Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture

Wall types

Due to shrinkage of 3% to 5%, long ele-

ments are not recommended. Illustration

8.28shows several possibilities for internal

and external walls using shorter elements.

Solution C in this figure is only intended for

exterior walls. The space between the two

extruded loam walls can be filled with light-

weight bulk material such as cork particles,

expanded clay, pumice etc., to increase ther-

mal insulation. Structural elements can also

be positioned in this space. If the other walls

illustrated need to be provided with thermal

insulation, a common solution is given in

8.31, the U-value of the illustrated wall

being 0.295 W/m^2 K.

Illustrations 8.27, 8.29and 8.30show work

done on a residential house in Germany,

with smaller extruded loam profiles

obtained from a brick manufacturing plant.

Due to the production process, this loam

had to have higher clay content, causing

a large number of shrinkage problems;

repairing the cracks that occurred turned

out to be very time-consuming.

79 Direct forming

8.31

8.29

8.28

8.30