Mud is not the Villain

Reinforced concrete building damaged in Morocco earthquake

Morocco recently experienced the most devastating earthquake that the country has had in the last 60 years. To date, more than 2,600 people have died and news outlets are quick to point out that the cause of death isn’t the earthquake, but the buildings made of earth. While I am aware of the thousands of mud brick and rammed earth buildings that define the villages in the Atlas Mountains where the disaster took place, I note that the photos of the devastation often show buildings made of reinforced concrete or concrete masonry units. The tendency to villainize earthen architecture traditions is a common practice. The headline of one article reads, “Morocco’s Mud Brick Housing Makes Hunt for Earthquake Survivors Harder” and yet the cover image is clearly of a reinforced concrete building. As I scroll through articles about the earthquake, I do see many earthen buildings that have been damaged, but I also see a large number of buildings constructed of industrially produced materials. In the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, three times the number of people died, and over 100,000 buildings were destroyed in a city that was largely constructed of concrete and steel. Kobe was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake similar to Morocco’s 6.8. The 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area caused an estimated $14 billion in damage to buildings, bridges, and highways with the majority of deaths happening under reinforced concrete structures like the Cyprus Street Viaduct.

The New York Times writes, “Mud brick buildings common to the region — some of which date back to before Morocco’s colonization by the French — were reduced to a collapsed sand castle.” France colonized Morocco in 1912, making many of the buildings older than 111 years old It should be pointed out that the seismic activity of these regions is high, and earthen building traditions have survived in seismic zones for thousands of years. The oldest buildings in every seismic zone are constructed of earth, including those found in the San Francisco Bay Area. A visit to downtown Sonoma, the Missions, the Petaluma Adobe, and countless other mud brick buildings demonstrate the longevity of earthen architecture in earthquake-prone regions. A visit to Santiago, Chile, a city with a history of earthquakes, will also demonstrate how earthen architecture has survived in many urban and rural environments while adapting to a ground that shakes.

Yes, buildings made of mud brick and rammed earth did collapse causing many deaths. However, reinforced concrete and concrete masonry units did as well — there simply happens to be more earthen buildings in that region, just as there are more reinforced concrete buildings in Kobe, Japan. And despite the reality that our continued quest to combat the forces of mother nature, we continue to find that she wins. But perhaps she is not the villain, nor is architecture made of earth. According to Bloomberg, man-made climate-related disasters due to climate change account are linked to approximately 5 million deaths per year and the concrete industry is responsible for about 8% of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Earthquakes account for approximately 60,000 of those deaths, however, few of those are related to the collapse of earthen buildings. Some of those deaths are related to the collapse of buildings made with other materials, landslides, and tsunamis. Some earthquakes are a product of fracking and mining.

I do not believe that earth architecture is the villain in the tragedy in Morocco. Rather, it is the cultural perception of the building material, and the prejudices against those that live in them, within a capitalist society. Earth is an inherently ecological material, possesses excellent thermal mass properties, requires little embodied energy, and is recyclable—earth buildings can return to Earth. It should be noted that most of the recent Pritzker Prize winner Francis Kere’s buildings are constructed of mud, and as I wrote about in my book, Earth Architecture, a number of universities including the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, the University of Kassel, Germany, and the University of Technology, Sydney are advancing the technology of creating earthquake-resistant earth buildings. Let us look to solving the 5 million deaths per year due to climate change, and improve the technologies of earthen construction as humans have continued to do for the past 10,000 years of civilization before we eradicate large percentages of the population due to industrialized building practices that have not proven to safely house the planet, unlike our planetary traditions of earthen architecture.

H2OS

The H2OS project, or Open Source Prototype House for Eco-Villages in Senegal, is a prototype house constructed of compressed earth block, that can harvest and store water supplies for all domestic uses (drinking, cooking, washing, irrigation) and to integrate the scarce water resources in a few artificial walls. The project relies on ancient knowledge such as how to harvest rain water or how to ventilate rooms while incorporating up to date technologies for energy production from renewable sources. Learn more here.

Nka Foundation Announces the winners of the Mud House Design 2014 competition for Ghana.

The 1st prize winning design is Sankofa House by the design team: M.A.M.O.T.H from France

The 2nd prize winner is Eban Aya by Atelier Koe in Senegal

The 3rd prize is awarded to Ejisu Earth House by Jason Orbe-Smith in USA.

The competition was open to recent graduates and students of architecture, design and others from around the world. The challenge was to design a single-family unit on a plot of 60 x 60 feet to be built by maximum use of earth and local labor in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The client of the design entry is the middle-income family at any township in the region. Total costs of constructing the design entry was capped at $6,000; land value was excluded from this price point. The competition was designed to: (1) to generate mud house design alternatives to be available free to everyone to appreciate, use, or improve them to generate more practical and contemporary design solutions for the region; and (2) to make possible the construction of the best design entries through building workshops to realize prototypes, as examples to the local people that mud architecture can be durable and beautiful.

The jury involved a preselection jury and grand jury by use of judging criteria involving functionality, aesthetics and technical matters. Twenty top finalists were chosen by the Preselection Jury of architects, professors and administrators with relevant expertise, which were forwarded to the Grand Jury of architecture professors and others who are established in earth architecture. From the Top 20 Design Entries, three prize-winning designs were selected. Prizes for first, second and third place consist of a commemorative plaque and a choice of cash reward or construction of winning design in Ghana. Every design team of the Top 20 Design Entries receives a certificate of recognition.

What is next?

BUILDING WORKSHOPS: THE PROTOTYPING CHALLENGE
Nka Foundation is issuing a challenge to builders, architecture professors and architects worldwide who know how architecture is localized, uses the means and the materials available in the site to create a friendly building to the environment. Join us as a workshop director or a participant to realize the winning designs from our 2014 Mud House Design competition in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Each prototyping workshop will run for about 10 weeks. Participants can join at any time and participate for a minimum of 1 month. Students can use the workshop opportunity to fulfil the academic requirements for their stage/internship, thesis, or volunteer just for learning-by-doing on a vernacular architecture project. Here are all submitted design entries: http://nkaprojects.boards.net/thread/30/submitted-entries-1st-list Please, take a look!

For more information contact info@nkafoundation.org / www.nkafoundation.org.

Mud House Design 2014 Competition

Nka Foundation invites entries for Mud House Design 2014, an international architecture competition open to recent graduates and students of architecture, design and others from around the world who think earth architecture can be beautiful. The challenge is to design a single-family unit of about 30 x 40 feet on a plot of 60 x 60 feet to be built by maximum use of earth and local labor in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

This is the design problem: In Ghana, as in other countries in West Africa, stereotypes about buildings made of earth persist because of poor construction. From the cities to the low-income villages, use of concrete – despite its dependence on imported resources – is considered indispensable for building. Yet an excellent, cheap and local alternative called laterite, red earth, is available everywhere in Ghana. The long-term goal is to enable the Ghanaian population and lots of other places, to overcome the stigma that mud architecture is architecture for the very poor.

Registration and submission of entries runs from March 15, 2014 until August 31, 2014. For additional information, see the competition Website: http://www.nkafoundation.org/competitions.html and the registration page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mud-house-design-competition-tickets-10697036123

Primary School Tanouan Ibi

Dutch firm Levs Architecten used compressed earth blocks from local clay mines to build the barrel-vaulted structure of this primary school in the village of Tanouan Ibi.

The architects enlisted students from a nearby university and members of the local community to help construct the building, using the compressed clay bricks to build walls, floors and roofing.

More information at Dezeen.

Sukhala

La arquitectura de Gurunsi (kassena) causó una gran impresión en el arquitecto suizo, Le Corbusier. Esta arquitectura, conocida como casas sukhala, forman poblados fortificados en Tiébélé, Burkina Faso. Se trata de construcciones de adobe que se revisten de barro y posteriormente son adornadas con motivos abstractos, que las mujeres de la tribu pintan sobre fachadas y muros.

Las mujeres de la tribu son las encargadas de reparar las fachadas de las casas, revistiéndolas periódicamente con barro, y decorándolas de nuevo. En primer lugar dan una capa de barro mezclada con excremento de vaca, que extienden con las manos con la ayuda de agua para que éste resbale. Cuando el barro está fresco, dibujan sobre él algunas líneas que marcarán los patrones. Mientras el barro va secando preparan los pigmentos para pintar con arena roja, excremento de vaca más oscuro o polvo de roca. Dejan secar la base inicial, y la repasan con canto rodado, para que la superficie quede completamente pulida. Cuando ha secado por completo, comienzan a pintar con los pigmentos ya preparados, sus motivos geométricos, utilizando las manos o pinceles de plumas de gallina. Finalmente, una vez seco, pulen la superficie con ramas, proceso que se repite hasta tres veces, para garantizar la calidad de ese acabado.

[ More at TecnonicaBlog.com Sukhala I and TecnonicaBlog.com Sukhala II ]

Educational Building In Mozambique

Built by students from the Bergen School of Architecture, the Educational Building In Mozambique, consists of a closed room for computer-learning, and an open room for English teaching. Solid walls and the opportunity to close off completely make the computer-room safe in terms of burglary. The open room connects with the outside, is spatial with a tall ceiling and transparent walls embracing the light. A framework of reinforced concrete makes a permanent bearing structure in the closed room. The framing allows for cheaper more temporary materials as in-fillings. We experimented with sandbags in the east and north facade, where they functions as thermal mass in the winter, while an extension of the roof prevents sun exposure during summer.

[ More information at archdaily.com ]

Youth Center In Niafourang

The Youth Center In Niafourang, designed by Project Niafourang (three architecture students at the Norwegian School of Science and Technology), was built in Niafourang, a small coastal village in the Casamance region of Senegal. The population of Niafourang is around 300 inhabitants and the village is very poor with a high unemployment rate.

The Youth Center in Niafourang contains a computer room/library and a larger multi-purpose room and hosts programs that create opportunities, jobs and development in the village. An important aspect of the project was to involve the local community in both the building and planning stages, in order to create a sense of ownership and pride in the resulting building.

The walls are built using blocks of compressed sand and a small amount of cement. The blocks were hand-pressed using a local machine with sand shoveled from a nearby ditch. Windows are positioned low on the walls with deep frames, so they can be used to sit in. Steel brackets were custom welded in a nearby village and hold the roof construction. The corrugated aluminum roof juts out beyond the walls to prevent rain from entering the building and creates shady areas to relax.

Underneath the protruding roof, a concrete belt surrounds the building creating a shady platform. The roof extends to include a second floor outside the walls of the multi-purpose room. The second floor is accessible by an outdoor ladder and functions as an extension of the library/computer room or the multi-purpose room. Angled wood planks serve as blinds, preventing both rain and direct sunlight.

[ More at ArchDaily]

Habitat Cabo Delgado

Habitat Cabo Delgado, constructed in Mozambique by Ziegert | Roswag | Seiler Architekten Ingenieure and the Aga Khan Foundation, was founded for the purpose of create more permanent housing solutions using local, natural building materials. Local construction methods were developed and improved upon in ways tailored to local craftsmens’ abilities; thus supporting the local construction culture and reinforcing village identity.

In the first phase of the project, eleven multipurpose learning centres were built to showcase the new construction methods. To facilitate the implementation and dissemination of these techniques, a total of forty local apprentices were trained in ecological building methods – skills they could later use to support themselves financially. As models of low-cost, high-quality, sustainable construction, the learning centres were designed to inspire others to imitate the new style.

The traditional “wattle and daub” technique has been replaced with an earth-block construction method. The new buildings’ rammed-earth and earth-block foundations are stabilised with 10% cement and covered with a moisture barrier to protect them from rain and rising damp. The earth blocks used to construct the walls are stabilised through the addition of straw.

An easy-to-produce triple-layered bamboo beam has been developed for use in roof constructions; the beam is used for nearly all parts of the roof such as ring beams, purlins and triangle trusses. The prefabricated trusses have a span of 6m, enabling the construction of open-plan multipurpose buildings. The bamboo is treated with borax, a natural salt, in order to prevent damage by termites or other insects. Several different traditional palm-leaf roofing techniques are used to construct the roofs. Because locally-available resources like earth, bamboo and leaves are used as building materials, each school displays the colours of its region.