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Building Houses With Local Materials Means To Drastically Reduce
Building Houses With Local Materials Means To Drastically Reduce
www.elsevier.com/locate/buildenv
Received 21 January 2000; received in revised form 21 January 2000; accepted 3 July 2000
Abstract
This paper describes the process of materials selection, design and construction used for a series of small residential buildings
in Southern France. Whenever possible, materials were resourced in situ in order to minimise the environmental impact of the new
buildings. In particular, the process of materials selection, stone masonry with stabilised in situ soil mortar, and the form of construction
are outlined. Guidance for a more generalised adoption of the design process is also provided. The energy consumed in the building
of one house is compared to a typical concrete house. By adopting local materials the amount of energy used in building decreased by
up to 215% and the impact of transportation by 453%. However, adoption of local materials in developed countries can be hindered
by the loss of traditional building crafts and a lack of appropriate building standards. These problems are also discussed in this paper.
c 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Soil mortar; Stone masonry; Embodied energy; Local material; Environmental impact
0360-1323/01/$ - see front matter c 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 6 0 - 1 3 2 3 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 5 4 - 8
1120 J.C. Morel et al. / Building and Environment 36 (2001) 1119–1126
Fig. 1. (a) Map of France with location of the building site and area of dry stone masonry buildings [2], (b) Cross section of the in site soil, (c)
Amount of soil from the foundations used to make the mortar.
form (stage C) will clearly inIuence the choice of building masonry houses, see Fig. 2. The environmental impact of
materials. In the case study, the sequence of material and building one typical house is quantiHed later in this paper.
building form selection was as follows: The second phase will comprise construction of a further
nine similar houses; though three will have rammed earth,
(A) An inventory of suitable in situ materials included
rather than stone masonry, walls. The rammed earth walls
a 2 m deep layer of stones and subsoil beneath an
will use in situ soil material.
organic topsoil layer and above bedrock (Fig. 1b);
Savings in material and reduction in transportation im-
(B) Soil analysis showed the presence of kaolinite clay,
pact are described below. Quantitative assessment of pol-
allowing cement stabilisation of the mortar.
lutant levels (dust, CO2 , CO, NO2 ) is not presented, as
(C) Selection of stone masonry, in keeping with tradi-
quantiHcation is highly variable and highly dependent on
tional houses found in the village, built with a sta-
the building site location [3,4]. However, pollutants can
bilised soil mortar.
be quantiHed using the data given below. Quantifying the
In this study, the external load-bearing structure will be environmental beneHts, expressed as a percentage of saved
considered. Other aspects, such as the rooHng or interior materials (or services), maintains a level of objectivity and
may follow traditional forms or follow the same concepts encourages a better understanding of the results. Though
of using local materials. The project comprises the exten- the assessment of environmental impact is relative, a com-
sion of the village in two stages. Completion of the Hrst parative approach allows a number of simplifying assump-
phase to date comprised the construction of three stone tions to be made. Other environmental beneHts, such as
J.C. Morel et al. / Building and Environment 36 (2001) 1119–1126 1121
3. Building materials
Fig. 2. The Hrst three soil stone masonry houses already built, only the 3.1. Soil mortar
second is taken into account in this article.
3.3. Timber
4. Structural details
Table 1
Energy cost for a range of building materials according to four references
Fig. 6. (a) the Hrst horizontal timber frame, (b) Connection between the diLerences in consumed embodied energy depends not only
timber frame and the stone masonry. on the mode of calculation, but also on the economic and
ecological conditions, as stated previously.
For the project under consideration the quantity of mate-
connector is embedded between two stones (Fig. 6b). The rial, together with the published data for energy consump-
Ioors, which are directly embedded onto the timber frame, tion, was used to calculate total embodied energy levels.
links all of the structure and so enhance its stability. The UK-based data of Harris [8] were selected as they
Embedded steel ties enhances the connection to the walls. are from a country with a similar level of development to
France. However, using the ERG data [13] a similar re-
sult is achieved. The embodied energy of stone masonry
blocks is not given by Harris [8], so values quoted for
5. Assessing the environmental benets aggregates were used instead, although stone values may
be less.
The aim of the environmental assessment is to compare Table 2 summarises the results of the embodied energy
the energy expenditure for the materials of the stone ma- analysis. For one concrete house, the energy consumption
sonry houses with that of a typical concrete house and the is 239 GJ. It appears that the typical concrete house con-
proposed rammed earth houses. Many studies have been sumes 246% more energy (239 GJ instead of 97) than
undertaken in the past to quantify the environmental cost the house made with stone masonry, and 240% more en-
of building products [4,8,12,13]. However, as there are ergy required for the rammed soil house (239 GJ instead
many complex ways in which industrial processes impact of 70). Using the ERG [12] data, the gain is 248 and
on the environment, it is not yet possible to accurately 270% for the stone masonry and rammed earth houses,
quantify all of the potentially harmful eLects involved. respectively.
Environmental importance of diLerent parameters, such as
dust emission or water consumption, varies signiHcantly
depending on site location. 5.2. Transport
Given the diNculties assessing the impact of construc-
tion, only two main parameters have been selected for this The transport necessary to bring the materials to the
study: the energy consumed to manufacture the walls and building site was also calculated; the embodied energy of
Ioors, and the corresponding amount of building material materials being calculated at the factory exit. As expected
transported to the building site. According to Harris’ [8] the transport impact on the environment is signiHcantly
data, these two factors represent approximately 50% of less for the stone masonry building (480% lower) and the
the total embodied energy of a typical house. rammed soil building (640%).
As transportation expends energy this amount could be
5.1. Embodied energy of the building materials added to the embodied energy calculated in the previous
section (as done in the ERG [12]). But as stated previ-
Table 1 presents energy consumption (also called em- ously transport impact has been considered separately to
bodied energy), expressed in MJ per kg of produced build- allow clear consideration of other detrimental eLects, such
ing material, according to various studies [4,8,12,13]. The as number of car accidents for example.
1124 J.C. Morel et al. / Building and Environment 36 (2001) 1119–1126
Table 2
Energy cost and transport for one house of 3 types
5.3. Construction time 5.4. Energy spent during the occupation of the dwellings
The construction time considered for this study is the It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider in detail
duration taken to build the load bearing structure, the the energy consumed during occupation of the dwellings.
Ioors, the roof, the windows and provide the external Hn- However, as energy consumption during use accounts for
ishes (e.g. plaster). The time taken to build the two stone some 50% of total energy usage, compared to 8% for con-
masonry houses of 110 m2 and three Ioors, (the second struction, then savings during construction should clearly
and third of Fig. 2) is four months. For only one house the be not to the detriment of the on-going energy
construction time should be 10 weeks, and for a 150 m2 demands.
house construction time will be 12 weeks. The houses are situated in a Mediterranean climate
For a concrete house the construction time is very sim- (Fig. 1a). Thermal insulation of the house is naturally ob-
ilar; building with local materials takes no longer than tained by the thickness of the walls (400 – 600 mm). As
building with concrete. Plant used during construction com- well as providing a physical barrier against heat loss, ther-
prised a small electric crane and mixer, similar to those mal mass of these thick walls warm the house during the
used to build the concrete houses. winter evenings as they release the heat absorbed during
J.C. Morel et al. / Building and Environment 36 (2001) 1119–1126 1125
the day. In summary they also keep the cool air inside the 7. Contractual arrangements and procurement methods
house. Consequently for this Mediterranean climate these
stone-walled dwellings generally do not require additional In general, contractual arrangements of the work com-
insulation such as mineral wool. plied with normal practice for such projects, although ad-
At present, it is not possible to reliably assess the en- ditional requirements were included to ensure that best
ergy performance of the houses without insulation, how- environmental practices were followed. These conditions
ever, it is intended to monitor these over a continuous 12 ensure that the method is used appropriately which are
month period of occupation. Where thermal performance enforced through rigorous site controls. The approach of
is impaired it is possible to provide additional insulation. building with local materials must be clearly explained to
The energy gain during building to do this will be less all site personnel in order to ensure a suitable level of
(215% instead of 246% for the stone masonry house, and quality control for both best construction and least en-
285% instead of 340% for the rammed soil house). For vironmental impact. Both professionals and artisans (ma-
transport the Hgures are almost the same: 453% instead of sons) unfamiliar with the technology, such as earth con-
480% for the stone masonry house and 593% instead of struction, must be appropriately informed. In particular,
640% for the rammed soil house. the following points must be clearly deHned:
local materials such as soil, stone and timber. Local ma- Acknowledgements
terials were resourced in a systematic matter to minimise
the environmental impact of the project. For example, the The authors wish to express their appreciation to ANVAR
use of rammed soil will signiHcantly further decrease the (France) for their Hnancial support.
environmental impact; in particular, by removing the use
of quarried stones.
References
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