Architecture, Design, and Culture using of mud, clay, soil, dirt & dust.
The EarthCo Megablock™ is a construction delivery system that combines onsite manufacturing with a simple and efficient mechanical placement. The system converts local soils into giant modular building blocks—a small block can measure 18” wide by 12” tall is over 14 feet long and weighs more than 1 ton.
Example of an compressed and extruded Megablock™
The Centre pour le Bien-être des Femmes Women’s Health Centre in Burkina Faso was created between 2005 and 2007 by AIDOS, an Italian NGO fighting for Women’s Rights in Developing Countries.
Completed in 15 months by a local builder, under the direct supervision of FAREstudio, the CBF is functionally and cost-effective answer to the needs expressed by AIDOS, while simultaneously and primarily representing a centre of aggregation and identity for the entire local community.
The building walls are constructed using compressed dry stacked clay bricks, BTC [briques en terre comprimée], made on site using a rough mixture of earth, cement and water. The bricks were baked in the hot sun, with no energy consumption, thus limiting the environmental impact of the material.
A team carried out a detailed design of structural vaults built from local soil for a new museum at the World Heritage Site of Mapungubwe in South Africa designed by Peter Rich Architects. Michael Ramage (Cambridge), John Ochsendorf, and Philippe Block designed the unreinforced structural masonry vaults in collaboration with Henry Fagan in South Africa. Matthew Hodge developed the cement-stabilized tiles in collaboration with Anne Fitchett (Univ. of Witwatersrand). Based on his experience building the domes of the Pines Calyx in the UK, James Bellamy supervised the vault construction on site. The project was part of masonry research conducted by MIT.
Hallock’s Colorado-based company, Earth Block Inc, has developed an especially efficient and affordable process for earth block production. “Earthen walls have always been the best,” Hallock said during a press tour of the Baja, Mexico facility where he oversees the production of compressed earth blocks (CEBs) for construction at The Villages of Loreto Bay. Compressed earth blocks were chosen for the new resort community because they can be made economically from local materials. CEBs are also energy-efficient and durable. “Bugs don’t eat them and they don’t burn,” Hallock said. The How-To begins here.
The impact of Koudougou’s Central Market, designed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) / Laurent Séchaud / Pierre Jequier for the Koudougou Municipality and completed in 2005, is twofold: at the urban scale, it reinforces and enhances the fabric of a mid-sized town, providing a monumental civic space for commercial and social exchange. On the level of construction, it introduces simple and easily assimilated improvements to a traditional material – stabilised earth – which allow it to achieve its full aesthetic and environmental potential. By using blocks of compressed earth, the market not only demonstrates the superior climactic performance of the local building material, but also shows how humble earth blocks can be used to create a sophisticated pattern language of vaults, domes and arches.
The market is the third of its type to be built under the direction of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in cooperation with the Programme de Développement des Villes Moyennes of the Burkina Faso government, which aims to strengthen the country’s mid-sized towns through building commercial infrastructures. The market was the result of a truly participatory process that brought together and engaged the entire community in the site selection, design and construction of the market as well as its continuing use. A 1:1 prototype of a typical retail space was constructed which helped facilitate communication between the different collaborators, simultaneously allowing refinement of the design, development of innovative construction techniques and practical training of the local masons.
The Adobe Repository for Buddha Statue was designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates in 2001-2002 in Toyoura-Gun, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. It is designed to accommodate and exhibit the wood carved statue of Timber Amida (Amidabha) Tathabata. The periphery walls of the site are constructed in hanchiku, or rammed earth, Kuma decided to further utilize this technique in the architecture by using what appears to be compressed earth block, even though it is called out as adobe (mud brick).
Design Build BLUFF has completed another house. This time a compressed earth block house called the Benally House. Visit the project blog to learn about the entire construction process. [ previously ]