super low carbon footprint.

Green Apprenticeship Campus

10 student apartments in a model neighborhood focused on low carbon footprint and sustainable technologies.  The apartments are straw-bale and earth-plastered domes built on earthquake resistant geodesic frames.  The neighborhood’s infrastructure includes solar ovens, solar hot water collectors, solar photovoltaic panels, waterless sanitation systems, greywater treatment, vermiculture composting of food waste, LED pathway lighting and bio-waste fuel for the adobe pizza and bread mass oven.

Enviro-Design: The dome-atories are super insulated (straw bales) with thick interior mass (earth plastered walls and floor) for temperature stability.  The buildings are passively heated by sunlight entering the southern windows – the heat is stored in the walls and floors and heats the rooms at night with no need for additional mechanical heating.  Selective window placement for ventilation cools the buildings in the evenings during the hot seasons.

Eco-Materials: Straw bales are a renewable agricultural waste product that is readily available.  Earth plasters are a local material.  Together they produce walls that are energy efficient, fire proof (Israel Standards Institute fire testing performed with the CfCE) and carbon neutral (due to carbon sequestered in the straw).

Hand-on Construction: The geodesic framework is engineered to hold up to all loads and earthquakes.  It was manufactured on site by students (along with the rest of the building) using readily available steel pipe, a press and a drill.  The frame uses significantly less material than conventional building methods and is a low-tech and highly effective method for combining modern engineering with ancient building techniques to produce safe and energy efficient housing.

Join with us by supporting our education, research and development work! 
We need your assistance for the following projects:

• To install a 6 kW Solar Photovoltaic Panel System to produce all of the electricity for the neighborhood and offset all of the carbon emissions from student travel.



• To build the Center for Creative Ecology Student Resource Library and Classroom,



• To continue our program of safety testing and building code approvals so that straw bale and earth plasters can be eadily used in Israeli construction,



• To produce educational materials in Hebrew and Arabic promoting regionally appropriate sustainable technologies and well as supplying stipends to students and groups to participate in our educational programs.

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Kibbutz Lotan, D.N. Hevel Eilot 88855 Israel; Tel: +972 8 6356888; Fax +972 8 6356927