The sustainability of adobe construction: past to future

ABSTRACT

The Earth construction is the oldest building practice on the world. Around 30% of the world population lives in buildings made of earth materials. These materials offer economic and environmental benefits, because of that the interest of these types of construction are being increased. The practice of earth construction is predominant in less developed countries, where lack of advanced technology and often the availability of labor and local materials encourage the use of these building techniques that are quite simple. Nowadays, most of the earth buildings, both in Portugal and in the other countries are in a high stage of degradation. However, the interest of preservation of these buildings is increased. So, this works pretends a global vision of the earth construction on the past, and a new look at these materials in the future. It is important developed new materials similar to these ones, with economic and environmental benefits, and which are compatible for interventions in these same old buildings. A new generation of materials, are geopolymers, these materials are alkaline activated and because of their properties as well as their ecological footprint they are promising to be a “kind” of materials that will follow the line of materials on land.

KEYWORDS:

• Earth construction
• adobe
• cob
• rammed earth
• sustainability
• geopolymers

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [SFRH/BD/102837/2014].