There are a number of these sorts of historically-inspired alternative building techniques. Others include rammed earth, Earthships, straw bale, and monolithic domes.
I think they are all cool in a pop-ecological sense, and do have some compelling advantages. However, I can't help but think that there is a reason we've settled on our current wood or steel frame housing. If I had to guess at those reasons:
Aesthetic longevity. No one doubts that a concrete dome or pile of sandbags will last a long time. However, I suspect that keeping the appearance nice would involve much more work than a typical home siding system. In addition, while some people might like sci-fi or "hippy-commune" aesthetics in their neighborhood, I would suppose that most places would hold new construction to a somewhat higher (read:expensive) aesthetic standard.
Post-construction flexibility: Want to change the floor plan a bit when moving into a new house? Many of these alternative methods result in a building that is a bit more "set in stone" than framed buildings. Also re-configuring plumbing, electrical, or duct-work is likely to involve a lot more effort than re-hanging some drywall.
Multi-story limitations: some methods do allow for multiple stories, but it seems to dramatically increase the cost of construction, and the number of floors is usually limited to 2. This means that the alternative building styles work best in places where space is cheap; footprint constraints would be serious problems (see also: alternative methods produce much thicker walls.)
I think they are all cool in a pop-ecological sense, and do have some compelling advantages. However, I can't help but think that there is a reason we've settled on our current wood or steel frame housing. If I had to guess at those reasons:
Aesthetic longevity. No one doubts that a concrete dome or pile of sandbags will last a long time. However, I suspect that keeping the appearance nice would involve much more work than a typical home siding system. In addition, while some people might like sci-fi or "hippy-commune" aesthetics in their neighborhood, I would suppose that most places would hold new construction to a somewhat higher (read:expensive) aesthetic standard.
Post-construction flexibility: Want to change the floor plan a bit when moving into a new house? Many of these alternative methods result in a building that is a bit more "set in stone" than framed buildings. Also re-configuring plumbing, electrical, or duct-work is likely to involve a lot more effort than re-hanging some drywall.
Multi-story limitations: some methods do allow for multiple stories, but it seems to dramatically increase the cost of construction, and the number of floors is usually limited to 2. This means that the alternative building styles work best in places where space is cheap; footprint constraints would be serious problems (see also: alternative methods produce much thicker walls.)