We don’t see many rammed earth buildings in the US (outside of the desert southwest) for many reasons including the idiosyncrasies of building code, but it’s a shame because the construction system produces absurdly beautiful walls and it uses extremely local materials.  To build rammed earth walls, start digging up the earth on your site (typically the mineral-rich clay-filled part of the earth, not the leafy decaying organic part) mix it with some cement or cement-like ingredients and maybe throw in some hemp fibers to absorb moisture, then tamp the mixture down in lovely wavy layers within the confines of some formwork.  The system doesn’t produce much construction waste (you can reuse formwork, etc) and because so much of the wall comes from the site itself there is less embodied energy used for transporting and manufacturing the material.  Also note that what you build out of earth will probably last for a pretty significant amount of time (see Pyramids, Mexico).

Images courtesy Meco’concept

The rammed earth technique has itself been around for millenia, but Meco’concept’s innovation is to take the formwork for rammed earth walls and reduce it down to the size of a building block.  They’ve developed a snazzy little hydraulic press that can produce 120 bricks per hour (Meco’concept).  Each block gets stamped with lego-like protrusions for ease of stacking (Brownell). If you happen to be in France, you can even rent the machine and go to work using whatever materials you find at hand. While building code in the US tends to purse its lips and peer curiously at rammed earth construction as though it were encountering an unexpected stain on a favorite silk necktie, the Meco’briq blocks can stack up to two stories and could behave similar to CMU (Concrete Masonry Units). Building code tends to assume a half-smile and gaze benevolently at CMU as though it were watching its only son excel at sports, so this new technology could potentially make inroads.

WU XING:

Earth. Hello!

Cited:

Brownell, Blaine. “DIY Earth Bricks.” Architect Magazine – Mind & Matter Blog. 02/24/11. Accessed 03/04/11. URL.

Image by © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

In Northern California, the brief periods between earthquakes are made lively by a counterpoint of alternating floods and wildfires. The floods lead to mudslides, and there isn’t much any material on the facade can do to prevent an entire building being carried down the hillside by the hill itself. The wildfires, however, delight in ingniting wood cladding, and it is in the fireproofing arena that a brick facade has the leg up. So what would you choose? A flexible material that resists damage in the event of an earthquake or a rigid material that cracks under shear stress but that stands up to fire?

The answer, of course, is yes – meaning that you’d choose a material that is both flexible AND fireproof. Reider, a family-owned Austrian concrete manufacturing company, is making just such a material at this very moment in its factories, which you have to imagine must be surrounded by edelweiss and roving melodious von Trap children.

Image courtesy Stylepark

FibreC is a fiberglass-reinforced concrete panel that can be used for outside facades as well as indoors. It’s a “thin-walled material with a pleasant feel and natural look” that is resilient and at the same time flexible, rendering it suitable for a wide range of practical applications (Stylepark). FibreC has been available in large panels for quite some time, and now it’s also being manufactured in the shape of thin slats. This new shape means that FibreC is a fireproof alternative to wooden panel cladding! Reider touts it as a sustainable material because it’s made of sand, cement, and glass fibers, and the manufacturing process is reportedly eco-friendly.  FibreC comes in a wide range of colors and a few different finishes:

Image courtesy Stylepark

FibreC was used by Architects Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang, who won a competition to design a temporary, freestanding pavilion that was built in front of the Architectural Association school in London.  The high tensile strength of FibreC allowed the development of a “simple interlocking cross joint which is tightened by slightly bending each element as it is locked into consecutive cross elements. Consultation with the Fibre-C technical department in Austria has suggested that a flex of 15-20mm per metre can be applied without affecting the structural performance of the material. The appearance of small micro cracks on the surface is mitigated by using lighter material colours and a Ferro finish” (Dezeen).

Image Courtesy Loz Pycock

The pavilion was fabricated from curved profiles nested on standard 13mm flat sheets and cut with a water jet.  I think the effect is rather splendid, and it’s certainly not a fire hazard. Thanks to David Conover of StudioConover for sending me info on FibreC!

WU XING:

I filed FibreC under earth (because of its composition) and fire (because it’s fireproof).

Cited:

“Slab Format Thin Concrete.” Stylepark.com. 01/10/10. Accessed 02/07/11. URL.

“C Space Pavilion by Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang.” Dezeen.com 11/04/07. Accessed 02/09/11. URL.

Every once in a while I like to find out about a new way to use a very old material, like brick for instance. Human beings have been working with brick at least since the times when the flooding of the Euphrates might engender the total destruction of the walls Gilgamesh built around his city, so the material definitely qualifies as ancient.  And I found out about a rather interesting way that a Dutch company, Tiger Stone, has been laying brick: they are rolling roads out like carpet.

I have no idea why the company is called Tiger Stone, since they manufacture neither stones nor tigers.  They produce machines that can enable three men to pave a 6 meters-wide street without bending over.  The machine moves slowly and quietly on an electrical crawler – it’s not in any way remotely like a tiger.  Well, I suppose that it has some black and yellow stripes painted on it so maybe that’s where the name came from. Apparently there is also a gemstone called a tiger stone, which according to one hastily googled website encourages the following attributes, which admittedly seem much more appropriate: patience, focus, determination, moving slowly, and alertness.

Image courtesy www.psfk.com

Image courtey www.siddhshree.com

What is amazing about the machine is that it paves the entire street, from curb to curb including edge finishing, and it only takes five minutes to learn how to operate. Tiger Stone uses gravity to lay the bricks, which land directly in a pattern on the road. The road is immediately finished.  Sensors detect and follow the curbs and the size of the road is adjustable, so that paving less than six meters wide can be laid.

Workers walk behind the machine loading bricks according to pattern.  The shelf is at waist height behind the machine, so the people who are paving the road never bend down to pick up any bricks.  Bricks are moved over to the Tiger Stone using mini-loaders, and then people hand-place them in the top of the pusher.

Images courtesy Tiger Stone

The machine allows one to three workers to lay at least 300 square meters in one day, whereas a conventional paver lays about 75.  I like that roads paved with bricks are permeable to water, so they reduce runoff, and I think roads installed with masonry units tend to look quite nice.  I recently heard somewhere (read: just made this up) that in the Netherlands there are strict rules about recycling building materials, so the fact that reclaimed brick could be used to build roads out on the polders probably provided the inspiration for this machine.

WU XING:

I’ve filed this machine in the Earth category because it deals with bricks, which are made from earth, more or less, like most things if you think about it.

Cited:

http://www.tiger-stone.nl/

When I first heard the term “fly ash” in architecture school, I remember thinking that it sounded pretty sick.  I mean, flies are annoying and it’s gross when they buzz over and land first on some unidentified, dog-generated substance on the ground and then, without a single shred of consideration, approach and settle on the rim of your drinking cup or slice of pecan pie.  But it boggles the mind to think about the enormous number of flies you’d have to crisp in order to produce so many metric tons of fly ash that there’d even be a need to recycle it! 

My horror abated only slightly when I realized that fly ash is not, as I’d assumed, the cremated remains of über-obnoxious insect life, but rather a residue generated during the process of  combustion.  Fly ash is so named because of the fine particles that rise (or fly) up into the atmosphere with flue gases when factories burn substances like coal (so thanks for setting me straight, Wikipedia).  The stuff is toxic and nasty, and will say mean things about your mother.

Image courtesy wikimedia commons

Fly ash can be collected before it skips up into the sky, over the hills and into our lungs, and it can be used to manufacture building materials such as concrete masonry units or bricks.  To that end, CalStar Products, Inc. opened a green brick and paver plant in order to manufacture bricks out of fly ash in Caledonia, Wisconsin back in January, 2010.  Why Caledonia?  I do not know, but I assume it is a lovely town. 

The embodied energy (the amount of energy that goes into extracting and processing raw materials, transportation costs, manufacturing, etc) of a common clay fired brick is listed in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) database at 8800 British Thermal Units.  According to CalStar’s product literature, “producing fly ash brick consumes less energy and emits less CO2 because it does not require firing to harden the masonry units nor is any cement used as a binder. The CalStar green brick solution represents 85% lower embodied energy and 85% lower CO2 than fired clay brick” (CalStar).  Some forms of fly ash contain a high concentration of calcium oxide (lime) which might be what is allowing the CalStar bricks to “self-cement” without firing, although that is conjecture on my part. 

Image courtesy CalStar

CalStar claims that their commercial Fly Ash Brick (FAB) “meets or exceeds the same standards of equivalent masonry products, is available in modular and utility sizes, and comes in eight colors.  CalStar’s products are designed to be price competitive with traditional products of equivalent quality.”  I’d be interested to know if anyone has used these bricks in a project yet, and if they’re performing any differently from traditional bricks.  Hit the comment section with your thoughts! 

WU XING:

Fly Ash bricks are being filed under “earth” because that’s where I file bricks.  I considered including them in the wood category but decided against it.

Cited:

“CalStar Products, Inc.” Sweets Network.  Accessed 10/12/10.  URL.

Calstar Products Website.  Accessed 10/12/10.  URL.