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Some of the oldest buildings on the planet are made of earth. currently it is estimated that one half of the world’s population - approximately three billion people on six continents - lives or works in buildings constructed of earth.

Earth is a 100% eco-friendly building material. it is neither manufactured nor transported.
a wall made from raw earth serves as a natural air conditioner, being warm in winter and cool in summer. When the building is demolished, the earth returns to the soil and can be recycled indefinitely.

Largely shunned since the arrival of its close cousin ‘concrete’ in the 1950s, earth is now back in fashion as its ecological and aesthetic benefits attract the attention of an increasing numbers of contemporary architects and eco-builders. industrial sectors devoted to earthen building are currently emerging as this sustainable material wins over.

The misconceptions associated with earth architecture is that many assume it’s only used for housing in poor rural areas - but there are examples of airports, embassies, hospitals, museums, and factories that are made of earth. current research efforts are focused on increasing its resistance and processing speed in order to make it a modern and competitive material.

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Check out Nader Khalili’s super adobe Eco-Dome!

Learn more at Cal-Earth.

I got this from Design Boom.

Hand-built in four months by architects, local craftsmen, pupils, parents and teachers, this primary school in rudrapur, a village in north west bangladesh, uses traditional methods and materials of construction but adapts them in new ways. The architects, Anna Aeringer from Austria and Eike Roswag from Germany, made every effort to engage the skills of local craftsmen, helping them refine processes and learn new techniques that they could then use to improve the general standard of rural housing.

Sunlight and ventilation can be regulated through the use of shutters.

In Rudrapur, the traditional local materials are bamboo for constructions and earth for walls and foundations, straw for the roofs and jute rope for lashing constructions.

Earthbound materials such as loam and straw are combined with lighter elements like bamboo sticks and nylon lashing to create a environmentally sustainable foundation.

Thick walls assure a comfortable climate on the ground floor of the building.

The philosophy of METI (modern education and training institute) is learning with joy. The teachers help the children to develop their own potential and use it in a creative and responsible way. The building reflects these ideas through its materials, techniques and architectural design.

The design solution used in this rural town may not be replicable in other parts of the Islamic world as local conditions vary. however, new design solutions can emerge from an in-depth knowledge of the local context and new ways of building. This provides a fresh and hopeful model for sustainable building globally. The final result of this heroic volunteer effort is a building that creates beautiful, meaningful and humane collective spaces for learning which enrich the lives of the children it serves.

The construction method used is a historical earth building technique similar to cob-walling which is ideal for ‘self building’. The wet earth is mixed with straw and applied to the wall in layers. Each layer is approximately 50-70 cm high, and after a couple of days drying, it is trimmed on the sides with a sharp spade to obtain a regular flat wall surface.

After a second drying period, a further layer can be added. the earth in this region is well-suited for such construction and the stability of the mixture was improved by adding rice, straw and jute.

Earth construction: the most important technical improvement in comparison to traditional buildings is the introduction of a damp proof course and a brick foundation. The traditional building technique (which uses very wet earth) has been replaced by the ‘weller’ technique that is quite similar to the traditional one.

The school building was built by experts and volunteers from Germany and Austria along with craftsmen, teachers, parents and students from Bangladesh over the period of September to December 2005.

The aim of the project is to improve existing building techniques, to contribute to sustainability by utilising local materials and labour and to strengthen regional identity.

The ceiling consists of three layers of bamboo poles arranged perpendicularly to one another with bamboo boarding and an earth filling as the surface of the floor. The same construction in a modified form can be used for general residential buildings.

Society in Bangladesh is changing. Although it is still strongly rooted in agriculture, people are getting more educated - privacy and individuality are gaining more importance.

A house is no longer just a shelter to store things or to sleep in at night. It has evolved to becoming more defined as a home.

METI school in Rudrapur Dinajpur, Bangladesh
Built area: 325 m2
Cost: $ 22,835

Commission: January 2004
Design: March 2004 - August 2005
Construction: September 2005 - December 2005
Occupancy: December 2005

Client: Dipshikha/ METI non-formal education, training and research society for village development

Design and concept: Anna Heringer

Technical, detailed planning and realisation: Anna Heringer and Eike Roswag

Anna Heringer (b. 1977) studied architecture at Linz University of the Arts, Austria. Since 2004 she has held a lecture there, and is project manager at BASE - habitat/architektur konzepte, Linz University of the Arts. In 2006 she began her doctoral studies at Munich Technical University, on strategies for sustainable building in Northern Bangladesh.

She is vice chairwoman of Shanti, a German-Bangladeshi partnership founded in 1983, with the aim of arranging exchange programs such as the transfer of professional volunteers.

Eike Roswag (b. 1969) completed his architectural studies at Berlin Technical University in 2000, after which he took on freelance architectural work and consultancies. In 2003, he joined ZRS Architects and Engineers to plan and build a variety of projects using earth as a building material. In 2006, he joined the staff of Berlin Technical University and founded Roswag & Jankowski Architects Partnership.

Founded in 1978, Dipshikha - informal education, training and research society for village
development is a Bangladeshi development organization set up to encourage the independence
of communities in rural Bangladesh through sustainable development.

The METI school won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2007

All images © Kurt Hörbst

Source

Learn more at Cal-Earth.

Let us bow our heads and give thanks to In the Name of Good Architecture…

Thank you, Facebook Profile “In the Name of Good Architecture,” for gracing my life daily with awesome examples of vernacular architecture. You are more highly regarded in my NewsFeed than all of those stupid FarmVille requests that I delete. Amen.

Here’s the latest: a video of three non-professionals building a bamboo and thatch house in like a day. “Non-professional” is my new favorite hyphenated word because it implies a lack of student loan debt. Which is sexy. And smart. A kind of smart that they don’t teach you in school. But I digress.

Here’s the video!

I know, you want more videos of bambook structures. Me too. Here you go:

Time-lapse photography makes it awesomer:

A class builds a bamboo + clay house:

Time-lapse construction of a bamboo plantation:

A living bamboo house in Hawaii, fun facts on the superiority of bamboo, and pre-fab bamboo houses:

People in Ghana building a bamboo dome: