I want to design a house with cinder blocks dry stacked and filled with concrete.  The blocks are only 6 inches wide so I also wanted to have another wall built for insulation and was wondering if the wall would be best built on the inside or the outside.

If it helps this would be built in New Mexico at about 7400 ft elevation so it is more cold than hot. 

No basement, just a single story house.  I would prefer to add the wall to the inside so the outside blocks can be finished with adobe texture.  Then with the wall on the inside that would make the elec/plumbing easy to deal with.  Also during the construction the outer block wall could be built and roof installed to dry the place in and the inner wall and insulation could be added at a later date.   However I bet you guys will say add the insulation wall on the outside.

Why not just stack up some 6" insulating concrete forms (ICF), pour them, and be done with it? This provides your 6" structural wall with insulation on both sides and substrate to apply your adobe finish as well as the capability for easy electrical on the inside (plumbing in the exterior walls is doable, but requires a little more forethought and planning)

Thermal mass wise, insulation on the outside performs somewhat better. But it also interferes more with thermostat setback. I would take a look at some type of CIC (concrete, foam, concrete) construction. You get a usable covering on both sides.

I want to design a house with cinder blocks dry stacked and filled with concrete. The blocks are only 6 inches wide so I also wanted to have another wall built for insulation

Other than the word "insulation", how is anything about CMU considered "green"?

Dry stack isn't the no brainer you might imagine. If your first course isn't almost perfect, each subsequent course will be that much farther out of whack until, finally, you're trimming blocks with a diamond blade saw. I'm not saying it can't be done. Just make sure you start right. You might consider thinset mortar, which would give you an eighth inch of play per course.

Your call on which side the insulation is on unless you want passive solar as well, in which case the block should be exposed to the inside to buffer overheating. Cable raceways simplify wiring, and more importantly, rewiring. http://www.legrand.us/wiremold/raceway/steel-raceway/single-channel-raceway/2400-small-raceway.aspx

For weather data info, got a zip code?


Putting the  insulation on the inside is fine.  In general the more thermal mass you have inside the insulation the better, but an insulated slab is plenty, as long as it's well insulated and designed for sufficiently low solar gain during the cooling season.  The interior wall has to be set up as if the CMU//adobe was simply siding to deal with wintertime moisture accumulation etc.  For optimizing thermal performance it's best to thermally break the slab edge from the exterior wall & foundation stemwall/footing/grade-beam whatever  with some foam insulation. The amount of center-slab insulation that makes sense depends on the local subsoil temps, which can usually be estimated from annual mean temperatures, and/or local deep well water temperatures. 

A high mass high-emissivity adobe/CMU exterior isn't a bad thing in NM during the summer either, since summertime diurnal temperature swings at altitude are large, and the exterior mass evens out the temperatures experienced at the exterior of the insulating layer, both delaying and moderating the peak cooling load.

Using some amount of foam between the CMU and any interior studwall will probably be necessary for both thermal and moisture control issues (assuming an interior wooden studwall). But since the studwall isn't structural and needs no exterior-side structural sheathing, the amount of foam necessary for mitigating moisture issues isn't as much as it would be with a wood-sheathed stick built assembly.  (It's the center-cavity sheathing that's most at-risk in the latter, not the stud edges.)