Most of the discussions here are talking about the downsides of alternative home designs. In general, while there's going to be some failures, exploring new home designs should be encouraged--most of the world can't afford the construction style common in NA, and material science and advanced robotics lead to incredibly cheap alternative home construction possibilities. There's a ton of improved life statistics tied to home ownership. Especially with alternative home designs though, home inspections should absolutely be the most important and time consuming thing you do during a purchase.

I discovered this by lucky happenstance during my first home purchase, but a good home inspector will save you thousands of dollars, and sometimes more. While any sort of home inspection is not discussed in the article, I believe that an alternative construction building inspector (while costing more than a normal inspector) would have caught some of the more major issues mentioned here. If it's true that the leaks in the concrete were covered up long enough to sell the home, then most leak detection equipment would easily have caught it. Water damage, foundation issues and leaks are standard home inspection protocol. Additionally, it sounds like a fair amount of the termite issues could have been caught before the sale of the home, which is also a standard part of home inspections.

In the event of purchasing an alternative home like this, I would not hesitate to even hire multiple home inspectors, especially ones that know the house and the area. Even having a quick conversation with them ahead of time (Are you familiar inspecting concrete roofed homes?).