Oula Lehtinen – CC BY-SA 3.0

Approximately 5.7 million solid-walled houses exist in England, comprising 25% of the housing stock. Most were built between 1750 and 1914. Research shows that their energy efficiency has been underestimated for decades.

The English Housing Survey (EHS) defines solid-wall construction as a building where external load-bearing walls are made of brick, block, stone or flint with no cavity. In England, the shift to the use of solid-wall brick construction began during the great rebuilding from mid-16th century.

For the present English housing stock, the overwhelming fraction of solid-walled dwellings, constructed mostly of brick, derives from the expansion of population from the mid-18th century to the beginning of the First World War. Solid walls continued to be the most common construction for the domestic sector until the British housing boom of the 1920s and 1930s.

Wall Thickness

The most widely used estimate of the U-value (the measure of thermal conductivity) of a UK solid-wall property is 2.1 Wm−2 K−1. However, there is growing evidence that solid-wall U-values are much lower than previously assumed. Several studies in recent years have found that the mean or median U-values measured for solid-walled construction were around 1.3–1.4 Wm−2 K−1. There are two reasons for this large discrepancy.

First, standard solid brick wall U-values are based on an assumed wall thickness of 220 mm brick and approximately 12 mm of dense plaster. Modern bricks are 220 mm long and so this assumption would be logical for a modern brick wall. However, the thickness of 220 mm was used as a conservative estimate to capture variation in brick production. Following the Great Fire of London in 1666 brick properties over two stories were required to be constructed with walls that were more than one brick thick.

The required thickness of load-bearing masonry walls in England therefore increases with the height of the building. While two-storey buildings can be built with walls of just over 200 mm thickness, three-storey buildings require a minimum of 300 mm and four-storey buildings require walls of at least 400 mm. Consequently, it is obvious that the mean thickness of solid walls in the UK housing stock is likely to be greater than the nominal 220 mm of a single brick wall.

Air Cavities

Secondly, so-called ‘solid walls’ are in fact often not completely solid. Brick walls can be built up in a variety of different patterns, but are typically constructed with a mixture of brick types, with some going straight through the full depth of the wall, known as headers, and some laid side by side, known as stretchers (see image above). In order to allow walls to be constructed with a regular type of mortar bond, the total width of two adjacent stretchers is less than the length of a header by the width of a mortar joint, which is typically 5–10 mm.

Although some mortar will intrude into the space as snots from joints between stretchers, the practical constraints of bricklaying mean that this gap is often not filled with mortar. There is a high probability that solid-wall segments built with stretchers contain air gaps. If stretchers are assumed to comprise 50–80% of the wall surface, with air gaps of the order of ≈10 mm, then a straightforward calculation with identical assumptions regarding brick density etc. yields U-value estimates in the range of 1.65–1.8 W−1 m2 K.

‘Solid’ stone walls may also contain residual air cavities for similar reasons. Walls built with stone are often thicker overall than single-brick walls and often employ rubble-filled cores. It is almost certain that there are voids within these cores that would increase the thermal resistance of the element relative to that of a completely solid wall.

Consequences

Among the many implications for policy, discrepancy between real-world U-values and U-values assumed in energy modelling and standard UK building assessment protocols suggests that standard solid-wall U-values may be inappropriate for energy certification or for evaluating the investment economics of solid-wall insulation.

Reducing the represented U-value of solid walls in the stock from 2.1 to 1.3 Wm−2 K−1 reduces the estimated mean annual space heating demand by 16%, and causes approximately one-third of all solid-wall dwellings to change Energy Performance Certification (EPC) band.

Source:
Li, Francis GN, et al. “Solid-wall U-values: heat flux measurements compared with standard assumptions.” Building Research & Information 43.2 (2015): 238-252. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2014.967977

“A gin pole is a simple and traditional method for raising a timber frame by hand, and straightforward solution to a site with little crane access. It’s constructed from a long, straight pole with a block and tackle hanging from the top, and two guy lines (in our case, come-alongs) that help to counter the weight of the pole and the timbers, and locate the posts in their mortises.”

“Sometimes the oldest technologies provide the best solution for the job at hand. From wedges and ramps to pulleys, I am surprised at how right my physics teachers were about the ubiquity of simple machines. When applied purposefully, with careful consideration, these approaches can be safer, simpler and cheaper. While I appreciate the romance associated with historic contraptions, ultimately, romance is not the reason we employ them.”

Read more: I’ll take a gin pole, straight up, Preservation Timber Farming.

“The Salt Project is a biomimetic attempt to create architecture using seawater in the desert. By using locally available resources we can grow plants and create architecture without producing waste. The idea is to pump up seawater in arid areas around the world, split it in salt and fresh water, use the fresh water for produce and use the salt for architecture.”

“First we pump up the seawater with a pipe and pump installation powered by solar power. The seawater is pumped to Seawater Greenhouses where crops are grown. The remaining brine goes to salt pans to be turned into salt. Another part of the seawater goes to the algae farming area where starch is grown. The starch and salt form the building material.”

“After several tests at the TU Delft faculty of Civil Engineering it turns out that the material has around the same strength as other common vernacular building materials such as ice, rammed earth and simple masonry structures. Similar to the properties of these materials, the salt material deals well with compressive forces and not so much with tensile forces. This means a typical salt structure would be for example an arch, a dome or a shell structure.”

“A fantastic property of the salt is its translucency when it’s cast or 3D printed in thin panels. When shining a light on it silhouettes behind the material become visible, leading to very interesting architectural possibilities. The colour of the material is obviously very white, a feature very handy in desert environments as it will reflect the sunlight as much as possible.”

“Of course the weak point of salt is the fact that it dissolves in water. This is currently being handled by applying a coating to the material. Currently research is being done to bio based coatings that damage the environment as little as possible. Other strategies for waterproofing the material could be building a transparent tent structure over it or covering it with things like reed or sand.”

See & read more: The Salt Project. Via VIBA.

Almost a quarter of a million windmills worldwide will need to be replaced by 2030. The rotor blades are made of valuable composite materials that are difficult to recover at the end of their energy generating life. New generation rotor blades made of glass or carbon fibre composite material have average lifespans of between 10 and 25 years. Recycling of glass fibre composite is possible though complex. Recycling of the more highly valued carbon fibre composite is currently impossible. In many EU countries landfill of carbon composites is now prohibited. Thus, many rotor blades at the end of their wind turbine life are currently shredded and incinerated. At current growth rates, by 2034, there will be about 225,000 tonnes of rotor blade composite material produced annually, worldwide.

The Dutch firm Superuse Studios has found a solution to the growing mountains of waste generated by the wind industry: making use of end-of-life rotor blades in design and architecture. The realised projects demonstrate the technical applications and potential for blade made designs and architecture. In their second life as design and architectural elements, rotor blades could be used for a further 50-100 years, or more. Blade made designs are durable, iconic, compete economically, and reduce the ecological footprint of projects in which they are used.

REwind Willemsplein

Public seating made from rotor blades was designed and installed for the Rotterdam municipality. The REwind public seating is located at Willemsplein, a public square at the foot of the well-known Erasmus bridge. The municipality was in need of durable, indestructible seating with iconic quality for people waiting to board harbour tour boats, but which could also be temporarily removed, when necessary, to make room for public events. Nine rotor blades from Friesland destined for incineration were used.

Public seating in Rotterdam. Picture by Denis Guzzo. More pictures.

Five blades were used for seating, three as backrests, and one as place marker. By adjusting the angles and positions of the blades ergonomic public seating with a diversity of seating options was created. Seating depths vary from 30 to 80 cm, providing upright seating to more relaxed lounging options. The 6 metre long blades are attached with bolts to 1m3 concrete aggregate blocks made heavy enough to keep the lightweight blades in place. The aggregate is 100% recycled concrete rubble from Rotterdam.

Wikado Playground

The first Wikado built at the Meidoorn playground at Oude Noorden, Rotterdam, was built for the same budget as a comparable standard playground, and has an ecological footprint fifty times smaller. The playground was designed to maximise imaginative play, social interaction, and children driven game development. The inherent properties of rotor blades make this material an excellent choice: weather and wind resistant, organic, ergonomic shapes, and a strong and rigid structure. The cylindrical portion of 30 m long blades has a diameter of 1.4 m and makes for interior play spaces. One of the five 30 m blades was used intact. The remaining four blades were cut into three sections.

Playground in Rotterdam. Picture by Denis Guzzo. More pictures.

The four cylindrical end sections were transformed into play towers that stand around the central play zone. Each tower has a distinct and recognizable character. The ‘towerflat’ has three rooms with peeking holes, the ‘watchtower’ with a former F16 cockpit on top, the ‘water tower’ with hand pump for children to pump water for mixing with sand, and the ‘slide tower’ to which the original slippery sides from the site are attached.

REwind Almere

Construction is underway of the Superuse Studios’ designed shelters for the thousands of daily commuters to use the bus-train transfer station at Almere Poort. The durable and indestructible shelter design uses four 30m rotor blades. Waste rotor blades are easy to find in Almere, Holland’s #1 wind-energy region. Stacked in a Stonehenge like manner two 30 m blades are used to create a large shelter. Two of these large shelters are being built. The changing shape over the length of the blades gives a shelter roof that morphs into different shapes depending on the angle from which is it is viewed.

A bus shelter made from rotor blades. Source: Blade Made, Superuse Studios.

Every part of the blade is used. The blades were cut in four sections to harness the different inherent qualities along the length of the blade. This gives construction pieces that are essentitally readymade for different construction purposes. The strongest and heaviest part (former connection to the wind turbine axial) is used as roof supporting columns, and the widest part of the blade for the roof. The tip of the blade is used for the long seating bench, and the circular end pieces are used for large planting pots placed around the site. Completion is expected by the end of March 2014.

Future Plans

Superuse Studios has been invited to partner with the Danish ‘Genvind Consortium‘,  a consortium of over 20 organisations, including Vestas, the biggest wind turbine producer of the world. The main goal of this consortium is to find solutions to the growing mountains of waste generated by the wind industry. Superuse Studios have joined the Genvind project to demonstrate how worldwide blade made projects that reuse wind rotor blades can play an important role in the processing of this composite material. The collaboration already resulted in very concrete plans for a blade made bridge in Denmark.

Thanks to Tim Joye.

“Stone arch bridges are amongst the strongest in the world. The technology has stood the test of time. The Romans built stone arch bridges and aqueducts with lime mortar more than twenty centuries ago. Arches and vaults were also the determining structural design element of churches and castles in the Middle Ages. There are stone arch bridges which have survived for hundreds and even thousands of years, and are still as strong today as when they were first constructed.”

“The main reason that western countries moved away from stone arch bridges is because of the high labour costs involved in their construction. In industrialised countries, it is cheaper to use pre-stressed concrete rather than employ a lot of masons and casual labourers. In the economic environment of East Africa and the majority of developing countries, stone arch bridges provide a more affordable and practical option.”

“A larger proportion of locally available resources are used in stone bridges as they can be built with local labour and stones. In contrast, raw materials and machines have to be imported for the construction of concrete bridges and specialized expertise is required. Compared to expensive aggregates, local stones are a strong, affordable material and they are often available in the vicinity (10-15 km) of the construction site. There is no need for expensive steel bars, aggregates, concrete or galvanised pipes that have to be hauled over long distances.”

Stone arch bridges, a strong and cost effective technology for rural roads. A practical manual for local governments, BTC Uganda & Practical Action.

Related:

• Covered Bridges: How to Build and Rebuild Them.
• The Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (SUDU).
• Nubian Vaults.

The ‘Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit’ (SUDU) in Ethiopia demonstrates that it is possible to construct multi-story buildings using only soil and stone. By combining timbrel vaults and compressed earth blocks, there is no need for steel, reinforced concrete or even wood to support floors, ceilings and roofs. The SUDU could be a game-changer for African cities, where population grows fast and building materials are scarce.

In “Tiles as a substitute for steel“, we highlighted the medieval art of the medieval timbrel vault, which allowed for structures that today no architect would dare to build without steel reinforcements. The technique is cheap, fast, ecological and durable. Shortly after the article was published in 2008, the timbrel vault made a comeback with two rather spectacular buildings: Richard Hawkes’ Crossway Passive House in England, and Peter Rich’s Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Africa.

The cardboard formwork technique described last week promises to bring even more dramatic architecture, but at least as interesting is the news that the catalan vault is now also applied to a much more modest form of housing: the Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (SUDU), a low-cost family dwelling built in Ethiopia.

The Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (SUDU).

Though less spectacular at first sight, it could form the proof that even megacities can be constructed without the use of steel, concrete or wood. The double-story building, which was completed in last summer, is entirely made from soil and presents an economical and ecological solution to many of Africa’s most urgent problems. The SUDU stands in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a country with a population of more than 80 million (growing at an average 7 percent per year). The building is a joint project of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC).

The SUDU combines past technologies from different continents, resulting in a new approach to low-tech construction adapted to specific local conditions. In the Mediterranean region, where the timbrel vault originated, the tiles have traditionally been made from fired clay. In the SUDU, the construction technique is united with the African tradition of cement-stabilized, soil-pressed bricks, which use locally available soil. This technique is called compressed earth block (CEB) construction. The SUDU has been built largely following the same techniques used for the Mapungubwe Centre in South Africa.

Urban housing

The SUDU was designed to achieve both environmental and economic sustainability. Because Ethiopia has few material and financial resources, the design is aimed at eliminating the reliance on imported, expensive and energy-intensive building materials such as steel and concrete. More unusual is that the building also excludes the use of wood, for the simple reason that wood is equally scarce in the country. The entire structure is made from locally available construction materials – and in the case of Ethiopia, these are very few: soil and stone.

The Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (SUDU).

One of the most challenging present problems for Africa (and throughout the developing world) is the tremendous deficit in housing for the urban poor. In Ethiopia, this is reflected in the ubiquitous informal housing, comprising perhaps 80% of the built environment of its capital, Addis Ababa. The most common vernacular construction method – construction with Eucalyptus wood and mud – is an economically and environmentally sustainable method of construction, but the problem of such constructions is that they are limited to one story – putting a huge strain on available land.

Thus, this vernacular technology has been more recently replaced by large urban housing projects of reinforced concrete, heavily subsidized by the government. These massive edifices of concrete and steel neither offer a model for frugal, environmentally or economically sustainable construction, nor do they offer a low-cost alternative to housing because they are too expensive to construct. The result is that more and more people are forced to be living on the streets. Whether it is the United States or Ethiopia, governments seem to prefer homeless people over shanty-towns.

The Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (SUDU).

In poorer areas of Addis Ababa, dwellings are often constructed from corrugated metal. These dwellings cannot be expanded upon for multi-story construction, yet sprawl outward, consuming limited resources including wood, expensive imported materials, and land.

Urban density

The SUDU is an exploration of a “medium ground” between single story informal dwelling and massive scale urban density, as studies have shown that even two-story buildings dramatically impact urban density. As the example of Tokyo shows, a megacity can be largely based on double-story buildings. Because the other aim is to build using only locally available materials, and wood reserves are scarce, the goals of SUDU were to build two stories in soil – a significant challenge without the aid of steel, concrete or milled lumber. Multiple-story soil architecture has a long tradition in Africa, though none of it has been constructed without wooden beams.

Building multiple stories in soil is a significant challenge without the aid of steel, concrete or lumber

As soil and stone have limited tensile capacity, building with these materials demands compression-only structural solutions. For walls carrying dominantly vertical loads, this criterium is easily satisfied. However, once a space must be spanned, beam elements – which work in bending – are typically required. A beam, as a structural system, demands that its section can accomodate tension and compression forces, which is not possible when building in stone or soil only.

The Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (SUDU) under construction.

By adapting local soil knowledge to the production of soil stablized tiles, however, it is possible to introduce the technology of timbrel vaulting to allow floor and roof systems of pure compression in multiple story buildings. Ethiopia has a rich soil, which contains high levels of clay particles. Almost all excavated material in the city of Addis Ababa is a possible source for the material needed to build new structures. The SUDU uses rammed earth techniques to construct the first level of the building, with a 60 cm wide wall structure. The ceilings and floors and the building are done using a tiled vauling technique using sun-dried tiles (first floor) and loam (for the roof) made from the very same soil.

Contrary to most other vaulting techniques, the catalan vault does require little to no formwork, again bypassing the need for wood.

Model for low-cost housing

Apart from the ecological and financial benefits, the construction technique used in the SUDU offers additional advantages. By drawing upon traditional methods, it engenders pride and social cohesion within the local community. And by using only locally available materials, it provides local jobs, introduces new skills and stimulates self-sufficiency. Through the economic benefits, the SUDU may become a model low-cost housing unit for the urban poor in Africa. It is meant to be a showcase to convince decision makers, economists, urban planners and architects to rethink traditional building methods and find new ways to build a town or even a city.

The construction of the SUDU was led by Lara Davis, who published a blog where the building process is documented from A to Z. There is also a movie. The BLOCK Research Group of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) has a webpage that links to all the research papers on the construction method. A book was presented November 25. Also of interest is a special architectural 2010 issue of the ADTF Journal published by the African Technology Development Forum. Several articles deal specifically with timbrel vaulting building methods, and outline some of the remaining challenges:

• “Tile vaulted systems for low-cost construction in Africa“.
• “Design and Construction of the Mapungubwe National Park Interpretive Centre, South Africa“.

Previously:

• Tiles as a substitute for steel: the art of the timbrel vault
• Timbrel vaulting in South Africa by Peter Rich
• Timbrel vaulting using cardboard formwork
• Engineering for the ecological age: lessons from history
• Building with mud and steel frames
• Building with pumice
• How to build a reciprocal roof frame
• How to build an earthbag dome
• How to build a medieval city
• Birch bark sauna
• Innovation and tradition: the complete works of Hassan Fathy online
• Why older buildings are more sustainable
• The solar envelope: how to heat and cool cities without fossil fuels

Find pictures and the research paper here or see the summary below.

Timbrel vaulting (also known as ‘Catalan vaulting’ or ‘thin-tile vaulting’) offers a sustainable roof and floor construction method because it uses fewer building materials than conventional techniques. Timbrel vaulting employs the use of good structural form to achieve a minimal shell thickness and requires no formwork. The new tools designed by the Swiss researchers aim to combine these advantages with a whole new range of complex shapes, which they call ‘freeform shells’:

“This research project presents important advances in timbrel vaulting, made possible through innovation in form finding, guidework systems and construction methods. A full-scale prototype has been realized with the application of new research in the following areas: newly developed structural design tools based upon the Thrust Network Approach (TNA), which allow one to generate novel shapes for funicular (i.e. compression-only) structures; an efficient cardboard box guidework system, which allows for a vaulted surface to be described in an accurate manner in space for the mason; and adaptations upon traditional timbrel vaulting techniques, which have introduced strategies for continuous tiling patterns, shell thickening, and sequencing for structural stability during construction.”

Matthias Rippmann designed both the prototype and the software tool, which is free to download:

“RhinoVAULT is software that allows for the intuitive design of compression-only shapes, offering a maximum control of the geometry. This software is written particularly for shaping unreinforced masonry vaults, but can also be used for designing efficient freeform shells. Based on the Thrust Network Approach (TNA), which uses a force network as discretization of the shape, it is possible to internally redistribute forces within the network using force diagrams. This enables the user to generate exciting forms far beyond typical ‘hanging-net’ morphologies.”

Contrary to the traditional timbrel vaulting techniques, these new forms require a continuous formwork system. While this approach seems to negate the inherent material and labour efficiency of thin-tile vaulting, the researchers introduce a formwork system using cardboard that still possesses the material economy of the traditional Catalan shell:

“The cardboard formwork implemented in this project is fabricated with 2-D CAD-CAM cutting and gluing processes and is assembled on site. The system’s rapid fabrication, lightweight transportation, and speed of erection and de-centering dramatically reduce the material and labour-based costs of construction. An inexpensive and potentially reusable/recyclable material, this lightweight cardboard formwork extends the viability of thin-tile vaulting to freeform construction.”

The formwork system is expandable, essentially composed of simple boxes supported by stacked shipping palettes. Using palettes for the first rough approximation of the final vault shape offers several advantages: it reduces the volume of cardboard to be used, it facilitates easy access during construction as the palettes can be arranged in step-like configuration, and it decreases the size of the boxes, ensuring that the unrolled cutting pattern of boxes fit to the limited machine-size of the CNC cutting machine.

A particular challenge is de-centering, which is the process of removing the formwork from the surface of the shell. This is a sensitive process, because the entire formwork should be removed equally and simultaneously to avoid dangerous asymmetric loading cases from below. Such asymmetric loading would induce bending in a compression-only structure and potentially cause cracking and failure. To prevent this, the researchers developped a special mechanism:

“The entire formwork sits on top of a series of sealed plastic tubes containing cardboard spacers. Each spacer, which consists of a folded stack of cardboard sheets, taped together, supports the corners of typically four palettes. After the vault is completed, the tubes are filled with water, saturating the cardboard, causing it to compress under the load of the palettes and effectively to lower the formwork.”

The construction (and eventual destruction) of the prototype, built by Lara Davis, is documented in a time-lapse video.

Davis L., Rippmann M., Pawlofsky T. and Block P. Efficient and Expressive Thin-tile Vaulting using Cardboard Formwork, Proceedings of the IABSE-IASS Symposium 2011, London, UK. (PDF).

Picture below: testing the strength of the structure.

Previously:

• Tiles as a substitute for steel: the art of the timbrel vault
• Timbrel vaulting in South Africa by Peter Rich
• Engineering for the ecological age: lessons from history
• Building with mud and steel frames
• Building with pumice
• How to build a reciprocal roof frame
• How to build an earthbag dome
• How to build a medieval city
• Birch bark sauna
• Innovation and tradition: the complete works of Hassan Fathy online
• Why older buildings are more sustainable

“Kazakh architect and artist Saken Narynov created a superstructure able to host what we could call an adobe vertical city. In fact, the structure is used as a matrix that can be more or less densely filled with multifamily habitation units. The traditional earth based material thus hybrids with the steel structure in a very unusual and interesting way and the space resulting between the habitation units and the structure is beautifully occupied by mazes of staircases and elevated pathways.”

“The design recalls recent works by the Chilean architect Marcelo Cortes, who employs a steel meshwork onto which mud is sprayed, but on a far greater scale. Cortes has developed a “quincha metalica”, a form of traditional quincha construction (mud and straw packed between a bamboo or wood frame) that uses a steel frame work.”

Picture above: Saken Narynov

Picture above: Saken Narynov

Picture above: Saken Narynov

Picture above: Saken Narynov

Picture above: Marcelo Cortes

Picture above: Marcelo Cortes

 Picture above: Marcelo Cortes

Building a traditional quincha house.

Via Funambulist & Earth Architecture.

Related:

• Building with pumice
• How to build a reciprocal roof frame
• How to build an earthbag dome
• Covered bridges: how to build and rebuild them
• Wooden pipelines
• Architecture for the poor: Hassan Fathy online
• The Blackfoot Indians

In Germany, the first wall-building brick made of pumice and a slow-hardening binder (milk of lime) dates back to the year 1845. That marked the starting point of a local pumice-based building industry in volcanic regions of the Eifel Mountains, where pumice deposits were abundant. As time passed, the material’s market area expanded steadily.

Today’s pumice industry in the Rhineland operates large production facilities and has enough raw material reserves to last beyond the turn of the century at the present rate of production. Pumice, an extremely light, porous raw material of volcanic origin, can be found in many parts of the world, including various developing countries with areas of past or present volcanic activity. In some countries, volcanic ash (with a particle size of less than 2 mm), pumice (with particle sizes ranging from 2 to 64 mm) and consolidated ash (tuff) are traditionally used, on a local scale, as versatile building materials.”

“Building with pumice” (pdf-version), Klaus Grasser & Gernot Minke, 1990. More links: 1 / 2. Thanks to Zeltia González Blanco.

“The University of Tennessee Extension maintains a collection of over 300 building and equipment plans, and all are now available in electronic format for download. The plans are primarily intended for use in Tennessee, but many are appropriate for other locations as well.

The plans came from many sources. Some were developed in The University of Tennessee Extension Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science Department, but most were developed in a cooperative effort with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Cooperative Farm Building Plan Exchange. The Plan Exchange no longer exists, but the plans remain on file and are available.”

Via The Survivalist Blog.

“With the advent of the industrial revolution, the inherited techniques and perfected knowledge of creating, using handmade tools, were lost and are now forgotten. Energy-intensive mechanized tools have diminished man’s personal, cellular contribution to the fabrication of objects, the building of structures, and the growing of food. The lesser the challenge for man to imprint his genius, the less artistic is the product. The resulting economic and political disturbances are visible today. Production of beauty, once the prerogative of millions, is replaced by industrialization, even of bread, under the control of a minority of owners. The negative consequences of the industrial revolution have disturbed the natural organization of the divine concept for humanity.”

“Sixty years of experience have shown me that industrialization and mechanization of the building trade have caused vast changes in building methods with varying applications in different parts of the world. Constant upheaval results when industrially developed societies weaken the craft-developed cultures through increased communications. As they interact, mutations create societal and ecological imbalance and economic inequities which are documented to be increasing in type and number. Profoundly affected is the mass of the population, which is pressured to consume industrially produced goods. The result is cultural, psychological, moral, and material havoc.”

“Yet it is this population that has an intimate knowledge of how to live in harmony with the local environment. Thousands of years of accumulated expertise has led to the development of economic building methods using locally available materials, climatization using energy derived from the local natural environment, and an arrangement of living and working spaces in consonance with their social requirements. This has been accomplished within the context of an architecture that has reached a very high degree of artistic expression.”

Quoted from: “Architecture and environment” by Hassan Fathy, a noted Egyptian architect who pioneered appropriate technology for building in Egypt, especially by working to re-establish the use of mud brick (or adobe) and traditional as opposed to western building designs and lay-outs.

Fathy demonstrated how elements from vernacular Arab urban architecture, such as the malkaf (wind catch), shukshaykha (lantern dome) and mashrabiya (wooden lattice screen), could be combined with the mud-brick construction traditionally practiced in Nubia in Upper Egypt to form a distinctive, environmentally and socially conscious building style that linked the use of appropriate technologies with co-operative construction techniques and the guiding thread of tradition (source).

All his wonderfully illustrated books can be found online, free to download (in English, French & Arabic). Via TECTONICAblog (Thank you, Zeltia).

“A modern, comfortable lifestyle relies on a variety of efficient Industrial Machines. If you eat bread, you rely on an Agricultural Combine. If you live in a wood house, you rely on a Sawmill. Each of these machines relies on other machines in order for it to exist. If you distill this complex web of interdependent machines into a reproduceable, simple, closed-loop system, you get these 50 machines.”

The GVCS is a work-in-progress. See the wiki, the blog and (the best introduction) the movie.

Related: How to make everything ourselves: open modular hardware.

“A reciprocal roof is a beautiful and simple self-supporting structure that can be composed of as few as three rafters, and up to any imaginable quantity (within reason, of course). Reciprocal roofs require no center support, they are quick to construct, and they can be built using round poles or dimensional lumber (perhaps with some creative notching). They are extremely strong, perfect for round buildings, and very appropriate for living roofs, as well.”

How to build a reciprocal roof frame. Practice with matches first.

Related: How to build an earthbag dome.

Via Judit Bellostes.

“Domes are the strongest form in nature and easily support enormous forces. They create the most floor space for a given length of wall. There are no wasted corners. The feeling inside is magical. Those who live in domes (and roundhouses) most likely never live in boxes again. Wind flows around domes and does not build up pressure against them.”

“You can build domes without wood. You can build domes with minimal tools and materials – no nails, no wood, no plywood, no shingles. This makes domes a good candidate for those who lack carpentry skills and for emergency shelters for disaster areas and war refugees. Give people some rice or grain bags and a little training, and soon they can build their own sturdy, safe shelters.”

Step-by-Step Earthbag Building Instructable. Via Make.

“Engineering for the ecological age: lessons from history” (video) by John Ochsendorf. Skip the extremely irritating introduction to the speaker and start at 10:50. Via Ecodemica. Related: Tiles as a substitute for steel: the art of the timbrel vault & Timbrel vaulting in South Africa. Photo: Michael Ramage.

“In the late 14th century, England’s King Richard II commissioned a new building, College Hall, at Oxford University. The carpenters who built College Hall knew that the massive oak beams spanning the great hall’s ceiling would probably need to be replaced in a few hundred years, so next to the building, they planted a row of oak seedlings from the trees they used for the beams. Sure enough, the beams needed to be replaced about 300 years later, and the new carpenters had mature oaks right there, ready to be milled and turned into new beams.”

Greening Main Street Buildings (more). The picture shows an example of a recessed entryway – a characteristic common to many traditional commercial buildings that helps prevent hot or cold air from rushing inside when a door is opened.

Once more, hat tip to Lloyd Alter.

It concerns the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Africa, designed by Peter Rich Architects from Johannesburg. The project won the World Building Award at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) held in Barcelona last month.

The Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre, which is built to house artifacts from the region’s prehistory, was constructed using local materials and using the skills and labour of local people. Unemployed South Africans were trained in the manufacture of earth tiles and in building the
timbrel vaults.

Timbrel vaulting (or “Catalan vaulting”) is being rediscovered as an ecological building technique because it saves large amounts of building materials and thus embodied energy. This also makes it a cheap building method, at least in regions were hand labour is affordable. Via Sergio Carratalá.

More pictures below (courtesy of Peter Rich and the WAF).

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This wooden bridge (length 32 metres, width 12 metres, height 16 metres) was inaugurated on April 15th in Sneek, the Netherlands. The “Krúsrak” is the first wooden bridge in the world that can support the heaviest load class of 60 tons. Its life expectancy is 80 years.

Thanks to a chemical treatment of the softwood, the bridge can withstand insects, fungi and the harsh weather conditions in the most northern province of the Netherlands (Friesland). Wooden bridges require much less energy to construct than steel or concrete bridges.

Only the road-surface of the “Krúsrak” is made of steel – originally it was planned to be of wood, too, but then it should have been 2 metres thick. More information here (in English) and here (in Dutch).

Related: Covered bridges – how to build and rebuild them. Also: wooden pipelines.