Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture

Application Before applying the plaster, the loam sur- face should be moistened and primed with lime-casein milk. The plaster is ...

Repair of damaged sections of loam, espe- cially cracks and larger joints, demands spe- cial measures differing from those used ...

In order to decrease the curing time, gypsum, lime or cement can be added. As these additives also make the mixture leaner, the ...

and then thinned with water in a 1:5 pro- portion. This glue should be used within one hour (Letzner and Stein, 1987, p. 145). R ...

Joints When loam elements are joined to posts, beams, windows or doorframes, the follow- ing considerations have to be kept in m ...

Roof rafters should not rest directly on the earth wall, but instead on timber wall plates or beams as seen in 14.2 A. If the ra ...

ing the indoor air temperature, sufficient loam for balancing the indoor air humidity and sufficient noise insulation as well. D ...

Michael E. Reynolds built several residences in New Mexico, USA, having walls made of discarded car tyres filled with soil dug o ...

Rammed earth floorings Illustration 14 .10shows three different ways of using rammed earth as infill between or on top of wooden ...

Bamboo-reinforced rammed earth walls Hard-wearing floor surfaces need to meet very high standards. They must resist pres- sure a ...

spaces thus created are then filled with a third layer of loam mortar stabilised with 6% to 8% (by volume) of double-boiled lin- ...

114 Designs of building elements ously without water for two minutes and then allowed to stand) with additional chalk at the rat ...

Inclined roofs filled with lightweight loam Commonly used tile-covered rafter roofs can be filled with lightweight loam in order ...

property of the salt, this loam stays moist for longer periods, and prevents water penetration while it remains in this state. I ...

Earth block vaults and domes Vaults and domes covering interior spaces and made from earthen blocks are found mainly in religiou ...

soned adobes without structural beams, and even without formworks. These tech- niques are described in the following sec- tions. ...

119 Designs of building elements nents. The steeper the forces are conducted into the foundation, the smaller are the horizontal ...

120 Designs of building elements If two identical barrels converge in one strip foundation, then the horizontal components of th ...

121 Designs of building elements and divided into segments of equal length. This gives segments of identical area and, therefore ...

122 Designs of building elements A more exact method to derive ideal curve is by graphic methods used in statics engi- neering. ...