Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture

(Nancy Kaufman) #1
Floor tiles

Prefabricated tiles made with stabilised
earth can be used for flooring. One advan-
tage is that since they are already dry, shrink-
age only occurs in joints. Miller, Grigutsch
and Schulze (1947, p. 5) recommend the
use of Fe 3 O 4 , oxblood and tar in order to
stabilise these tiles and provide them with
surface hardness. Tests at the Building
Research Laboratory (BRL) showed that a
high degree of surface hardness could be
obtained by adding 6% double-boiled lin-
seed oil in conjunction with compacting the
surface and using floor wax as a polish.
Methods of increasing surface hardness are
described in chapter 14, p. 112.

Extruded loam slabs

Illustration 7.13shows extruded green loam
slabs consisting of a loam with high clay
content. They are extruded 3 to 10 cm thick,
50 cm wide and cut into lengths of up to
100 cm or more. -

71 Larger blocks


  1. 8 t o 7. 9Structural
    elements filled with light-
    weight loam

  2. 1 0Infill loam elements
    for floors

  3. 1 1Load-bearing
    cement-stabilised light-
    weight loam infills,
    Hungary

  4. 1 2Load-bearing loam


Floor slabs


  1. 1 3Extruded loam
    slabs, Germany

  2. 9

  3. 8

  4. 1 1 7. 1 3

  5. 1 0 7. 1 2

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