Building with earth raw earth building

techniques and the opinion of experienced builders.

Clarissa Armando dos Santos1, a, Lisiane Ilha Librelotto2,b

and Claudio Jacintho3,c
1
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
2
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
3

a b c
clarissaarmando@gmail.com, lisianelibrelotto@gmail.com, claudiocj@hotmail.com

Keywords: Unfired earth; building techniques; sustainability; post-occupation evaluation.

Abstract. Earth building construction techniques bring the promise of being environmentally
friendly, thermally comfortable, easy to maintain and aesthetically interesting. Therefore, the ideae
is beginning to spread in Brazil, being divulgated mainly by institutes and groups involved with
Permaculture studies. The possibility of building sustainably and independently has contributed to
the increasing number of people embracing the cause and starting constructing with earth and other
raw materials. But what are their opinions after the end of the process? This work brings a review
on some of the most popular earth building techniques in the Brazilian Federal District and state of
Santa Catarina (superadobe, hyperadobe, rammed earth, cob, stucco, and double stucco filled with
plastic bottles), as well as interviews with builders and users of the resulting houses. The research
showed that the houses were built mostly by the owners themselves, with only a few having relied
on professional help at some point. The drawbacks appointed were the lack of qualified
professionals well-acquainted with these building techniques, the difficulties in managing large
groups of voluntary builders and the high physical effort demanded by some of the techniques.
Actually, many houses were composed by more than one technique. Some were built using a
different technique to each wall. Superadobe was the preferred one at first, however most builders
decided to change to other techniques for the practicability or just for the sake of experimenting.
The experimenting of different techniques was more frequent in the cases when the house was the
first construction of the builder(s). Unfortunately, the lack of experience had serious consequences,
for it was noticed that some buildings showed construction pathologies, such as pending walls and
peeling plasters. Nonetheless, most of the users declared to be satisfied and considered earth
building a good investment. In fact, the houses had good thermal performance, used low impact
materials and had a medium cost of approximately BRL 310.00 per square meter. A considerably
lower price than the average BRL 670.00 per square meter, estimated by Brazilian authorities for the
same locations and building patterns at the time of the constructions.

Introduction
Raw earth building techniques are spreading out, under the promise of being environmentally
friendly, thermally comfortable, easy to maintain and aesthetically interesting. They use local, non-
industrialized material and, besides avoiding waste production, some techniques even allow reusing
domestic and construction rubbish, making good use of this abundant deject.

The environmental appeal is clear, but, furthermore, the possibility of building more sustainably
and independently has contributed to the increasing number of people embracing the cause and
starting constructing with earth and other raw materials. But what are their opinions after the end of
the process? Are they satisfied?
 The first part of this work brings a review on seven raw earth building techniques. The
techniques presented here were the ones encountered during the field study and their variations.
Namely: superadobe (earth filled bags)hyperadobe, rammed earth, cob, cordwood, stucco, and
double stucco filled with plastic bottles.

The second part of this work brings a field study, where builders and users of the resulting
houses were interviewed for post-occupation opinions and recommendations.

Raw earth building techniques

Superadobe and hyperadobe. Superadobe is probably the most popular modern raw earth
building technique. It was developed by the Iranian-American architect, Nader Khalili, at the Cal-
Earth Institute. This technique has become worldwide know after being presented at the 1984
Since then it has been
widely used, being used by the United Nations for Syria refugees [1].
The building is quite simple. It is made by filling polypropilen plastic bags with earth. Straw,
sawdust and construction waste may be added if available. The filled bags are then compressed
mechanically or manually. This process takes place until the walls reach approximately two meters
high. From this point on, the walls are placed in a decreasing diameter, so that they will close into a
spiral, to form the roof. To guarantee the stability, every new layer is attached to the previous one
with barbed wire [2] (Fig. 1):

Figure 1: From left to right: Building a structural raw earthen wall of superadobe [3]; Interior
view, door and windows, before coating [4]; A four dome house, being built [5]; Inner view [6].

Any house format can be built in superadobe, however, the circular format gives a structural
feature to the building. Doorways and window apertures can be made by forming arches with the
bags or by incorporating ten per cent of cement to the soil at the lintels. This measure also can be
applied when the soil available has excessive sand in its composition. Steps and shelves may be
inserted between the rows, as well as the plumbing for electrical and hydraulic systems [7].
Hyperadobe is a variation of superadobe, with a different type of plastic bag. Afterwards, in both
techniques, the bags are torn or burnt, and coated with earthen or conventional plasters and finishing
(Fig.2):
 Figure 2: From left to right: Hyperadobe house under construction [8]; Raschel plastic bag detail
[9]; Superadobe finished house [10].
Cob and cordwood. Cob is a general name for the building techniques where the walls are
raised without forms (moulds). Differently from superadobe, in this technique the content and the

unique, in order to build, one must check on the soil clay and sand proportions before starting. The
soil may have volumetric proportion of up to eighty-five per cent (85%) of sand and fifteen per cent
(15%) of clay.
The mixture for cob is made with sifted soil (16 parts), water (3 parts), agricultural residues rich
in silica, such as straw and rice husks (to dry), and other elements, such as cactus sap and manure

resistant tarpaulin. One effective way is to mix the elements with your feet. Fans of that technique
call this procedure "the cob dance".
The blend is ready when, by pulling one side of the bag, the blend is rolled into two
distinguishable layers. The walls are made by dropping handfuls of earth dough. When they hit the
wall, one should stick the fingers into it, so that the next layer may fill the holes and get attached to
the previous one [11].
Cordwood is made by placing short wood logs amid the cob.
Rammed earth. Rammed earth is made by setting timber forms between two of the structural
columns, filling with earth blend and then compressing it, either manually or with pneumatic
tamper. The forms are then moved up and the process is repeated to the height intended. The walls
can be left as they are, or be coloured with pigments, or sealed with stucco (Fig. 3):

Figure 3: Rammed Earth under construction [12,13].

Earthen stucco, reinforced earthen stucco, PET filled double earthen stucco. Earthen
stucco, or just stucco, is a millenary building technique. It is still widely used in Brazil, especially in
the northeast region, under the name of pau-a-pique (erected timber). Stucco is very inexpensive,
but also practical. It allows building sealing walls by placing a wooden or bamboo frame between
the structural columns and filling this frame with raw earth blend [14]. This technique is been largely
used by the architect T Brazilian state.
An improvement to this technique is the so called PET-a-pique (PET filled double earthen
stucco). In this variation two frames are attached to the columns, the space between the frames is
filled with the raw earth blend and clean, dry PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles. More
than recycling domestic garbage, the using of these bottles reduces the use of earth blend, creates
lighter walls and also provides the walls higher thermal and acoustic insulation rates. After a
variable drying period, the walls can be coated with earth or conventional plasters and paints,

protect the walls from direct rain, especially at the predominant wind direction, to avoid future
building pathologies [15] (Fig. 4):

Figure 4: From left to right: earthen stucco under construction. Photo of Ligia Pinheiro [16]; PET-
a-pique building detail [17]; PET-a-pique under construction [13]; PET-a-pique finished wall [13].

Reinforced earthen stucco is used when a more resistant building is needed. The earth blend is
added with ten per cent (10%) of cement or lime, and the wooden frame is replaced by chicken wire.
Advantages and disadvantages of the techniques presented. The raw earth building
techniques, as presented, have shown the following advantages [13,15, 18]:
The techniques are easy to assimilate and demand non specialized workforce, allowing self-
construction and community group work;
The building process is fast and demands ordinary, accessible tools;
The materials applied are mostly local and inexpensive;
Domestic and construction waste are reused;
The handmade character of the building techniques generates a sense of property on the
builder/owner and allows artistic manifestations.

Some disadvantages, on the other hand, are [15,19]:

The techniques have not all been tested to check their performance in real conditions;
The building still depends on certain industrialized materials such as plastic and cement;
The eaves must be large, to avoid direct rain;
The handmade, non-industrialized, character of the building generally makes it slower than
other existing building techniques.
 Other disadvantage that could be mentioned is the general association of earth buildings with the
barber bug fever. The solution to this issue is quite simple, for, in fact, the barber bug actually
benefits from hygiene neglects, which are to cause health hazards in any type of building.

Interviews

The buildings. In order to evaluate the post-occupation opinion of the builders and users of raw
earth building constructions, a multi-case study was made. In the sequence, the outside aspect and
some building details of the buildings are presented. All non-referenced photos were taken by the
author (Fig. 5, 6, 7, 8):

Figura 5: Asa Branca Farm. From left to right: Leandro Jacintho reinforced earthen stucco house;
Plastered and finished to plastered and
finished living room.

Figure 6 From left to right: outside view of the

house; inserted shelves; cordwood floor in the living room.

Figure 7: From left to right: o

superadobe first floor interior; earthen stucco second floor.
 Figure 8: Walter Le
construction; superadobe first floor and earthen stucco second floor under construction; finished
earthen plastered house. Photos: courtesy of Walter Leonardo C. Vasconcelos.

The houses o

Buildings located in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. s quite an

exception in every aspect. As,the owners are educators, they have carefully registered all building
stages in their website [13], and gently allowed being referenced in this work (Fig. 9):.

Figure 9 main house; inner view

of the living room; geodesic earthen stucco roofed workplace [13].

By the time of the interview, the owners had experimented already five different techniques. The
house is located in Santa Catarina state, in the south of Brazil. The high humidity, wide thermal
amplitude and strong wind storms have really put the techniques to proof, as to be seeing in picture
12

Techniques applied. Except from hyperadobe and cob, all the techniques presented were found
at the field search. Curiously enough, many of the houses were composed by more than one
technique. Some builders even used a different technique every two or three walls. Superadobe was
the preferred one to start with, for its structural character, being used for the first floor. Earthen
stucco and varieties were most used for the second floor. Cordwood appeared associated to builders
with greater budget and more demanding aesthetic requirements. The experimenting of different
techniques was more frequent in the cases when the house was the first construction of the builders.

Costs. Most of the users considered earth building a good investment. In fact, the houses had a
medium cost of approximately BRL 310.00 per square meter. A considerably lower price than the
BRL 670.00 per square meter, estimated by Brazilian authorities for the same locations and building
patterns at the time of the constructions [20] (Table 1 and 2):
 Table 1 and 2: Interview results Building costs per square meter.

Difficulties and solutions. The research showed that the houses were built mostly by the owners
themselves, with only a few having relied on professional help at some point. The drawbacks
appointed were the lack of qualified professionals well-acquainted with these building techniques,
the difficulties in managing large groups of voluntaries and the high physical effort demanded by
some of the techniques, especially superadobe and rammed earth.

Amongst the difficulties, besides the lack of qualified workforce, some builders had to face
construction pathologies, such as cracks and peeling plasters (Fig. 10).

Figure 10: Cracks and peeling plasters.

In order to solve these problems, some natural coating recipes were tested and proved
satisfactory, such as cactus sap and flour made glue. For external walls facing the predominant
wind, though, conventional mortar plaster had to be used (Fig. 11):
 Figure 11: PET-a-pique before and after conventional coating [13].

Unfortunately, for some builders, the lack of experience had some more serious consequences.
Miscalculation lead to pending walls, cracks, infiltration and peeling plasters, reinforcing the
importance of building under the supervision of an engineer or an architect, despite of the technique
elected.

Conclusions

The raw earth building techniques presented in this paper were considered satisfactory by the
experienced builders interviewed. Many recommendations were given to assure a more reliable
construction. Nonetheless, professional supervision has proved to be essential. All seven
builders/dwellers considered the installations satisfactory. The buildings had good thermal
performance, used mostly low impact materials and were inexpensive.

Summary

Introduction 1
Raw earth building techniques 2
Interviews 5
Conclusion 8
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