The four elements in the architecture - Part V 
Land
since man built cities, raw land, was and remains, one of the main building materials. Grand buildings such as mosque Djene
in Mali or the
Taj Mahal in India, which is hidden beneath its marble structures of bamboo and mud, or tower houses the famous
of Yemen can be up 8 floors, many of which date back 400 years. The use of raw clay was widespread in the sacred architecture, official, civil or agricultural and mud buildings found on all continents, although forested wetlands or other materials used to be chosen.
Over 30% of world population, or nearly 2,000,000,000 people live today in a raw land habitat. Only in the developing countries 50% of rural population and 20% of its urban population living in urban or semi raw land habitat.
A crude adobe brick immersed in a bucket of water melts and breaks down quickly, a wall, liming with several layers, placed on a foundation of stone and concrete and protected by a roof and flew half a meter resists aggression water. Also, do not forget that if it is true that some of the walls absorb rainwater is also true that they tend to dry very quickly. This is one of the most remarkable characteristics of a habitat that breathes. The adobe is a material system.
From an environmental point of view the clay has many advantages. It needs no industrial processing of high energy cost. Your safety handling, natural and local components (clay, sand, fibers such as Pinillo or other) and its ability to create organic forms, make the mud in a material of choice in the bio. Material is usually a local, very cheap, very reliable thermal and acoustic barrier, as in fire resistance, resistant to extreme temperature changes.
In the tradition of building with mud there are numerous techniques including two re-emerge as the most used techniques.
-ADOBE: The bricks are molded from a pliable mixture of clay, fibers, sand and gravel of different sizes. This mixture is projected into a bottomless metal mold and pressed with a few strokes, then removed the mud matrix and allowed to dry on a flat surface. Once dry, the bricks are used as conventional masonry, mortar may be of mud and sand or enriched with lime.
-Tapial: On top of the foundation plates are mounted inside the timber which is crushed with a pestle, a mixture similar to the adobe. As is coming up is going up the forms.
Earth is omnipresent and punch the man. That's why we can define as an essential raw material, which under its apparent simplicity hides an extraordinary variety of substances which have been and will continue to give the man the best chance of development on the planet, a planet that bears his Name: THE LAND
took the land, is kneaded and created man and the man took his time land, and I love her civilization.
Marcelo Alibert Arch For more information contact:
Email: info@alibertoarquitectos.com.ar
http://www.alibertoarquitectos.com.ar/
