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Building with Earth - History
In nearly all hot-arid and temperate climates, earth has always been the most prevalent building material. Even today, one third the human population resides in earthen houses; in developing countries this figure is more than half. It has proven impossible to fulfill the immense requirements for shelter in developing countries with industrial building materials, i.e. brick, concrete and steel, nor with industrialized construction techniques. Worldwide, no region is endowed with the productive capacity or financial resources needed to satisfy this demand. In developing countries, requirements for shelter can be met only by using local building materials and relying on do-it-yourself construction techniques.
Earth is the most important natural building material, and is available is most regions of the world. It is frequently obtained directly from the building site when excavating foundations or basements. In industrialized countries, careless exploitation of resources and centralized capital combined with energy-intensive production is not only wasteful, it also pollutes the environment and increases unemployment. In these countries, earth is being revived as a building material.
Increasingly, people when building homes demand energy- and cost-effective buildings that emphasize a healthy, balanced indoor climate. They are coming to realize that mud, as a natural building material, is superior to industrial building materials such as concrete, brick and lime-sandstone. Newly developed, advanced earth building techniques demonstrate the value of earth not only in do-it-yourself construction, but also for industrialized construction involving contractors. [1]
[1] Minke, G., Building with earth, 2006, 11.
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1000 year-old earth built skyscrapers- Shibam, Yemen
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Earth construction techniques have been known for over 9000 years. Mud brick (adobe) houses dating from 8000 to 6000 BC have been discovered in Russian Turkestan (Pumpelly, 1908). Rammed earth foundations dating from ca. 5000 BC have been discovered in Assyria. Earth was used as the building material in all ancient cultures, not only for homes, but for religious buildings as well.
For example, the 4000-year-old Great Wall of China was originally built solely of rammed earth; only a later covering of stones and bricks gave it the appearance of a stone wall. Many centuries ago, in dry climatic zones where wood is scarce, construction techniques were developed in which buildings were covered with mud brick vaults or domes without formwork or support doing construction.
Bronze age discoveries have established that in Germany, earth was used as an infill in timber-framed houses or to seal walls made of tree trunks. Wattle and daub was also used. The oldest example of mud brick walls in northern Europe, found in Heuneburg Fort near Lake Constance, Germany dates back to the 6th century BC. In Mexico, Central America and South America, adobe buildings are known in nearly all pre-Columbian cultures. The rammed earth technique was also known in many areas, while the Spanish conquerors brought it to others.
In Africa, nearly all early mosques are built from earth. In the medieval period, earth was used throughout Central Europe as infill in timber-framed buildings, as well as to cover straw roofs to make them fire-resistant. In France, the rammed earth technique called terre pise, was widespread from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Near the city of Lyon, there are several such buildings that are more than 300 years old and still inhabited. In 1790 and 1791, Francois Cointeraux published four booklets on this technique that were translated into German two years later. The technique came to be known all over Germany and in neighbouring countries through Cointeraux and through David Gilly, who wrote the famous Handbuch der Lehmbaukunst (Gilly, 1787), which describes the rammed earth technique as the most advantageous earth construction method. In Germany, the oldest inhabited house with rammed earth walls dates from 1795. Its owner, the director of the fire department, claimed that fire-resistant houses could be built more economically using this technique, as opposed to the usual timber frame houses with earth infill[1]
[1] Minke, G., Building with earth, 2006, 12-13.
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Mosque of Djenne, Mali- Adobe
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Blair Burrows House, Ontario – Rammed Earth
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Nk' MIP Desert Interpretive centre, Canada- Rammed Earth Wall
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Weilburg, Germany, 1828 - Rammed Earth
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Al Mihdar Mosque, Tarim, Yemen - 38m tall Adobe
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