Earth works: simple materials and local skills inform a life-enhancing rural architecture.All too often, aspirations towards modernity in developing countries have malign economic and cultural effects where construction is concerned. Traditional materials and techniques are abandoned in favour of the import of expensive and sometimes energy-inefficient materials and products, benefiting only manufacturers in more advanced economies. The outcome can at worst be the imposition of alien buildings, forms and materials which don't last long and are difficult to maintain. Their only merit is to look new for a time. By contrast, this joyful joy·ful adj. Feeling, causing, or indicating joy. See Synonyms at glad1. joy  ful·ly adv. project, in a poor rural area of Bangladesh (said to be the world's most densely populated pop·u·late tr.v. pop·u·lat·ed, pop·u·lat·ing, pop·u·lates 1. To supply with inhabitants, as by colonization; people. 2. country), shows that new and refreshing local identity can be achieved by exploiting the immediate and the readily available--ironically via architects from Europe. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This school is built using brick, loam loam, soil composed of sand, silt, clay, and organic matter in evenly mixed particles of various sizes. More fertile than sandy soils, loam is not stiff and tenacious like clay soils. Its porosity allows high moisture retention and air circulation. , straw, bamboo bamboo, plant of the family Gramineae (grass family), chiefly of warm or tropical regions, where it is sometimes an extremely important component of the vegetation. It is most abundant in the monsoon area of E Asia. and rope, plus some steel pins. Refining the local technique of using very wet loam to build walls, the school has a brick foundation, a damp proof course, and walls made of a mixture of loam and straw, the latter acting as a form of reinforcement. The loam and straw are combined by getting cows and water buffalo water buffalo: see buffalo. water buffalo or Indian buffalo Any of three subspecies of oxlike bovid (species Bubalus bubalis). Two have been domesticated in Asia since the earliest recorded history. to tread them in. The 'Wellerbau' technique employed here involves building a 700mm high wall layer, leaving it to dry for two days, and trimming off with a spade SPADE - Specification Processing And Dependency Extraction. Specification language. G.S. Boddy, ICL Mainframes Div, FLAG/UD/3DR.003 . A further drying period is followed by the addition of the next layer. The ceiling and first floor are constructed using bamboo as the chief material. Three layers of bamboo sticks, bamboo boards and an earth filling make the surface of the floor. The upper walls and roof comprise a frame construction using four layers of joined bamboo sticks, and vertical and diagonal poles; steel pins are fixed with nylon lashing from the junction of the sticks (a modified form of traditional local lashing was used). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The inventive architecture, allied to traditional materials, has attracted thousands of visitors to the building, which is clement, spacious and colourful colourful or US colorful Adjective 1. with bright or richly varied colours 2. vivid or distinctive in character Adj. 1. . The architects sums it up thus: 'Comfort, durability and style as teaser--sustainability as concept'. It is the only two-storey building in the neighbourhood, and the architects hope that the principles that inform the school design may be replicated in relation to housing development, escaping the apparent tyranny Tyranny Big Brother omnipresent leader of a totalitarian nightmare world. [Br. Lit.: 1984] Creon rules Thebes with cruel decrees. [Gk. Lit.: Antigone] Gessler Austrian governor treats Swiss despotically; shot by Tell. of the earth hut. The judges felt this project more than lived up to its aims and ambitions, and that the thorough analysis which underlies the design has been matched by the quality of architecture achieved. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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