Earth Building

A thorough examination of the use of earth as an eco-friendly building material, with full details on the properties of earth as a building material, appropriate construction techniques, and practical troubleshooting advice.

“All of the essential knowledge for completing a successful rammed earth project. Written by a geo-technical engineer with experience ramming earth.” —Kelly Hart, author, Essential Earthbag Construction Everything you need to know to build with rammed earth in warm and cold climates. Rammed earth—sand, gravel, and clay or lime/cement binder packed into forms—is a low-energy, high-performance building method, yielding beautiful, sustainable results. It’s thermally stable and can be insulated, can actively modulate humidity, provides a healthy indoor environment, and allows site materials to be used for major structural and building envelope elements. Essential Rammed Earth Construction covers design, building science, tools, and step-by-step building methods for any climate, with a special emphasis on building in cold climates of the northern US, Canada, and northern Europe. Coverage includes: Overview of earthen building Appropriate use of rammed earth walls Stabilized versus raw rammed earth Design considerations, including structural, insulation, and building envelope details Special considerations for cold and freeze-thaw climates Construction drawings, with step-by-step building instructions Tools and labor covering industrial methods, low-tech techniques, formwork options, mix design, budgets, and schedules Codes, inspections, and permits. This guide is an essential resource for experienced builders, DIY home owners, designers, engineers, and architects. “A much-needed and science-based update to a North American audience of designers, engineers and builders.” —Bruce King. P.E., author, The New Carbon Architecture “ A great book for anyone who wants to deepen their technical knowledge of rammed earth walls systems. It’s very helpful to have a book on rammed earth that is more focused on engineered rammed earth walls for cold climates.” —Clifton Schooley, Clifton Schooley & Associates, Rammed Earth Designers and Builders

Earth, in common use for architectural construction for thousands of years, has in the past thirty years attracted renewed attention as a healthy, environment-friendly and economical building material. What needs to be considered in this context? The manual Building with Earth, which has been translated into many languages, describes the building technology of this material. The physical properties and characteristic values are explained in a hands-on manner: With proper moisture protection, earth buildings are very durable, and in particular the combination with wood or straw allows a wide spectrum of design options. Numerous built examples demonstrate the range of applications for this fully recyclable material.

The construction of earth buildings has been taking place worldwide for centuries. With the improved energy efficiency, high level of structural integrity and aesthetically pleasing finishes achieved in modern earth construction, it is now one of the leading choices for sustainable, low-energy building. Modern earth buildings provides an essential exploration of the materials and techniques key to the design, development and construction of such buildings. Beginning with an overview of modern earth building, part one provides an introduction to design and construction issues including insulation, occupant comfort and building codes. Part two goes on to investigate materials for earth buildings, before building technologies are explored in part three including construction techniques for earth buildings. Modern earth structural engineering is the focus of part four, including the creation of earth masonry structures, use of structural steel elements and design of natural disaster-resistant earth buildings. Finally, part five of Modern earth buildings explores the application of modern earth construction through international case studies. With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, Modern earth buildings is a key reference work for all low-impact building engineers, architects and designers, along with academics in this field. Provides an essential exploration of the materials and techniques key to the design, development and construction of modern earth buildings Comprehensively discusses design and construction issues, materials for earth buildings, construction techniques and modern earth structural engineering, among other topics Examines the application of modern earth construction through international case studies

For a number of years, the healthy and environment-friendly building material earth, in common use for thousands of years, has been enjoying increasing popularity, including in industrialized nations. In hot dry and temperate climate zones, earth offers numerous advantages over other materials. Its particular texture and composition also holds great aesthetic appeal. The author’s presentation reflects the rich and varied experiences gained over thirty years of building earth structures all over the world. Numerous photographs of construction sites and drawings show the concrete execution of earth architecture.

This book presents the work done by the RILEM Technical Committee 274-TCE. It focuses on the estimation of the parameters which are necessary to properly design earthen constructions. It provides a compilation of the value classically obtained for the key parameters of earthen materials, a pedagogical presentation of the main testing procedures for earthen materials, their advantage and their drawback and an overview of most standards on earthen materials, whatever their origin and their language.The book is divided into eight chapters. After a general introduction on earthen materials and constructions, the state of the art on the material characterisation technics, the assessment of hygrothermal performance, the mechanical behaviour, seismic resistance and the durability will be presented, each in a dedicated chapter. On the basis of these last chapters, a critical review of the standards which are used for earthen material will be presented in the last chapter. The last chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the environmental potential of earth-based building materials.

Bei diesem Werk "Earth Building Practice" handelt es sich um die englische Übersetzung der "Lehmbau-Praxis" (ISBN 978-3-410-21621-6), die 2010 in erster Auflage erschienen ist. Es eignet sich besonders für den Einsatz im englischsprachigen Raum und in den Dritte-Welt-Ländern. Dieses Buch fasst das aktuelle Planungs- und Ausführungswissen des Lehmbaus kompakt zusammen und ist damit für Architekten, Ingenieure und Ausführende ein hilfreicher Leitfaden für die Fragen der Praxis. Aus dem Inhalt: Stoffliche Grundlagen; Lehmputze; Trockenbau; Techniken der Innendämmung; Mauerwerksbau; Stampflehmbau; Sanierung bestehender Lehmbausubstanz; Baurechtliche und baugewerbliche Aspekte.

This book provides an insightful overview of the current state of earth building. The author approaches the subject from the perspective of the building material’s life cycle, featuring in-depth explanations of the cycle's individual steps: extraction and classification of construction soil; production of earth building materials and earthen structures; planning, construction and renovation of earth buildings; and demolition and recycling of earthen structures. This unique resource provides examples of sophisticated earth building projects and illustrates the diverse applications of earth as a building material. Compared to conventional mineral building materials, earth possesses particularly positive ecological qualities such as its energy balance and recyclability. Architects, engineers, students, manufacturers and distributors of building materials, building contractors, building biologists, public authorities and preservationists will benefit from this book’s ample coverage of restoring, optimizing and building with this material of the past, present and future.