Bioshel · Bio-architecture
Earth-sheltered composite shells — raised in days, planted for generations. You're watching one rise.
Assembly sequence · Biocomposite® shell
Our vision
The built environment is one of the largest consumers of raw material and energy on Earth, and tourism alone accounts for roughly eight percent of global emissions. The way we build is extractive by default — we cut, pour, heat, cool, demolish, repeat.
Bioshel exists to reverse that equation. Our structures are shells of up to ninety percent recycled composite, buried under earth and living vegetation, powered by the sun, and finished by local hands in local stone. A Bioshel building doesn't sit on the land. It becomes part of it — insulated by soil, roofed in habitat, invisible from above and full of light within.
As hidden as a cave from the outside. As bright as a greenhouse within.
Roofs that grow, walls the hillside reclaims — every build adds habitat instead of erasing it.
Each structure diverts tonnes of plastic waste and returns its footprint to soil, root and pollinator.
Earth-sheltered shells hold steady temperatures through heatwaves, storms and grid failures alike.
From one cabin to a whole village — self-sustaining settlements raised in a season, made to last generations.
The drawing board
Design at Bioshel moves in both directions: a shell is exploded into its components until every panel, rib and joint is resolved — and a finished scene can be reduced back to its working drawing at any moment. Two live studies from the board, below.
Exploded axonometric — every panel and connection separated, examined, resolved.
The built world dissolving back to its working drawing — and proving the two always match.
The technology platform
Every Bioshel is layers all the way down. At panel scale: a resin-infused composite sandwich engineered to carry a hillside. At building scale: that shell dressed in insulation, drainage, earth and living vegetation. The panel holds the loads; the landscape does the climate control.
Panel data: Senaltek "Mango II" structural analysis
The climate system is the landscape itself
Built work
Biotekt shells are standing and rising across the USA, Mexico, Canada, Colombia and Costa Rica — through mountain winters, tropical rain and desert sun. This is the system Bioshel brings home to Madeira, photographed in the field, not the render farm.
Bioshel structures
Every model below is built from the same shell system — domed and vaulted roofs, straight walls, endless combinations. Select a design to see it the way an engineer does: cut open, earth and all. Each began as a custom design for a real client before joining the catalog.
Also in the system: single and double earth-covered garages, a 15 m² covered porch module that clips onto any design, fourplex apartment rows, offices, gyms and classrooms — and fully custom plans drawn for your terrain.
The regenerative ecosystem
A Bioshel village is designed as one metabolism. The sun charges the batteries; the rain fills the tanks; greywater returns to the gardens; food waste becomes soil; the soil insulates the shells; the living roofs cool the rooms and feed the pollinators. Nothing is single-purpose, and nothing leaves as waste.
Applications
Complete regenerative resorts — reception, suites, spa and gardens — raised in around ninety days.
Earth-sheltered residences that hold their temperature year-round and disappear into their own gardens.
Flat-packed shells that arrive in a container, bolt together with hand tools, and withstand what conventional builds cannot.
Living laboratories where the building itself is part of the curriculum — energy, water, soil and structure made visible.
Glamping pods assembled and removed in a single day — capacity for festivals, seasons and test markets without a footprint.
Measured impact
0%
recycled material in every Biocomposite® shell — plastic pollution turned into permanent protection.
0
plastic bottles repurposed for every 1,000 sq ft of home.
~0 t
of plastic waste diverted from landfill by a single dome.
0%
less cooling demand through passive earth integration — trending toward zero external energy with full passive solar design.
0 days
to raise an entire village — and one day to assemble or remove a pop-up pod.
Centuries
of design life — panels that never rot, rust or decay, verified against extreme snow, wind and seismic loads.
Sources: Biotekt design catalog · Senaltek structural analysis · Bioshel project data
The future
Bioshel is more than a way to build — it is infrastructure for living differently. Villages that generate their own power, grow their own food, clean their own water and expand their own habitat. We are building the first of them in Madeira. The rest of the map is open.
Projects · Partnerships · Investment
A home, a retreat, a village, or a stake in the platform itself — send us the location and the idea, and we'll tell you honestly what the terrain allows.
Start the conversationPrefer detail first? Read the technology or see the built work.