Abstract
Earth architecture during the 21st century has resurfaced worldwide as a sustainable, low environmental impact material with expressive aesthetics and textures. Contemporary projects attempt to modernize the traditional techniques of building with earth in order to adapt them to today’s projecting needs. Examples of such techniques are unfired earth bricks and rammed earth. In order to disclosure and highlight future possibilities of earth construction, advantages and limitations of earth construction in a contemporary Western-European context are reviewed, based on a literature study. Because it is hard to generalise due to the case-specific context and constraints, a case study analysis of earth utilization in two contemporary architectural projects is presented. To assess if these contemporary projects meet the environmental benefits associated with traditional earth construction, several environmental aspects are taken into account, such as material sourcing proximity, production process, reuse potential, etc. Based on the literature study, case study analysis and current evolutions in neighbouring countries, promising applications for future development of earth construction for low impact building in Belgium are highlighted.
Highlights
Earth architecture during the 21st century has resurfaced worldwide as a sustainable, low environmental impact material with expressive aesthetics and textures
Contemporary projects attempt to modernize the traditional techniques of building with earth in order to adapt them to today’s projecting needs
Because it is hard to generalise due to the case-specific context and constraints, a case study analysis of earth utilization in two contemporary architectural projects is presented. To assess if these contemporary projects meet the environmental benefits associated with traditional earth construction, several environmental aspects are taken into account, such as material sourcing proximity, production process, reuse potential, etc
Summary
A project with rammed earth (RE) and one with compressed earth bricks (CEB) are studied. A variation of the rammed earth technique consists in the fabrication of compressed earth bricks, using the technique of compacting a slightly moist earth mixture. Other construction elements are gaining popularity including extruded raw earth bricks (mixture in plastic state put into shape by extrusion [11]) and prefabricated rammed earth panels [8]. Advantages and limitations of earth architecture Egenti & Khatib [12] did a literature review towards the advantages and limitations of earth construction (table 1). They give a comprehensible overview of advantages and limitations commonly associated with earth construction. Capable of providing strong and secured structure Lal (1995), Rigassi (1985), Walker et al (2005)
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