Abstract
Abstract. In Colombia earthen buildings, mostly adobe, makes up 80% of the national monumental heritage and historic urban centres. Moreover, vernacular earthen techniques have been largely used for dwellings in rural villages, small towns or informal settlements and represent, nowadays, a huge architectural and cultural heritage of the country. Due the brittle behaviour and low ductility of the building material, characterized by both low tensile and bending strength, earth constructions show high seismic vulnerability; nevertheless, though Colombian earthquake hazard level is considered very high, current national seismic building regulations do not include any reference to earthen architecture. Seismic failure mechanisms most frequently occurring to masonry architecture, as adobe buildings rehabilitation techniques and seismic behaviour improvement practices, have been widely published. This paper aims to investigate possible causes associated to failure mechanisms due to common adobe building practices in Colombia and intervention strategies, to be eventually implemented in order to reduce risks. The paper focuses on strategies and technologies for seismic retrofitting, while evaluating their effectiveness and feasibility through ‘sustainability’ indicators, based on literature quantitative and qualitative data, and strictly related to rural Colombian economic, social and environmental conditions, where available resources are scarce and labour often not qualified.
Highlights
In Colombia, traditional earthen building techniques make up 80% of the national monuments and historic urban centres and some notable examples can be found in Barichara, La Candelaria, Villa de Leyva, etc. (Ruiz et al, 2012)
The use of synthetic geogrids could generate an important enhancement of building structural strength, interesting all the main seismic failure mechanisms reported in Table 1; its feasibility on rural Colombian context appears quite low, due both to the high skilled labour and knowledge required both to the high cost and high environmental impact, that geogrids lifecycle carries
The aforementioned reinforcements carry low costs, materials accessibility, quite low environmental impact, low skilled labour needed for implementation and are highly related to adobe traditions in Colombia
Summary
In Colombia, traditional earthen building techniques make up 80% of the national monuments and historic urban centres and some notable examples can be found in Barichara, La Candelaria, Villa de Leyva, etc. (Ruiz et al, 2012). In Colombia, traditional earthen building techniques make up 80% of the national monuments and historic urban centres and some notable examples can be found in Barichara, La Candelaria, Villa de Leyva, etc. (Ruiz et al, 2012) Most of those constructions were built during the XVI and XVIII centuries. Spanish invaders used this vernacular technology to establish cities centres and monumental architecture such as churches, abbeys or government buildings. Actual building seismic regulation (NSR-10, 2010) do not include any reference to earthen architecture, neither for new constructions, nor for heritage renovation (Ruiz et al, 2012)
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